[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the EquipCast. So today I sit down with Peter Andrastek of the Evangelical Catholic. And, uh, we have a great conversation just diving into some of the theological foundations of what it means to be on mission, uh, what it means to be a missionary disciple in our ordinary everyday lives.

Uh, we do get a little bit nerdy. Um, that's just as much me as it is Peter, uh, but we have a lot of fun talking about just the, the heart of what it means to be a missionary disciple. Some of the pitfalls, things that kind of derail us in that spoiler alert. Uh, we talk a lot about love. Uh, it's a great conversation.

You're going to love it. Take a listen.

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. 

Peter Andrastek, welcome back to the EquipCast. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a while. We were talking before we turned on the mics here. You've been a guest on the EquipCast I didn't go back and look at the date, but it's been a while actually one of our most popular episodes I encourage everybody go back and listen to ministry versus apostolate But you know like before they do Peter remind us who are you again?

[00:01:31] Peter: Yeah, I am senior consultant with the Evangelical Catholic So, um, the evangelical Catholic is an apostolate based in Madison, Wisconsin, though I live in the Milwaukee area, along with three others of us who live in the Milwaukee area. And then we've got people scattered all over the country. Um, but what we do is we equip Catholics to live out the Great Commission.

Nice. So, yeah, primarily we do that, uh, through partnering with parishes, also dioceses. And now, um, With, um, you know, seminarians, we do seminarian formation, work with the archdiocese for the military. We also work with campus ministries and we're also, um, beginning to work with just individual Catholics as well.

So, we help people to live that great commission. 

[00:02:18] Jim Jansen: Yeah, big fan. I first came across your work when I was working with focus. And then since then we've got one of our parishes here in the archdiocese that is formally partnering with, uh, the evangelical Catholic. And then we've had several of our priests who've gone down.

I know we'll talk about this later to your conference, uh, priests for an apostolic age, uh, which is great. We'll talk more about that later. You got a chance to, to share your story last time. Tell us something we don't know about you. Like, right, like personally, you know, faith journey. 

[00:02:51] Peter: Oh, that's a good one because I can't remember what I told you the first time.

Well, so it's all fair game. Yeah. Uh, well, um, I got eight kids, been married 20 years now. Okay. My dad was a deacon. 

[00:03:03] Jim Jansen: Would have been, well, would have been one of the first permanent deacons then, right? 

[00:03:06] Peter: Yes. He was early on in 1986 for the diocese of Green Bay. And I think that was like the second ordination class.

Yeah. Green Bay. Okay. I have memories of it. 

[00:03:19] Jim Jansen: Okay. That's awesome. So, let's just kind of jump in a little bit. Hey, you said, uh, I forget exactly the way you phrased it, but you know, the evangelical Catholic helps, uh, individual Catholics, seminarians, typically parishes, diocese as well, you know, kind of like figure out how to evangelize, how to, how to live as missionary disciples.

Why does that even matter? Right, what's at stake if we don't figure out how to evangelize? I almost made a, I didn't know, a funny quip when you talked about doing that in the Catholic Church. I was like, wow, that's a lot of job security. Uh, cause it feels like we're all, right, we're all rediscovering that, but why does it matter?

[00:04:02] Peter: Ooh, wow. Um, boy, we could answer that quasi-infinite number of ways, I suppose. The word that comes to mind is. Because love matters. Right? Good answer. The content of our faith is love. God is love. We have come to believe in the love that God has for us. If we aren't transformed into love, that's St. Therese, right?

St. Therese, you know, discovers her vocation and says, you know, I've discovered my vocation. I will become love, right? If we don't become love, and therefore love, we will lose our vocation. 

[00:04:41] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:04:42] Peter: I guess so. 

[00:04:43] Jim Jansen: Wow. I love that because for many of us, and this is a little inside baseball, it's kind of like nerdy church work when you're at the diocesan level or when you're working for, you know, when, when you're working for an apostolate, like the evangelical Catholic, we get to see, or we are, so that we know about kind of a big framing is just the decline.

That so many of our parishes, so much of the Church of the United States is experiencing. Decreasing mass attendance, decreasing sacramental numbers. I love the language you use, right, as we're going to talk about your, your article, you know, like, you know, deep, deprofessionalizing evangelization. But like you use the term bleeding out, and it's like, Ooh, that's true.

