[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Quip Cast. So today I sit down with Father Scott Traynor and we have an amazing conversation. We start off talking about St. John Vianney and not letting the ghost of St. John Vianney haunt us. As we face a extreme time of transition in the life of faith and life, the parish, we start to talk about what a parish could be and actually what we've both seen, parishes become beautiful centers of mission where people discover their personal apostate and reach out to their friends and neighbors.

It's really a cool conversation. We contrast that with the subscription model of what it, you know, like, uh, parish life, just as this thing that I occasionally sign on to and we talk about what are the elements, what does it take to actually help a parish transform? Rediscover its identity as a, as a center for mission.

It's a fun conversation. You're gonna love it. Take a listen. 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.

Father Scott Trainor, welcome back to the Quip Cast. How you doing today? 

[00:01:26] Fr. Scott Traynor: Great to be here. Thank you so much. 

[00:01:28] Jim Jansen: All right, father. So we get to see each other and we've gotten to see each other a lot recently. We did, did some, did some work together. So I got to hang out. Up in your neck of the woods, uh, the Diocese of Sioux Falls up at the beautiful Broom Tree Retreat Center.

For those that don't know you as well and haven't. Been, you know, sitting together talking about dehydrating food and, and all of, all of the random con random points of interest, random conversations. Yeah. We, we had, who is Father Scott Trainer when Didd, you meet Jesus. How, you know, talk, talk a little bit about your call to mission.

Just introduce yourself. 

[00:02:04] Fr. Scott Traynor: Thanks. Uh, yeah, I was, uh, my name's Father Scott Trainor. I've been a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls for 25 years. I was born at a very early age. Me too. Yeah, me too. So, as, uh, I was, I was born to an unwed college student in 1971 who placed me for adoption. Uh, my mom and dad adopted me as an infant and I've an older brother and sister who are also adopted.

So the three children in the trainer family are all adopted children, baptized, raised Catholic, 12 years of Catholic school. Really from the time, uh, I was, uh, got my driver's license quite indifferent in the practice of my faith, it would be safe to say. And it was my sophomore year of college. I went off to college.

I was gonna be a Navy pilot. I had a full ride Navy scholarship. That was all going very, very well. And I had a big faith awakening my sophomore year of college. 

[00:02:52] Jim Jansen: Hmm. 

[00:02:53] Fr. Scott Traynor: Fell in with a group of friends that were, uh, really sincere, amazing non-denominational, evangelical Catholic types, and the witness of their Christian joy really made an impact on me.

One thing led to another. So after my sophomore year, I ended up taking a year off and doing some mission work and asking God what his plan for my life was. 'cause I, I knew my plan. 

[00:03:14] Jim Jansen: Oh. And it was going great. 

[00:03:16] Fr. Scott Traynor: Oh, that's, that's trouble. But I woke up to the idea that God has a plan and that was gonna go way better for me.

And it was in the course of, I ended up, thanks to God finding net ministries, the national evangelization teams that many of your listeners will be familiar with. 

[00:03:27] Jim Jansen: Yes. 

[00:03:28] Fr. Scott Traynor: And I had a year with nets, uh, traveling in the net van, putting on retreats for junior and senior high school since changed my life that year.

And it was in the course of that year that I, I felt very clearly the call to pursue the priesthood. So in 1994, I entered seminary for the Diocese of Sioux Falls and was ordained in the Great Jubilee year of 2000. I've been a priest for 25 years, done lots of different things as a priest. I've been a pastor.

I work on our marriage tribunal. I've been a Newman Center director. I've involved in seminary formation as a form and a professor, and then a rector of the seminary out in Denver for a while. Lot of work with focus, the fellowship of Catholic University students over, especially in my time as, uh, director of a couple Newman Centers.

Yeah. And I love being a priest and, uh, I'm, I'm happy to have this conversation with you today. So great to be here. 

[00:04:16] Jim Jansen: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for, I'm noticing. I mean, vehicles were a big part, right? Driver's license and then pilot's license. Yeah, yeah. You know, planes, trains, boats, automobiles, and then it was, it sounds like it was the net van that really did it. So. 

[00:04:29] Fr. Scott Traynor: The net van, mighty, mighty net van does lots of things in a person's life. 

[00:04:33] Jim Jansen: That's awesome. Okay, so I am super excited about this topic. This is one of the, besides like right freeze drying and dehydrating foods. This is one of the conversations. I wanted to have this conversation on the, the podcast with you, because as we were talking, just whatever, after, you know, after we had kind of totally gone through all of the food preservation topics, you kind of blew my mind just by, by pointing out how unique the circumstances St. John Vianney, the right patron of parish priests had, and how different that is from our current reality. And, and I don't remember where you said this or my mind just went there, but that there's a danger to, in an unhelpful way, idealize St. John Vianney and his circumstances as somehow that that's normative and the only way that we're gonna flourish in priestly ministry or in parish life.

So I was like, oh my gosh, we don't want this, the ghost of St. John Vianney to haunt us. Just disclaimers. We, we love St. John Vianney, don't we? 

[00:05:43] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yes, very much so. 

[00:05:44] Jim Jansen: Yes. He's amazing Saint big, big fans here. But maybe if we can provide an overview to his life, we can start to begin to illustrate. The gifts that he was and the change of circumstances we're in.

Father, give us just like a thumbnail sketch. Who, who was St. John Vianney 

[00:06:00] Fr. Scott Traynor: So he was born in 1786. Right. So the throes of the French Revolution. Right. I have that right some, yep. 

[00:06:06] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Which, which is not a pleasant time for Catholic. No. A very anti-Catholic movement. 

[00:06:11] Fr. Scott Traynor: Very anti, yeah. Like lots of priests and religious put to death by the guillotine, you know, and all the excesses of the, of the French Revolution for sure.

And a strong anti clerical list. Anti priest. 

[00:06:22] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:23] Fr. Scott Traynor: Particular vein in that. He was born in that time. He was in 1918, so let's see if I'm doing my math right. He was 32, is that right? Yeah, 32. Uh, he was ordained a priest and, and I'm sorry, in 1815, he was ordained a priest. 18. 18 he got sent off to ours.

Okay. And he was the parish. And it was even actually before the, it was established as a parish. Uh, ours became a parish like three years after he arrived there. Wow. So it was a mission. Yeah. They had a historic church building from the 11th century, if you can imagine, from the 11th century. And it was kind of the center of this very rural, uh, you know, farming village in rural France.

[00:07:05] Jim Jansen: Wow. So as soon as he got there, it needed HVAC updating. 

[00:07:08] Fr. Scott Traynor: It did. That's right. I'm sure the roof was leaking like lots of, lots of, you know, 700-year-old church building problems. No doubt. So he gets there in 18. 18, he was pastor until he died in 1850. So just think about that. 41 years he lived and ministered in ours, which I think at the time had a population of like 230 people.

Yeah. 

[00:07:33] Jim Jansen: It's not, I know we're right. It was South Dakota, Nebraska, here. Yeah. But like, that's small even by our standard. 

[00:07:38] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's rural and there's rural, right. So, you know the famous story about Jon Bian when he is sent off to ours, he is, he's wandering the countryside. He doesn't even know how to get there.

'cause like main roads don't go to ours. And so the famous story about, uh, little boy comes along, he says, if you show me the way to ours, I'll show you the way to heaven. Which is a great, uh, evangelizing moment as he is wandering the fields trying to find his new assignment. Anyways, there for 41 years, that stability as pastor in such a small community is just so different than the experience of a parish priest today.

For sure. And then when we think of St. John Vian, you know, I think easily our imagining if we know anything about him. Mm-hmm. He had an amazing gift, many amazing gifts as a priest, but uh, was renowned like all throughout Europe as a confessor and many healings and many total conversions of life for people who came to ours to go to the great John Vianney, father Vianney for confession.

But that reputation for holiness didn't really begin until the 1830s. So he'd been there 12, 15 years in that little community before people started catching on. Like, oh, there's something really special going here. And his reputation started to spread in 1855. Again, remember, he died in 1859. In 1855. The figure that's available is he heard nearly 20,000 confessions just that year in 1855.

But by that time when, you know, ours had become a pilgrimage site. 'cause he was renowned in holiness. You know what he wasn't doing when he was in the confessional for 16 hours a day, he wasn't like running the parish. Mm-hmm. He was still the pastor. But they had sent a team of priests and brothers to take care of all the other stuff that a parish needs because John Vianney had this particular gift and he was, you know, the prisoner of the confessional for 16, 18 hours a day in the beautiful aesthetical life and witness of holiness that he gave.

So a great love and admiration for St. John vni, for his desire and willingness to suffer anything for the sake of the conversion of his people, but the circumstances in which he served and that just that whole trajectory over four decades is quite far removed from. Any parish priest that I know of in South Dakota or Nebraska.

[00:10:00] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Well, and I mean, so many, I mean, just the, yeah, how long he was there, the size of the town. The extreme gifting. I mean, just for, just for contrast, what would you say a typical like number of confessions a typical parish priest is hearing in a year? Uh, year? Well, 30, 42,000, 2000 compared to the, his was what it a hundred?

Uh, 20,000. 20,000. Yeah. So it's like, it's just at so many levels, you know, I don't, I dunno if they were Yeah. Doing a lot of stats back then, but like, it's so different. It's so different. Help us. There's something clearly extraordinary here and different from our circumstances, but it's also different from the way parish life priestly ministry has looked really through the whole history of the church.

And I think this is helpful. I'm just gonna make you play historian again, but give us a little bit of like, just, you know, big broad strokes here, but the, the way parish life and, and priestly ministry has, has looked through, through the, the church. 

[00:11:05] Fr. Scott Traynor: Let's see. I mean like, okay, so let's go back to apostolic times, right?

So Paul's running around the known world in the Mediterranean. What's he doing? Uh, he's establishing local churches, small communities that are a persecuted minority, right? They're not really friendly with, uh, like neither the Jews nor the Gentiles appreciate this new upstart sect of the Christians, these disciples of Jesus Christ.

So small communities. He would spend some time there and then establish, uh, presbyters and an Episcopal, an overseer, a bishop, lay hands on them to ordain them and then entrust the care of that community to them. And he moved on. Yeah, so that, you know, those first small communities. Very intentional. There was no upward mobility advantage to being a Christian.

Mm-hmm. There were all sorts of persecutions that happened in the first couple centuries of the church. Right. So you have that whole sort of reality. You fast forward that, that dynamic definitely changed after the edict of Milan and. Catholicism Christianity that is, is legalized in the Roman Empire. And all of a sudden, instead of being a kind of like, oh, you might get thrown to the lions, it's actually a great social advantage to mm-hmm.

To declare yourself a Christian, you know, it's, it's right. It's not only acceptable, but it's advantageous. And that's where we see in the life of the church, for example, the rise of the Desert Fathers and different forms of, uh, hermitage and man early monastic life. 'cause people are like, well, if I'm not gonna be martyred for my faith in Christ, how do I really express a total dedication to him?

And, uh, the i the rise of, you know, the Desert Fathers and early monastic life was that I wanna escape the many distractions, demands of day-to-day life that like you're familiar with as a, a married man and a father, uh, and dedicate myself completely to Christ. 

[00:12:55] Jim Jansen: Oh man, do I know distraction?

[00:12:57] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[00:12:57] Jim Jansen: I had a minor in it in college. And if I could put your, uh, have you put your, kind of like your, your seminary kind of for formatter hat on before Christianity's legalized, you know, apostolic times the formation is almost like an apprenticeship. Yeah. You know, like we would imagine today it's like you just, like, you're just following the bishop around, you're doing stuff with him.

You may have another trade Yep. That you earn your living by. Yep. And at a certain point he's like, Hey, I think you're ready. 

[00:13:27] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yep. Yeah, no, totally. The apprentice model. And that was the case all the way until, you know, the Council of Trent in the counter reformation in the 16th century. That's where seminaries became a thing.

Right. Where there's like, what we know today that's a 16th century invention because of the many, like, you know, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, that was a disaster for Christendom, but Right. It was, there was a lot of needed reform in the church and the Council of Trent tackled that form him, and one of the things they said is, we need a better formation and a better education of our clergy.

And that's where seminaries came from. Yeah. That was 16th century. Before that. It was totally what you said, right. The community would recognize someone and it was a kind of apprenticeship like many other guild trades may have been. Mm-hmm. And that's where you learned, and then the bishop Yep. Laid hands on you and you received the sacred power of orders. Yeah. 

[00:14:18] Jim Jansen: You know, that's, that's really helpful. 'cause I was imagining, I mean, we haven't talked much about kind of like the, the medieval church yet, but. You know, there is a, there's a communal school element that we might recognize in, you know, in a monastic tradition in the mid medieval times. But even then, that schooling tends to be more of a communal apprenticeship than, than maybe the, the experience that, that many of us are familiar with.

Now, maybe go there, father, it's like Christianity's legal, but then the empire crumbles and now we're in medieval times. 

[00:14:54] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah. And so like monasteries as you're referring to really became, uh, sort of arcs or lifeboats of Christian civilization in medieval times. So if you think of, you know, like the monastery would then serve the, the rural regions around it.