I mean, it's like most of our parishes, depending on the size, how big they were, the rate of disaffiliation, the rate of decreasing mass attendance is so intense that it's like the bleeding out metaphor, although a little graphic is, is not far off because you just, you don't, you can't dilly dally very long.

When someone is bleeding profusely, you're going to lose the patient really soon. And it feels like that's where our parishes are at. And I would say, I think that creates a temptation to an unhealthy urgency. Yeah. And I love the way you write. I love the way you brought things back to love. It's like, well, there's an urgency to love too, but it's, it's a little bit healthier urgency.

Yeah. 

[00:06:14] Peter: Yeah. Cause love, um, someone who loves they, they despise. distance. And so, there's an urgency to love, right? You, you want to close the gap. However, love always has to have the wisdom to know when speed or the quickness, um, can be, uh, can injure the love, right? Um, they have to, to know when you're coming on too fast, too strong, it might push the other person away.

It might damage the person who was doing the love. It damages the relationship. So, love, there's this. There's this tension that you have to maintain between this, this urgency and wisdom to, to know what, what the beloved is disposed to receive. 

[00:07:05] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Right. I, speed and children don't typically go well together.

Uh, speed and right. And like romantic relationships don't typically go well together. You know, you and I figured it out at least once, right? We're, you know, both, both happily, happily married. You know, got it right with, uh, with one, one woman, but you know, you come on too strong, too quick. And, uh, yeah, love is not the result.

So, or, or at least it's not how it's received. You wrote an article for, uh, Notre Dame's, uh, church life, great article on de professionalizing evangelization. In there, use some terms you talk about, like holiness, apostolate. This is kind of a layman's crowd, but if you can give us just some context, what, what do you mean by those terms just to kind of get us up to speed?

[00:07:56] Peter: Sure. Well, holiness. Okay. So, the catechism talks about holiness as the inaccessible center of God's eternal mystery. Okay. So, what the heck is that? Right. It's like, sorry, you just can't know. Right. Right. Uh, well, in a certain sense, we can't know, but as St. Paul says in first Corinthians, you know, he, he had that, what we have.

How did he say this? What no man can understand is precisely what God revealed, revealed to us, right, which is love, right? So, God exists as this eternal exchange of love, and that's at the inaccessible center of his eternal mysteries is love. He's an exchange of persons. The church talks about holiness as the perfection of charity.

Okay, so what is that? Well, that love of God that we don't have access to. God has given us access to that. He communicates himself to us and he allows us to participate in his divine life through our divine filiation. Uh, we become sons and daughters in the sun and, and we, in a certain sense, we participate in this, this eternal, uh, be getting a generation and this eternal spiration of love.

And that's, that’s what holiness is. It's, it's just, it's simply the love of God communicated to us and us living into that. 

[00:09:15] Jim Jansen: Yeah. We're like, we're caught. I mean, right back to like this parent child thing, we're caught up in it and then we begin to share it. 

[00:09:24] Peter: Yeah, totally. With others. Yeah. Right. And that's what apostolate is.

So, so, um, when I say again, St. Tres, I have become love. The love of God transforms us into himself by participation. And so, we're transformed into love. We become agents of love. So, uh, apostate is simply the communication, the radiating out. 

[00:09:49] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:50] Peter: The economy of the love that we've received. 

[00:09:54] Jim Jansen: Most people can't see this. I can see all the cool, nerdy, theological books behind your head, but you're like, yeah, we are like right at the heart of That right like the deepest teachings of our faith And that actually has to be our motivation for You know for our evangelization for our outreach I want to give you maybe one other kind of framing question as we as we get into this, you know, you titled the article deprofessionalizing evangelization.

You're fixing or attempting to help us reorientate something that's gotten a little off, right? In our thinking, in our perspective, in our, in our practice, you know, maybe well meaning, uh, give us that context. Like, what is that? deprofessionalize evangelization? 

[00:10:46] Peter: Yeah, well, there's, I think there's a number of things going on there.

One thing is that when we tend to professionalize evangelization, we tend to equate apostolate with ministry. Okay, when we think of evangelization, we think of training people to do things in and for the church. Okay. It's also primarily about doing things is about doing stuff, right? And so what we tend to do is we tend to focus on trainings, trainings, and workshops as if you can simply train people up into zeal and, and.

[00:11:23] Jim Jansen: We all know, like you just, I know, but it's, I have to laugh.