And it was a place of formation. It was a place of worship. It's where the clergy were trained, but people were often, you know, their, their idea of the church was the local Abbott of the local monastery. And you can even fast forward our own times. I'm thinking I'm a priest in, in South Dakota, east River, South Dakota, our original territory, we were part of the Dakota Territory.

The Dakota Territory, and there used to be, um, what are they called, like circuit priests who'd be borrowed from some, you know, city center, maybe down in Kansas City, Missouri or something, or St. Louis. And they would just travel and they would come to your area once or twice a year and celebrate mass and witness the marriages and do all the baptisms and confirmations and move on, you know, on horseback.

And even our first, uh, you know, our first Bishop, Bishop Martin, Marty. Was the, the clergy at that time were borrowed from Minnesota and it was very much on that mm-hmm. Kind of circuit writer thing. And, and you know, the way parishes got built up, this is fascinating as we've been doing some restructuring, was you got enough Catholics in an area and they're like, Hey, we got like, you know, 40 people here now, we'd be willing to build a church.

Can you send us a priest? Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. It was so, it, it was like the faith went ahead and then the church and its clergy sort of caught up and eventually that became stable enough and we have more of like the diocese structure we're familiar with today, and the emergence of parishes as we know them today.

And then, you know, you can even think of once parishes were a thing, I'm thinking back to like the 1940s and fifties. It was so often that the parish, you know, there's the reality of the, the United States is a Protestant nation, right? On Judeo-Christian principles, but it's a protestant nation. And Catholics were not like welcome in many, many, uh, regards in terms of employment, in terms of education and in terms of a lot of career fields.

So there was this reality across the United States as many ca waves of Catholic immigrants came from Europe of, uh, the Catholic ghetto. And what I mean by that is the church said that's fine. We'll do it kind of vertically integrated model and we will have schools, we'll have elementary schools, one school, one, one room, school houses.

We'll open up higher education in Catholic institutions and that's how we will care for our Catholic population. It's all be self-contained. So like in the forties and fifties, if you are Catholic, your whole like normal life, all your friends, even your business relationships really. Crossed through your local parish.

So if you, Jim needed a, a loan for your house, well, the father knew a couple bankers in the parish and he'd like, Hey, I know Jim. I'll introduce Jim to Banker Bill over there, and hey, he'll hook you up. You guys will take it. And so, you know, Catholics did business with Catholics, not exclusively, but that was like the, the whole concept of your social and economic life really passed by way of your parish.

And of course that is long gone today where people, you know, you have many parishes within driving distance and people go to wherever the local mass time is. Okay. That is, it's just a very different world even then 50 or 60 years ago. 

[00:18:20] Jim Jansen: You know, and I think it's helpful just even with like a thumbnail sketch here.

We're not hearkening back to say, okay. You know, like ours, France. Yeah. Or, you know, 18 hundreds Nebraska, South Dakota, there's like the, the church is flourishing. Mm-hmm. When we have the eyes to see it. In all of those circumstances, even though it looks very different. Yes. Because again, you know, we're, we're obviously we're, we're Americans.

We're talking about the United States, but in the world today, Africa, Asia, I mean, the, the way they live, perish life. The way for, for many priests, their priestly ministry is exercised. It doesn't look that much different than 18 hundreds Nebraska. Right. The, the geographic distance between parishes, the way communities of faith have congregated there, the distance between one parish and another, the, the way they interact with the priest, the role of the lay and pre, it's just, it's a lot more similar.

To some of our own history, and it's probably worth pointing out that like they're getting vocations. Yeah. The church is heroic in Africa and Asia. I mean, there are, there's sin everywhere, but I mean, they, they are producing martyrs. They're producing vocations. Like it is beautiful and fruitful there despite a, a very different circumstance that I think we're, you know, we, we might harken back to and say, what was the American ideal?

[00:19:45] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah. I mean it's fascinating that in places where you may have to walk hours or even a half day to get to mass where the priest is gonna be. Right. That those are places where routinely, uh, I mean the faith is boomy. Mm-hmm. Like more and more people are entering the church. The faith is being, uh, effectively passed on from parents to children, to grandchildren, like generation to generation.

Even in the face of like in place many places, persecution, like on my half day to walk to church. For Sunday mass, when it's available, I might get attacked. You know, like real, I mean, it's an age of martyrdom still. Not just the 20th century, the 21st century in so many places. But like in those, what we would consider like very, very unimaginable and difficult circumstances, like the faith life of Catholics is booming as, as you said, with many vocations to religious life, to the priesthood, and then just faithful, uh, transmission of the faith in communities.

But again, there, the, the primary experience in many places would be a lay leader, like, who might be sort of like designated as a catechist who really takes the, the responsibility for organizing and animating the life of the Catholic community in the local village. Right. It's an amazing what's accomplished and it would be very unfamiliar to your average parishioner in either of our diocese of what the role of the lady is in.

Yeah. Uh, forming people into faith, organizing the life of faith, and then connecting with a. The Sacramento Ministry of Priests when they're available and where they're available. 

[00:21:24] Jim Jansen: Yeah. This is, you know, and father, I mean, we haven't used the terms yet, but you know, we, we both, you know, Monsignor Shea served as an editor for, for a book that now I think connected the dots for a lot of people.

Mm-hmm. I'm talking about from Christendom to Apostolic Mission, where he just kind of talked about the, the, the change of the ages that we, particularly in the western world are experiencing, where, again, the added states was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. We, we would've referred to ourselves as a, as a Christian nation, but that's not the case anymore, you know, and, and United States, Europe, Canada, most of the western, western world now.

Is kind of reentering a apostolic time where it's not a social advantage to be Christian. Right. It's not a political advantage. It's not, you know, that, that, that the, the general culture doesn't support that. If you wanna, uh, elaborate on that, that's fine. But the question that's starting to like form in my mind is like, okay, so what does that mean?

I mean, we all feel our, our parishes changing, uh, the, what it means to live, try to live as a, as a faithful Christian changing. Um, so I mean, elaborate on, on the change of the ages if you want, but like, I'm curious to, to start to talk about what does that mean for us? 

[00:22:49] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah. For any of your listeners who haven't had a chance to read and really study that book from Christendom to Apostolic Mission, I highly recommend it.

It's very accessible. You don't need a theology degree to understand it. It's written for a, you know, average parishioner. But it just makes this point like in a Christendom age. All the, all the forces of culture. Uh, so the church itself, but also like arts and entertainment and economics and politics sort of reinforce the vision and mission of the gospel.

Okay? So in such a way that if someone's just kind of drifting along, like Deadwood or a leaf, the tendency of a Christendom culture is that they're gonna drift closer to Christ and his church. Clearly that is not the case today. That is gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. And what we have today in a secular age or an apostolic age is that the dominant forces of culture in which we live.