I'm sorry to interrupt it. I have to laugh at you say that because the very thought of like, all right, everybody, we're going to go through a, you know, through an exercise here. Which, at one level, sure, if that exercise is a spiritual exercise on retreat, you and the Lord, but like, Hey, everybody, we're going to have a 10-minute exercise.

The goal of this is that you're more loving and zealous at the end. It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud.

[00:11:49] Peter: This isn't a cause effect relationship, right? As if, as soon as you train someone how to, I don't know, say the kerygma, all of a sudden now they're going to go and do all the things, right? Uh, because apostolate evangelization is love, right?

And so that takes an inner transformation. Trainings and skills and things can help. They can build confidence. They can give you certain frameworks for how to look at things. And at the end of the day, we're not training people to be good. to do like professional ministry. So professional ministry takes, it takes formation on the one hand, but it also takes training, right?

There's because professional ministers. So maybe this, maybe it would help for me to just delineate. I'm using the word apostolate. I'm using the word ministry. 

[00:12:44] Jim Jansen: Yeah, go for it. This is really helpful. And like, this was, we did a whole podcast on this but go back and listen to it. But give us the, yeah, like the short version, because this distinction has been really helpful, revolutionary for a lot of people. 

[00:12:56] Peter: Sure. So again, the foundation here is holiness, which is love. That's so primarily the love of God, right? That's a vertical dimension. And that transforms us from the inside. And because love is a dynamic reality, not a static reality, it must burst forth. It must radiate forward.

That's the horizontal dimension. That's the apostolic dimension, the apostolate being sent. Okay. Well, we can distinguish between. Apostolate, properly speaking and ministry, properly speaking. Apostolate just flows from our baptism and confirmation. It's the love of God that, that seeks to transform everything that it, that it touches, right?

Whereas ministry, really ministry is, you could say a type of apostolate in a certain sense that flows from holy orders and it is and lay people can, can, um, be delegated ministry. Ministry is typically authorized by the church but has given parameters. It indicates a certain collaboration with the hierarchy, whereas the apostolate is not collaboration with the hierarchy as much as being co responsible with the hierarchy.

Pope Benedict talked a lot about that. We're co responsible for the church within our given jurisdiction, which is in the middle of the world. A layperson might be delegated ministry to do publicly within the church, within these parameters, they're doing it officially for the church. And that's, that's a delegated aspect of orders.

So, what we, what we tend to do is, um, when we talk about professionalization of ministry, We're professional, sorry, professionalization of evangelization. In one sense, it's almost, it's, it's almost like another way of saying, reducing everything to ministry. Yeah. People, yeah. Training people to do things in and for the parish.


And so then. Yeah. There's a certain amount of training they need, and we have to let people bake until they're ready to do it. We tend to subordinate the people who are trained to the mission that they're supposed to accomplish. 

[00:15:03] Jim Jansen: Yeah. All sorts of unhelpful permission seeking. So let me see if I can give some examples here. So, like, so ministry, I'm a catechist at my parish and, and I teach eighth graders. God bless you for it. Right. I teach eighth graders, uh, the, the faith, um, getting them ready. And let's say for confirmation, that is something that is happening. Even if the pastor wasn't the one who invited you. If you know that invitation came secondhand through the DRE, you are working under his ministry.

It's happening in the parish facility. It's happening at a scheduled time. There's a permission. You're part of a roster. You are really co laboring under his ministry. That is That is very different than the, Hey, I'm baptized, and God keeps nudging me to talk to my neighbor and, and to love them in their time of need.

And then to share my faith as to why I'm loving them in their time of need. That is not on the parish schedule. It's not happening in the parish facilities. You don't need your pastor's permission. Like you don't need a lot of training for that. You might need a certification for the catechist thing, right?

There might be a diocesan box. You need to check that probably is. 

[00:16:21] Peter: But you do need formation. You do need lots of formation. 

[00:16:24] Jim Jansen: This is the thing that we tend to miss, right? 

[00:16:26] Peter: Right. The formation that's needed for, for lay apostolate is lifelong and ongoing. 

[00:16:33] Jim Jansen: Right. Right. But it's a little bit less box checky. It's a little bit more like, Hey, here's what love looks like in your circumstances in the world today. Here's how you express your love for the Lord and your love for your neighbor in a non-awkward way. Right back to like, okay, now, now it's helpful to, to learn how to share the story of what God's done in your life with your neighbor.