If a person is just passively drifting along with the way the culture goes, they're gonna go further away from Christ in the church and faster and faster. And so to make headway in a secular age, you really takes, uh, sustained intentional effort to basically paddle upstream of the current of culture.

And what I loved about the treatment of that book from Christendom to Apostolic mission is it's not any Pollyanna. It's not like, oh, we need to just get back to like 1905 when we still had solid Christen. No, they, they really see advantages and disadvantages in both situations. Yes. When you have a deeply centuries, deeply rooted Christendom in the middle of Europe, in whatever Europe, in the 13th century, there were great advantages to that and many disadvantages to that.

And in our age, which is very much a secular age and many secular challenges to people who wanna live basic Christian faith, Catholic faith. There's also many advantages and many disadvantages. So it is just like, we should just be real about where we are living today. And then just that whole vision of like, well, we gotta realize it does take intentional, sustained effort.

We can't just be in a kind of subscription model in our parishes, you know, where we're available. I love that. Say more. Yeah. You know, I, I think of this, this is a term I use a lot. Like, I think people a lot of times relate to their average Catholics who maybe go to mass, like most of the time on Sundays.

Like they go, it's like a subscription. Like, I have Netflix, I don't anymore. I, I used to have Netflix and uh, you know, like a sub subscription. So if I'm in the mood and it fits into my day, I turn on Netflix and I might watch a movie. But if I don't, if it doesn't fit in, then I don't. Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of people, that's kind of their basic disposition towards parish life.

Or towards their engagement with their parish. And in that kind of a, a mindset, like if the church wants to carry out the great commission to go and make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded us, that really takes intentional, sustained effort.

And it's always gonna happen in the context of relationships. We can't just host programs and hope people show up. 'cause that's depending on a subscription model. And it's hard to compete for people's time or attention with the entertainment and consumer culture that we're living in. 

[00:26:05] Jim Jansen: So, I mean, let's just go there.

How do you, so it's like, if that's what we're not doing, if we're not gonna be subscription, you know, offer something, hope that people show up, what do we do instead? 

[00:26:16] Fr. Scott Traynor: I think many of your listeners would be, uh, familiar with an idea of something like a pathway of discipleship or, you know, like, hey, like, mm-hmm.

I should have a sense of like, what are some mile markers along the way of where a person's at in relationship to Christ and his church and relationally. I wanna come to find that out about them and then like, let that be intentional for me. The way I talk to them, what I talk to them about, what I invite them to, who I introduce to them, to what articles or books I might suggest to them in our interactions.

I want that to be tailored to where they're at, to create a favorable environment to help them, which only happens by the grace of God, take another step closer to Christ and his church. And so I used to challenge when I was a, a formatter and then rector of the seminary, I used to do this sort of thought experiment.

Uh, with the seminarians, I said like, what if you went to a parish and something happened, I don't know, uh, a gas leak and the building and the school blew up in the middle of the night, didn't hurt anyone, but there was no parish building. There was no school building. There were no meetings, there were no committees, there was no schedule, there was no nothing.

You just had the list of people who were known to that parish previously, yeah. To the gas explosion. How would you conduct yourself as a priest? And what I really wanted to hear from the seminarians as a, you know, like a indication of their appropriation of a, a really healthy and dynamic priestly identity is like, well, what would I do different?

I wouldn't do anything different, actually. Mm-hmm. Like as a priest, my job is to take interest in every person God puts in my path or who will exist in my parish boundaries. Find out what they are and do everything I can to help them take another step closer to Christ in his church, to offer the sacraments, to preach the gospel, to preach the word of God, and then to animate people, to carry out apostolate, to be of service, to give the witness of Christian service to the real needs of our local community.

And in the context of those relationships, when people start to wonder, well, why are this group, why is this group of people so good? Mm-hmm. And why do they seem to be happy and free people and flourishing people? And they start to take interest. It's an opportunity to proclaim the truth and goodness of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and to draw people to Christ that way through our witness.

Uh, so I, I love that thought experiment. I, I used to talk about this in my last time I was pastor. A parish in Yankton, South Dakota. And I was talking about this, I I was sent there in 19, uh, 1917. In 2017. In 2017. And I left there in the summer of 2020, which you might recognize as the COVID shutdown. 

[00:28:58] Jim Jansen: 2020.

[00:28:59] Fr. Scott Traynor: And I was trying to ask my parishioners, like, what would happen if we didn't have this beautiful school and this church building? And, you know, the things we're just used to. So we're not in maintenance mode, just trying to keep up what we've always done here. But what if we just started from scratch?

What would that look like? And people kind of looked at me like I was weird. And I, I tried to use different examples of what might happen. A tornado might come through a gas leak. I did not mention a virus escaped from a lab in China that shuts everything down. And if I would've, I would've been have confirmed as a prophet.

'cause we actually had a taste of that experience. Yeah. In the COVID shutdown. You know, holy Week was canceled in 2020. It was a weird time, right? People couldn't come to church, God forbid that ever happened again. It was a weird time, but all of a sudden people got it in my parish. I started getting phone calls as people were living gift packages for me on my doorstep, mostly involving toilet paper, which was very funny.

[00:29:50] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Because it wasn't that kind of virus, but. 

[00:29:53] Fr. Scott Traynor: It was like a real, a real expression of love. Like Father, we're concerned about you here. I left some toilet paper on your front step. 

[00:29:59] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Th this. Yeah. This is the thing that everybody's fighting for now, but it 

[00:30:03] Fr. Scott Traynor: Wow. It's, it was so enjoy 20, but people got it.

Yeah. And amazing things actually happened and we were shut down for a very short period of time. Thanks be to God in South Dakota and thanks to the leadership of our bishop. But in that short period of time, people got it. 'cause they felt the isolation and the need to be connected relationally and not just like subscription, oh, there might be something that the church I may choose to go to.

So that that investment in relationships, the intentionality in relationships. Not depending passively on just like, well the parish and the parish staff kind of do some stuff, but really every person who is baptized taking on their baptismal responsibility to take, carry out an apostate. And what I mean by apostate isn't like, oh, helping out as an usher or a elector, I mean that's all great to help the life of the parish, but like an intentional way on a personal level that I'm trying to share the faith I've received with other people.

And that might be a couple who invites like someone from their block over for dinner with a couple other Catholic couples. So it's kind of the, you know, like, hey, just I've just, every month we have someone over that we wanna introduce to the great people we know in our parish so they can hopefully become friends and take interest.

Just anything. It could be a million things of undertaking a personal apostolate, but if we're gonna make headway in our secular age, the recovery of that sense of it is the responsibility of the lay faithful to evangelize the structures of society and the people they interact with and their, their fellow soccer moms, and this club and that sport and everything else that people spend time in.

That's the mission field. It is the mission of the laity. The parish is meant to be a furnace where they are inspired and equipped to take on that work of evangelization and send out in the world in the rest of the week to do it. 

[00:31:49] Jim Jansen: Talk more about that, 'cause I know you've seen that and I'll, right, I'll let you, I, I'll reference your book, right.

You know, the, you know, the parish as a School of Prayer. Talk about like, what does it look like because we're, I think we're in a space now where we're talking about, okay, here's what the parish does. This is the ministry of the staff and the priest, and. That is at service of the right, the, the mission of the, the lay members who are literally out in the world making disciples one conversation at a time, one friendship at a time.

Talk a little bit about, like, what is, I mean, maybe we've talked a little bit about like, okay, the, you know, the, you're a soccer mom and you're talking to the other moms on the sideline. What, what's different about the parish activity in the priestly ministry in this vision? 

[00:32:39] Fr. Scott Traynor: A couple things. First of all, the, the priest should be really focused on the things that he can do with the sacred power of orders that lay people can't do.

So obviously the celebration of the sacraments, right? 

[00:32:52] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:53] Fr. Scott Traynor: You can't have laypeople celebrating mass or hearing confessions or preaching at mass, right? So that is the specific, unique and exclusive job of, of the parish priest, right? But then being intentional, like, okay. I also want to be engaged, obviously relationally with people.

I mean, it is the model of Jesus, right? So he had Peter, James, and John. Those were the three. And then he had the other, uh, um, the other nine disciples. Those were the 12. And then he had this group of 72, you know, he sent off two by two. Mm-hmm. Eventually other disciples. And then there was the crowds of thousands.

And so I think it's incumbent on the parish priest who has like the privilege of six years, six to eight years of philosophy and theology study and apostolic experience in his time in seminary. Like it's a, it's a pretty beefy, like compared to marriage prep, it's a pretty, uh, solid investment in 

[00:33:43] Jim Jansen: Well, and compared to the, the priestly formation of, you know, other seasons in the church.

[00:33:50] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yes, for sure. It's a very robust. Formation. That's a whole other podcast. You can have me back another time to talk about it if we're hitting the right target in ation. But anyways, it's, it's a very significant investment. And like, so the priest wants to maximize, be a good steward of that gift that he's received in a very intentional way to multiply himself.

So I am equipped as a priest and any priest would be to really form others to mm-hmm. To be disciple makers, right. To heavily invest in a small group of people and to equip them to do what he's doing relationally with them, with other people in their life. And I love, uh, I know you're a focused alumni of many years.

Mm-hmm. Uh, but I love that, that just that math, you know, if you have a, a super evangelist, so you have like a Billy Graham on steroids, right? And he's converting a million people, bringing a million people into the church every year. Okay. Uh, that's pretty impressive. We don't have a lot of those people. In the world ever.

We've never had. Right? 

[00:34:49] Jim Jansen: Yeah. And, and if you are one of those people, keep going. 

[00:34:53] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah. By all means, we need stadium preachers. Absolutely. You, we need those people a hundred percent. But that super evangelist great. A year. They get a million people, two years, 2 million people, 10 years, 10 million people, 20 years, 20 million people.

That's really amazing. But if I as a priest find two people that I can heavily invest in, say, over the period of a year or two years and really help them. To be all in for Christ and the living of their Catholic faith, and to equip them in that intentional investment to do what I've done for them, just for two other people in their life.

Right? That math is exponential growth and it looks pretty tame and or discouraging in the first few years. So in the, mm-hmm. In year one, I reach two people and then I never do anything again. Those two people invest in two people each. So it's those two people plus the four people they've invested in.

That's six people. Woo. Six people. Yeah. Woo. You know, the next year, those six reach another 12. So 12 plus six is 18. People like, so it kind of goes slow in 10 years. Super evangelists, 10 million people. This two by two model. 2000 people in 20 years, 20 million people for super evangelists, 2 million people for the two by two model, okay?

Mm-hmm. But in year 24. 24 million versus 33 million and in year 33, 30 3 million versus 7 billion people. So it really is possible, yeah. In this two by two spiritual multiplication model to reach the population of the planet in a lifetime in 33 years, in a part of a lifetime. Right? Right. That, that is a mind shift.

But it really talks about like though it's slow in the beginning, like we don't have big numbers to put up like, oh, who came to our big Lenin mission this year? Oh, we had 300 people show up. Well, great. And by all means, I'm not saying don't do those things. We need to do those things. Gateway events to get people in the door, right.

As an ex, as a, an occasion to start building relationships. But the intense discipling over and against the culture, the prominent culture, which is moving away from Christ in the church. It all has to happen in the context of relationships. I'm 54 years old, and when I meet people younger than me who are really dynamic, active laypeople in the church, I always take interest.

I take interest in everyone, but like, Hey. Mm-hmm. How are you? You, and not like mm-hmm. One of the people who never go to church Yeah. Happen for you. And when you listen to those stories, it always comes back to relationships. And maybe one, yeah. For somebody, one person who made a huge difference in their life or over a long period of time, or maybe just different people that God brought along important crossroads.

And I see like, oh, without that person and that friendship, like I would've made a different choice. You know, I could see my life would've gone a different way. So that that intentional, uh, relational, like evangelization happens in the context of relationships or it doesn't happen. 

[00:37:51] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. No, I mean, this is like, there's so much, you know, as, as you talk about this, like, you know, I'm thinking like, okay, we started talking about John Vianney and.

I mean, you could say, oh, he's kind of in this super right, super evangelist model. Uh, but he, he started very, very slow. Very, very humbly. Very, you know, and, and just there's, I mean, in some ways he's kind of like a blending of, of both. But there's this, there's this really important, I mean, uh, I mean, there's this commitment to say, you know what?

I'm going to walk. With the people that the Lord has placed around me and let his love flow through me to them, and I'm gonna help them take the next step, whatever that is in their spiritual journey. If they're an unbeliever, I wanna help introduce 'em to Jesus. If they are a believer, I wanna help them mature in their prayer life and their understanding of what it means to be a disciple.

And if they're just a faithful disciple, I wanna help them find their, their own missionary calling to actually be a missionary disciple. 

[00:39:00] Fr. Scott Traynor: That's so well said. And the beauty of that, Jim, what I love about that is it isn't just on me to be able to do that well, at each of those stages that you just outlined, like if I'm, if I'm intentionally investing in the people around me, like the word that came to me as you were describing that was like, I need to share life with people.

Like that's where evangelization happens. I have to actually intentionally invest in, but that looks like sharing life. Like I want you over to my house. I want to do stuff together of common interest. And in the context of that, to share my faith intentionally with you. Right? But with I, if I find out Jim, like, oh, you're a person who really desires to have a daily prayer life and to encounter God relationally, and I really don't know anything about that.