[00:16:57] Peter: Yes. Okay. Totally, totally. 

[00:16:59] Jim Jansen: So often, uh, it seems like evangelization efforts and I'm thinking parish in particular, but you know, parishes are the only ones who struggle with this. Like they, they start strong and then they just kind of fade away. And I feel like what you're, you're trying to help people recognize is, there is a secret to developing lasting, growing evangelization efforts that don't fade away. So, I just want you to kind of dive into that. Like, how do you actually do that? Like, what is the, you know, holiness and apostolate? How do you develop a lasting and growing evangelization movement? 

[00:17:41] Peter: Well, it all rides on relationships, because you could think of it this way. Um, another way of thinking about holiness is holiness is simply the priority of re the prioritization of relationships in the first case.

[00:17:57] Jim Jansen: Oh, oh my goodness. Say that again. 

[00:17:59] Peter: Yeah. Holiness is the prioritization of relationships. The ordering of relationships correctly. So, there's a, there, there's a hierarchy of charity, right?

So, um, yes. First of all, it's the prioritization of, of God. Um, and, and then those who are closest to you and, and then it, it, it goes forward from there. And for those who work in a parish, for pastoral workers, pastoral professionals, they must prioritize relationships with parishioners. Because working for the parrot, working for a parish, being a pastoral professional, depending upon the position is a form of ecclesial governance.

Okay. Um, so what that basically means is, so there's, there's the threefold munera, there's priest, prophet and king, right? The sanctifying office. The teaching office, and then what's that royal office? What's that all about? Right? Well, it's ecclesial governance. Basically, what that means is people tend to wrongly reduce it to the administration, the administrative aspect, but really governance is, is all about, is all about creating the conditions and maintaining the conditions for the, for the prioritization of relationships, primarily with God and then with each, with each other.

And so, this is the ordering and organizing of charisms. And so, what that means really is that pastoral workers need to prioritize building relationships with parishioners and shepherding them. So, this is what Pope Francis talks about with the, with accompaniment, like the art of accompaniment there.

This is the one thing when he says in everything the parish does, it ought to You know, to form its members to be evangelizers. You can't just do that like en masse through big programs. What did Jesus do? Jesus, he did some of that, but primarily he spent time with 12. And when you think of any founders of movements of renewal in the church, the saints, what did they do?

They started living way of life and they. They attracted a small group of people together with them and, and those people were sent, and they did the same thing. And so, it's, it has to be relationships, has to be relationships. 

[00:20:16] Jim Jansen: So, help us like kind of bring this to life. Like what is it? What does it concretely look like, you know?

Let's say a typical suburban parish. How do you how do you help create the? Conditions for Love of God and love of neighbor to flourish? 

[00:20:36] Peter: Mission flows from communion and you could say it by analogy in like the business world culture each strategy for breakfast. Okay. Yes. So we tend to rely in church world on pastoral plans and creating all these like three and five year plans with clear entry points and things like that.

And we in doing that, we tend to subordinate people to curriculums and timelines. And we, and you know, moreover, we can't just predict how the Holy Spirit's going to act in people's lives. So what we need to do really is start small, like a mustard seed, right? And so the best thing to do is if you have this on your heart, let's say you're a pastor or a parochial vicar or a pastor.

A pastoral worker or just anyone, right? And you want to, you want to just start a movement of renewal. It has to start with a mustard seed. It begins with you. That sounds cliche, but it's true. It begins with God in you. Okay. And then invite a couple people, a handful of people into community with you for a pastor or for a pastoral worker.

This could be a few people within your circle of influence who think and feel the same way as you do. So there's a principle at work here. People receive things according to their disposition. So that which is received is received, received according to the mode of the receiver. Who are the lowest hanging fruit?

Who are the people who are chomping at the bit? To live holiness, to evangelize, to, to, to change themselves and to, mm-Hmm, change the world around them and form a small community. Um, this is what we do when, when we work with parishes. We provide a curriculum that's calibrated, uh, for the lay vocation. So it's lay formation, formation in the heart, and habits of missions, formation in prayer, in community and mission sacraments.

Uh, and we get. A small group of people, just one at first together to live community for a few months. And that community provides a sort of a stable foundation to support each other in ongoing apostolate. And so as a pastoral worker, you would get together with a few parishioners who are, want to live their faith and share their faith more effectively, or a few other Of your co workers and at a certain point, communion kind of needs to burst forth in mission at this point, what basically it has to happen is you have to have conversations about life, growth and mission to start talking, you have to change the conversation.