I don't need to know. I assure every one of our listeners, if you're intentionally investing in someone and you see what the next thing that God is raising up the desire of their heart for is he is gonna provide the person who's perfect to Yes. Serve them in that way. And it doesn't have to be you.

[00:39:55] Jim Jansen: That's so huge. Well this is like, this is one of my favorite parts of a clear path, is that evangelization at its best is a team sport. Yes. And, and your role may be to be the friend and to be there for a specific season, but it's not all on you. You don't have to. Like be a friend all the way through, but you don't have to be the person if that's not how you're called or gifted to be that deep catechetical resource.

You don't necessarily have to be the person to equip this person for mission to help them discern their personal apostate and get equipped, informed for it. You're just a friend and you're part of a larger community that has some context that help people grow when they get to that stage of the journey.

[00:40:44] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yep. You know, uh, if I, again, I don't wanna hijack us, but I think it's on point here. You know, I spent five years at the University of South Dakota as the chaplain there, and of my 24 years of priesthood, that was like the most overt. Amazing experience of the new evangelization actually happening in, in real time of all my 25 years, there's always been amazing graces of God given to communities and seeing conversion in individuals lives, but like as a whole community, the growth in that five years was astonishing.

And it was a year into it. We got a focus team there and it was the second full year of focus where things really started to take off it. It was remarkably so, so like when I first got there, uh, you know, daily mass was like me and the two dust bunnies in the corner, right? By the time I left five years later.

Daily mass. We had over a hundred college students showing up for daily mass in the middle of the day. Yes. Sunday masses booming out the door number of guys had gone off to seminary, women discerning religious life like it was happening. And a couple things came together in that time, but it was really in this like, we are really committed to like, God, who do you put on my heart and who do you put in my path that I can just take interest in and make an invitation?

And what we did as we were like kind of raised up this vision, first of all with the missionaries and then with our student leaders as they got raised up, is like, we don't need to like meet a thousand people and do a hundred follow ups within seven days to kind of like, you know, get my five people from my Bible study, we're gonna let Jesus do the heavy lifting, right?

[00:42:24] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:25] Fr. Scott Traynor: And what that meant was, okay, you wanna get a Bible study, you wanna lead a Bible study this year? Great. Who are the 10 people? If you could just write your ticket. You would love to have in that. And they'd make their list. And we're gonna get a people, a group of people over here who are great intercessor prayers, and we're gonna pray over those names and we're gonna pray that God would put it on their heart to say yes.

And that he would give you the most natural opportunity to cross paths with that person to make the invitation and then give you the wisdom and the courage to seize on an opportunity when it's given. Mm-hmm. And make your ask. And in the model where you try to meet a thousand people and follow up with them 10 times in four days, you'd ask a thousand people and you get 998 nos and you're exhausted after a month.

[00:43:05] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:43:05] Fr. Scott Traynor: But in letting Jesus do the heavy lifting, Jesus, you put it on my heart and we will pray for this people and we will trust you to dispose them. You'd make 10 asks and you'd get six yeses. Okay. Yeah. And then you're, you're up and running with your Bible study, for example, and I, I, it occurred to me like some months later like, Hey, what about the four guys who said no to you?

Would you still want them in your Bible study if they, if they said yes, and they're like, well, yeah, well, not that one guy, but the other three. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'd love to have those all three. Okay. We, and I had, uh, a thing, I called it the, the war room. And we actually had names of people on a wall that we are interceding for and praying for God to make an opportunity for.

And then for the students who were involved, we were intentional about it. We're like, who else do we know that knows this guy that's in their sorority or that's in a lab with them or plays an intramural sport with them? Who else do we know that's already plugged in? And we just got those people together and said, Hey, whenever you see Bill over here, we're trying to get him to say yes to Bible study.

So you don't have to mention Bible study, but just next time you're coming to church. Invite him along. I don't care if it's Super Bowl party or you're coming to confession or you're going to mass or you're going to a, a teaching, we're doing whatever it is on a retreat. Just whatever you're coming to, whenever you see Bill, ask him along.

And what Bill would experience is a bunch of people in the normal pattern of his life saying, Hey Bill, are you interested? I'm heading over here, and eventually a college student is bored enough. They're like, okay. And they would show up. Yeah. And then they'd meet cool people and form friendships and we, we, we would have them and I don't know anyone who started off as a no.

That we still prayed for in this way. That didn't become a yes, within six months. 

[00:44:42] Jim Jansen: Wow. 

[00:44:42] Fr. Scott Traynor: That's how we went from no bible studies to, you know, four 50 college students a week in, in intentional Bible study and disciples. In the course of five years, it was amazing. But it all just happened by relationship.

And what reminded me of that story was what I was saying earlier, we prayed and asked God to bless our students with gifts of the Holy Spirit for evangelization. Like all the different ordinary and extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. And you know, what happened was when someone would come in and be like, Hey, what I really need, I'm really mad at God because I was, uh, a scholarship athlete and I jacked up my ankle.

Mm-hmm. And I can't do that anymore. Like, how can you tell me that God loves me and God is good? And we're like, huh, that I'm really so sorry you went through that. Like someone find that out. And we had people who had received gifts of healing. We're like, well, let's bring that person in and pray for healing.

And we had people who were healed of physical injuries. That's not 

[00:45:38] Jim Jansen: mm-hmm 

[00:45:39] Fr. Scott Traynor: something for apostolic, like back in biblical times, only that happens today. People have physical, right. Other people, their ankle remained jacked up, but they had a total conversion of heart as we prayed for healing for their ankle.

Like God seized on that availability and he worked a much greater and more needed healing in that person's life that disposed them to say a greater yes to him and his church. 

[00:46:00] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:46:01] Fr. Scott Traynor: And it was, it was amazing to see. Amazing to see. And this is not something that can only happen on college campuses. The reason, and rightly so, yes, the focus focuses on college campuses is the availability to turn your life on a dime in college.

Right. And the decisions you make in your college years, if you go to college. That's gonna affect the, the trajectory of many decades of your life to follow. That's certainly true, but it can happen also just in the patterns of regular life. If people who are also in that same stage of life engage in those patterns, have this intentionality, it may happen a little more slowly, it may not look quite the same, but it can happen in if, if our laity, our parishioners, have this vision in their mind and feel empowered and equipped to like make the invitation not in, again, you don't have to be a, a Swiss Army knife where you can do every piece that could ever be needed, Uhuh.

Just what is the part that makes sense to you? Why are you thrilled to be a Catholic? What's an opportunity and with whom in your life is God inviting you to share as a gift what you've received as a gift? And if you just do that consistently, and if more of our ERs just do that consistently, we're gonna see that kind of amazing transformation and growth in our parish communities.

Rural, mm-hmm. Urban, suburban, you name it. 

[00:47:14] Jim Jansen: And again, although it's small. And it's not like we are seeing that, right? I mean, there's a number, there's a number of parishes that, that are seeing that type of transformation, you know, where like historic declines are, like boop, they're like, their numbers are bouncing, mass, attendance is up, giving is up, entry into the church is up.

So you see it happening. Those who've kind of embraced this, obviously one of the keys is like, okay, right. You gotta really form people for prayer. You gotta, you gotta have a, a pathway for discipleship where, where you've got a context to help people. When their friend is ready, you've got something to bring them to.

I just wanna give you a chance, there's some other ingredients. I'm thinking leadership and other things like that. I'm sure there are, people are listening. They're like, well that all sounds great, father, I would love to do that as a person, but I, I don't know. I don't know how I'm gonna get there. Or, you know.

Parish leaders, priests, whatever, listening and like, well, that sounds great. It's the transition that's killing me right now. I've got, right. I've got Christendom age facilities, or I've got, you know, all these facilities that are set up for, you know, a, a huge population in this rural community. And we're, we're half that population right now.

Right. Right. Now, I, I don't know how to make these transitions. I want what you're talking about Father, how do they get there? 

[00:48:35] Fr. Scott Traynor: I'll answer this in two ways. One is, and I know the Archdiocese of Omaha has made a beautiful investment. We've made an investment similarly in really encouraging every pastor or every clergy team in a parish or pastorate to have a leadership team of other mm-hmm.

Of laypeople in the parish, like in the Pat Lencioni, the advantage model of, of leadership. And, you know, that's a very, very tried and true. Tested and proven fruitful and very adaptable to parish circumstances, way of elevating the leadership that's necessary in a challenging time. You, you name the challenge very, very well and father's not gonna figure that out on his own ever.

No priest has all the gifts that are needed to do that. And even if he does have all the gifts, which no priest does, he doesn't have the time to make all that happen while still attending to his real priestly ministry. Right, right, right. So to raise up the, the gifts among the laity, among your parishioners and the proper, the proper co-responsibility of the laity, this is not the pastor relegating or delegating, delegating his, uh, authority and leadership of the parish.

It's actually just building a team around him to make what's irreplaceable from his being. The pastor actually. Effective like possible to carry forward and implement. And you can't do that in isolation. You'll kill yourself, especially in these trying times and those trying circumstances. Yeah. But to have a really great leadership team and build that leadership culture in your parish, then.

Just if I might add another, just sort of list of elements, and I'll explain what I mean by this in a second. This is not like we have to have all these perfectly to get any before we can start moving down the road. Right. But I'm saying, I'm gonna list these elements and say the more present these are and the more widespread these are among parishioners in a parish, like the evangelization will happen.

So I think of our Catholic faith as an amazing, powerful engine. Mm-hmm. I mean, we have what we've always had for 2000 years. We have Jesus Christ, we have the deposit of faith. We have the life of the sacraments that communicate God's life to us. We have the word of God, we have the witness of the saints, we have the heroic witness of works, spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

We have our education, we have all the resources in the world, we have all these things we've always had, uh, as Catholics for 2000 years. That's an amazing, powerful engine. But it seems to me there's an obvious disconnect between that powerful engine and where the rubber hits the road in people's daily lives.

[00:51:08] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:51:08] Fr. Scott Traynor: Okay. So I've asked myself the question like, what bridges that gap? Well, in a car, what bridges? That gap is called a transmission, a number of parts that work together to take the power of the engine to where it needs to be, where the rubber hits the road. So what does that look like in parish life?

Well, we still have the engine, the engine's. The same has been for 2000 years. Okay. And I think when these elements that I'm calling the transmission come together, come together, you really start to see the conversion of the parish and the evangelization, the growth of the community, not just among parishioners, but in the broader community where the parish is located.

Evangelization really happens. So number one, of course, foundationally is the life of prayer for sure. If we're not praying and allow Jesus to do the heavy lifting in our own hearts, we'll never allow him to do the heavy lifting in our efforts to reach other people. The kind of, uh, drive shaft of this transmission is taking interest in a person's experience of God, like thinking of those thresholds of conversion.

Like, Hey, where are you at? Tell me about your experience of God. Oh, you're a militant atheist. I'm sorry to hear that. Have you always been militant in your atheism, or is that new? Like it used to be like a mild mannered atheist, you know, uh, I'm really interested in that, you know, and then in the life, in the clarity of that, listening to a person's experience, listening to that with discernment.

So the whole reality of discernment of spirits. What is going on in this person's heart and mind, that's from God that I want to throw gas on and encourage them to pay attention to because God leads by way of spiritual consolation. And what are the lies or the desolating? Distortions that have a hold on this person that I wanna actually gently, lovingly confront and encourage the person not to pay attention to, to reject, you know, however I can do that.

So, discernment of spirits. And then of course the charisma. Like I wanna proclaim, even if I'm just in a checkout line, someone looks at me and says, so are you like a pastor or something? I'm like, ah, I'm Father Scott. I'm a Catholic priest, and I'll take interest in their experience of God. But then even in a brief interaction, I wanna offer something, something, a word, an encouragement, a, a verse from scripture, an invitation, something that might help that person wherever they, I found out that they're at.

To take just another little step closer to Christ In's Church. I wanna pronounce the saving name of Jesus, and offer something of what I've received as a gift, as a gift to this person, out of concern for them. So those kind of four things. Interest in the person's experience of God, rooted in prayer and discernment, and then sharing something of the charisma, the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

Are four important things. But then even if, so, if those things are happening, good things are happening, but then there's still obstacles that the Holy Spirit is laboring to ease and take away, and so to ease and take away those obstacles, we want good leadership habits. Okay? Mm-hmm. So servant leadership, Jesus is a servant leader.

He came to serve and not to be served again for my money. What Pat Lencioni talks about and the advantage in other places, other, uh, from his table group world, uh, the strength space, mindset, uh, all those kinds of things kind of fall into that category of healthy leadership, eases and takes great obstacles, growth in human virtue.

So some people have, for example, a desire to pray. Maybe they've been taught how to pray, but they don't pray. You know why? It's not like a spiritual problem. It's not a knowledge problem. It's they're a disorganized mess and they never find the time, the time to pray doesn't like tackle them on the sidewalk and draw them into the adoration chapel.

So, you know, like human virtue, just normal, everyday natural virtue. Take away obstacles to respond and cooperate with grace. Then you have the, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, both the ordinary and extraordinary gifts. We need to know what they are. We need to ask for them, and we need to put 'em into use when they're given.

And last but not least, uh, even if all those things are happening, there are some people who are in real need of healing and or deliverance. And so we need to know that Jesus heals and Jesus delivers us from all the tactics of the enemy and have an expertise in how to connect a person who's in need of healing or deliverance with Jesus who heals and delivers.