Oftentimes when we have like small groups together, it's like talking about our relationship with God and maybe our vocation to our family or to work. And that's fine. That's great. It's life and growth, but we have to add into that conversation.

[00:23:30] Jim Jansen: How do you do that? Because, because you're right. Like that's the missing ingredient. You're like, I can't tell you how many times people are like, you know, but I mean, both our backgrounds, small groups are such a big part of how we have seen the Lord move. And there are parishes who have, it's like, Oh yeah, we, we've got small groups.

You know, like this group has been together for 30 years. That's like, okay. I mean, and that's beautiful, but the missional element is often missing. How do you, how do you bring that in? How do you make sure that that's a part of, again, we're just talking at this point, small group culture, small groups, uh, that culture, how do you keep mission as part of the, the ingredients?

[00:24:17] Peter: So I would say framework life growth mission ought to be tattooed into everyone's brain as a framework for two things for spiritual direction. 

[00:24:31] Jim Jansen: Mm hmm. 

[00:24:32] Peter: And for like a small group. 

[00:24:37] Jim Jansen: So, okay. Now the tattoo is not the same again. It's not quite tattooed in my head yet. Life. Well, it takes a while. Yeah. Uh, and mission.

[00:24:45] Peter: Okay. Life, growth, mission. So I would say in the, in the, in terms of spiritual direction or spiritual guidance, this, this is probably, I would argue one of the biggest missing pieces from spiritual direction. If you either go to spiritual direction or are a spiritual direction director out there, please don't neglect to talk about.

Apostolate mission, because mission apostolate is not something extra or extraneous to our interior life. It is part of our interior life because it is the radiation of love. Yeah. If I'm not growing in apostolate and in mission, I'm not growing in holiness. It's just not going to happen. Yeah. How can you love God whom you've never seen if you don't love your brother who you have seen, right?

That's first John, I think. 

[00:25:37] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:25:38] Peter: So, so that's like step one. So, so you asked the question, how do we, how do we do this? How do we like excite people for mission or how do we form people in mission? Well, it comes down to spiritual guidance, spiritual direction, or if you're a pastoral worker, pastoral accompaniment, mission must become part of the conversation.

Always. How are you doing in that? How are you? And if people don't know, you have to ask questions like, Well, um, who are, are there maybe three or four people who are on your mind more than others? Um, but just help people to take stock of. The people in their lives help people to make lists, to pray for people, to mortify for people, to create little action plans.

[00:26:19] Jim Jansen: Right. Like to see your neighbor. I mean, love of neighbor. You think about like the Good Samaritan story. It starts with just seeing your neighbor. 

[00:26:26] Peter: Totally. 

[00:26:27] Jim Jansen: And then you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pray for them and I'm going to let my heart be moved with compassion and, and, and then I'm going to step out and serve them.

Yes. And some of that service, of course, some of it will, you know, might be physical, uh, like corporal needs, but the greatest needs that any, any of us ever have is to be loved, to know the Lord, right? All of like what we would call classically the spiritual works of mercy. I love it. I appreciate your saying that, Peter, because it's so often missing.

And, you know, I don't get to spend as much time in kind of the original sources and some of the, the theology of it as you do. But as I read, you know, uh, Vatican II, the universal call to mission and the universal call to holiness are inextricably linked. Inextricably linked. You can't have one without the other mission without holiness is totally unfruitful and holiness without mission Ends up being kind of a false shell even when and especially When your personal mission is a more kind of saint therese carmelite.

She didn't go anywhere Except for that. Her heart was everywhere her prayer her sacrifices were It encompassed every mission in the entire world, uh, which is, you know, why a little French, French girl who never left the convent can be co patron of some missions. 

[00:27:55] Peter: I think it was John Paul II's, uh, first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis.

He said something like, man is the path of the church. Okay. Uh, Gaudium et spes begins with, you know, the joys, the hopes, the fears, the anxieties of the men of this age are that of the church. And if, if we've been, if we've been immersed into the life of Christ such that it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, I have to be obsessed with the same things that he's obsessed with.

And he was obsessed with two things, his father and you and me. 

[00:28:27] Jim Jansen: Oh, that's so good. What preoccupied Jesus? Dad and me. 

[00:28:34] Peter: Wow. And taking notice of people. I mean, there's, in, we have this little worksheet that we, that we give out every once in a while. It's, it's called an exercise in noticing. And it just basically asks questions about the people in your life.

Right. So like, You know, what's, you know, think of one or two people, can you name their favorite color? Can you name their best friend? Can you name the shows that they're watching right now? Things like that. Like I think it was St. Jose Maria said one time that love consists primarily in understanding people.

[00:29:06] Jim Jansen: Oh, that's really good. 

[00:29:07] Peter: Because if you can understand someone, you can truly give them the best of yourself and you can truly give them the good and you can customize it. to their likes and dislikes and needs. Uh, so, um, so for all you spiritual directors and directees out there, include apostolate mission.

And then even with your small groups, you know, include that part of the discussion as part of your, part of your small group or just group of friends. Hey, how's our apostolate going? Who's who's in our minds and even help each other to set resolutions, um, to, to, you know, next time we get back together, let's all have five people on a list.

That we can pray and mortify for. Yeah, whatever. 

[00:29:55] Jim Jansen: Yeah, it changes things. Like it just opens up a whole new horizon. So I would say for those listening who are part of small groups, leading small groups, participant, whatever. And you're like, ah, you felt it kind of lose momentum. You felt it kind of, it's like, I mean, try mission.

It's probably the spice that's missing. And it really, it really changes things. It just opens up whole new horizons for conversation, uh, for the Lord to begin to do things in you and then in the group together, it really is fantastic. And, and frankly, I feel it's, it's often why some of the groups. Fade away and stop because it's just not, it's not really doing it anymore.

And it's not that the material was bad. Everybody's like, well, you know, what's the next book? And it's like, I wasn't, the problem wasn't the material. The problem was that mission was missing. 

[00:30:53] Peter: There's an existential battle, uh, that's involved with, with apostolate, with mission. If, if we don't engage in it, if we don't become intentional with it, we will, we will experience a vague blah ness to our life.

I had a professor one time who said, a theology professor who said, the antidote to boredom is to jam as much love into everything you do as possible. 

[00:31:28] Jim Jansen: That's great. 

[00:31:30] Peter: And so, you know, boredom in our faith can, people can get bored in their faith. Um, we're not immune to it and, and, um, we are. Okay, so get a little philosophical here.

We are, in a certain sense, our own efficient cause. In other words, what that means is, by acting in a certain way, we create in ourselves a propensity for further action in that way. And we forge a new identity in ourself. Someone who lies a lot actually becomes a liar. They forge the identity of a liar in themselves.

Well, in love, that same thing is true. As I love, I have a new identity forged in myself. I become more loving. And love is the only thing Divine love is the only thing that is, that is its own reason that has its own reason for existence. If you want to develop a sense of adventure and life in, in your, in your faith life, begin to engage more intentionally in apostolate and do it together with a group of people, with a small group of people, because iron sharpens iron, right?

[00:32:36] Jim Jansen: I mean, isn't this, well, okay, iron sharpens iron as one man sharpens another. I mean, isn't this, like, because it is so often missing, I mean, it's not the only reason, but that's why men are so disconnected from the church. It's why they're bored. 

[00:32:56] Peter: Totally. 

[00:32:57] Jim Jansen: Because the sense of mission has almost completely evaporated in many of our, many of the ways that we do church.

And you, you bring it back in and like, man, okay, now this is something as a man, I could give myself to. Totally. Totally. 

[00:33:14] Peter: Yeah. As guys, we have this, we have this, this desire for like action and going forth. And that, that's a beautiful, wonderful thing now to be, to be clear, we do have to protect in the article.

I go into this, the ontological priority of holiness. 

[00:33:32] Jim Jansen: Okay. No, that's good. I want you to do that. Yeah. Like, let's go there now because. It's like, right, if I can summarize what we just said, like Peter says, love people, right? When we love, love God, love neighbor, you know, life is better. Okay. Yes. But it's, it's not that easy.

They're right. There's some pitfalls. We easily get ourselves confused and turned around. There's some pitfalls. One of those is we forget the priority of holiness. Let's just jump into there. What are some of these pitfalls? 

[00:34:01] Peter: So, first of all, there's an ontological priority of holiness. That just means a priority of being, right?

So, operation, the activity of a thing always flows from its being. When something acts in a way that's not proper to its being, that's a problem, right? That's disordered activity, okay? So, I don't know, to use maybe a crass analogy, like, Like if I were to pee on a fire hydrant, that would be a problem because I'm not a dog, right?