And that's very appropriate, not only for clergy, but for the lady as well. So those elements, when they work together and just the more they're present in a community, the more evangelically fruitful that community's gonna be, and the more converted that community is going to be. I'm convinced of it, and I've seen it again and again from my time back going to 2007.

So we're gone 18 years. I've seen this everywhere I go. 

[00:55:33] Jim Jansen: Yeah. All of this reminds me, it is very similar to a conversation I just had with Julianne stands where it's like, sometimes we we're like, all right, we got a good plan and we've got prayer. But, but often, like there's a, there's just several elements that, again, we don't have to be perfect, but all of them kind of need to be present if we're really gonna get that power source from the engine, uh, leveraged into people's lives and, and actually changing things.

Father, I just, again, our time has kind really flown here. Just for somebody who's listening, it's like, ah, I want it all. And I'm also a little scared and I don't disagree, but that's kind of a lot. Where do they get started? 

[00:56:20] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah, I think two, two things. One is just if you're, if you're a personal prayer, just say, Hey, God, like spend time in Holy Spirit led gratitude.

Like what are all the things in your experience of your Catholic faith that are dear to you, that are precious to you, that you're grateful for experiences you've had, things about being Catholic, like the mass or the wisdom of the saints, or our beautiful traditions in architecture and art, and music.

Whatever it is that just like that is just dear to you. Pay attention to gratitude what's dear to you, and then ask God, God, show me. Just gimme an opportunity today. To offer that gift to someone that you place in my path, help me to recognize that opportunity and to seize on it and to have the freedom to fail.

So if you do it and you do it poorly, it's worth the effort. It's worth doing poorly. Just do it. Yeah. Like what can you, God, you lead me. Like there's a way you, you are putting people in my path every day, God, that you have something, you know, I have that I can offer as a gift, I wanna show up for that. But if you start with the things that are especially dear to you, we all love to, like if you a any person who like went to some random restaurant and had an awesome meal and a great experience and a wonderful atmosphere, they tell all their friends the next day about that they're not sheepish about that.

It's just a more natural thing to do. So pay attention to the things that are like your favorite restaurant part of being Catholic, and then ask God for an opportunity to share that with somebody today. So I think that's a place to start. I love that. And then like, ask. Your, if you have a director of discipleship and evangelization, or ask the priest in your parish, like, father, I want to be, I, I want our parish to be an evangelizing parish.

I wanna help. Where do you need help? Mm-hmm. And hopefully the priest will be like, well, tell me about you. Tell me about what your passionate about. Let's find out what your gifts are and let's see what God might be asking you to do in our context. Now I say that with a little grain of salt because I had a, a dear friend, a actually coworker who went to her parish, like, this is the kind of availability in there.

And really wanted to do something to, uh, evangelize like the young adults. And was basically told like, oh, you know, we really need someone to help fold the bulletins. So this generous, like, Hey, I wanna like. Ah, I wanna like pour myself out for evangelizing our, our town, and what can I do? Well fold the bulletins like, well that wasn't the best reception of that offer, but, uh, it's, it's a great place to start.

And I think people will find many places like, oh, thank God, but let it be led by what God is raising up in the desires of your heart and just who you are. Like you have particular gifts that are unique and unrepeatable in your personality and in their combination in you. That's what God is gonna use to reach others.

[00:59:02] Jim Jansen: Oh, amen. That is so good. That, and it's so, it's encouraging 'cause, you know, 'cause this could easily be, you know, so inspiring that, that it flips and becomes desolating as people start to imagine that it's far away. And that's just a great place to begin. I wanna let St. John Vianney have had the last word here, you know, 'cause we, we talked about him and, you know, as I was doing a little research trying to brush up on his life, I came across these two amazing quotes, which again, I think speak to kinda like the, the small beginnings and a faith that, that the Lord is gonna meet us in, in our circumstances and help us with that next step.

First one, he, he says, it is always springtime in the heart that loves God. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, which is so good. 'cause again, if it feels like winter, if it feels like, you know, uh, oh man, everything is dying and, and, and our parish is shrinking. It's not that that's untrue, but in the heart that loves God, there's always a springtime.

I love that. And then this is right. I think particularly for, for those of us, uh, this one, this one hit me. Just, you know, the, the tendency to try to please everyone, he's like, do not try to please everybody. Try to please God. The angels and the saints, they are your public. Uh, which is so, uh, so good. 

[01:00:23] Fr. Scott Traynor: Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, if I could just add, add, uh, a little something with, uh, from the catechism, and I can't quite remember the paragraph. It might be, it's in the part of the creed that's talking about the communion of saints. 

[01:00:35] Jim Jansen: Hmm. 

[01:00:36] Fr. Scott Traynor: And it talks about that every grace that's been received in the history of the church comprises a communal fund for all the faithful.

Hmm. If I look at St. John Vianney and I see his many heroic virtues and supernatural gifts, and I'm like, wow, that's amazing. Or I think of like Mother Teresa's heroic, like love for the poorest of the poor, or I think of the radical humility of St. Francis of Assisi, or you name your saint, like the, the courage and the, a supernatural charity of Saint Maximilian Kolby, like, put me in the starvation moner.

Let this father and husband go, you know, live. Mm-hmm. Like whatever it is that you admire in one of the saints, the canonized saints of the church, or also just the holy men and women that we know are in heaven today that maybe we know in our life or in our family histories, whatever it is, every grace that they've all received is forms a communal fund that's available to me today.

If someone came to you tomorrow and said, Hey, you are a signer and an Elon Musk's checking account, right? Everything he has is yours to use the way you see fit, you'd be like, sweet, yeah's, nothing. I can't do. Yeah, you have access to that fund. Yes. And we have that fund with the Saints. So can you read that, that quote again about Oh yeah.

Our audience is Yes, yes. Who are we in relationship and dialogue with to be led, inspired, directed, and sustained. It's not what my neighbor or my cranky person in the pew two down, two pews down for me, he has to say. Mm-hmm. It's with the living God and all his angels and saints. That's our patrimony. That is the audience.

And that is always a source of encouragement that those who love the Lord, it is always springtime. Amen. 

[01:02:16] Jim Jansen: Boom. All right, father, thank you. Thanks for being with us, everybody. You know somebody who needs to hear this. There's like a million gold nuggets in this conversation. Whoever the like, just take a moment.

Right. Whoever the Lord brings to mind, you wait till you're safe, till you can, you know, till you can look down at your phone. Uh, use your hands and, uh, send this out to them and tell 'em why you thought of them and, uh, share this out with a friend. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to the Kip Cast. 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 dot arch omaha.org. God bless and see you next time.