[00:34:32] Jim Jansen: That operation, I thought you were going to say that. 

[00:34:34] Peter: So yeah, yeah. That operation does not follow from my being. Right. So, so holiness is the being, okay, it's, it's, we, we become one in Christ and now the apostle has to flow from that. So there's, there's a ontological priority of holiness, which means that we always have to be feeding our being.

So this is the, there's the vertical priority, the priority of prayer, sacraments, and study always. Okay. It's the vertical dimension. So there's a vertical and a horizontal dimension to this. Okay. If, if you take away the vertical, you don't have a cross beam, it just, it's laying on the ground. Right. But if you have the vertical beam that holds it up, and now you have the cross, right?

The love is always in the shape of a cross. If you don't have the horizontal, you just have, you don't have a cross either, or sorry, what did I say? If you don't have the horizontal. You don't have a cross either, right? So when we forget about the priority of holiness, there's a number of things that take place.

One thing within the individual. Okay. When I forget about the priority of holiness. I become an activist and, um, I'm going to, I'm going to burn out. I'm going to annoy the people who are around me. There's no, there's no end game. Um, I'm, I'm going to be, uh, this is in the soul of the apostolate. This is kind of analogous to the heresy of works.

In a ministry setting. So if you're a pastoral worker, when we, when we forget about this priority of holiness, we tend to flip means and end, which means that we tend to. So in other words, the person who's right in front of me. Okay. If I, let's say I'm the pastoral worker and you're Joe parishioner. Okay.

If I forget about the priority of your holiness, Okay. I'm inevitably and inadvertently, I suppose, going to end up treating you like a means to some further end. You're going to become a volunteer. You're going to become a cog in a wheel. I just need you to do this thing, whether it's what God is calling you to or not.

`Right. Right. Yeah. Even if when you spell it out, that would grind against every fiber of my being, even if that would be the case, it's going to happen because, because I'm not focused on you as an end. As a being, right? And, and I need to primarily focus on your holiness because also from your holiness is what's going to flow forth your apostolate.

[00:37:09] Jim Jansen: Right. So this is where, right, practically burnout, people are like, ah, I'm setting aside my own prayer time, my own, you know, time in the sacraments. Those things are, are getting either second You know, second billing in my day, or they just disappear altogether somehow because I'm finding more adrenaline or more, you know, external affirmation in doing this stuff.

[00:37:39] Peter: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Totally. And it's, it's rudderless as well. It becomes rudderless. You're just doing stuff, right? Yeah. The other danger here. So, so that's. That's, that's one danger of, of not maintaining this ontological, the priority of being, okay? The other danger is we tend to think that instead of treating holiness as ontologically prior, we tend to treat holiness as chronologically prior.

[00:38:10] Jim Jansen: Keep going. This is the favorite thing you had in your article because it's so good. 

[00:38:15] Peter: This is where we're always asking the question, well, when is people going to be ready, right? When are people going to be ready to do it? As well, what's their, what's their holiness score. Let's do an assessment. Totally.

Right. And then, and then we try to play around with all these things like creating pathways and creating like certification programs and certificates. Look, Our, you and I already have a certificate. It's the character of confirmation and the character of baptismal certificate. Yep. Yep. In the interior certificate of, of the character, the seal.

Again, I, I'm not, I don't want to diminish the helpfulness of certain certification programs and things like that. But that's, that's for something else. That's like, that's, that's good. Now we're getting into more professionalized ministry, which the vast majority of Catholics won't be called to it. 

[00:39:13] Jim Jansen: And like, we're not against it. That's us. Like, you know, we're, we're, we're fans, but I love when you go after this because do you remember, I'm not going to get it exactly right, but Pope Francis enjoy the gospel, you know, says, Like long training and extensive formation programs are not necessary for people who have truly encountered the Lord to begin to share him.

It's a little bit of a, I think a gloss, I don't think I got it exactly right, but that is certainly the sense of what he says. And man, that's hard. Because for a lot of people, there is this, I think, confused chronology. Where they think, okay, somebody has to be right at like St. Teresa of Avila's, they got to be in the third mansion and they've got to be, you know, they have to have this level of holiness and this habit in their life as though holiness Yes.

Would chronologically come first, when in fact, holiness and mission are, right, even though holiness is more important, they're, they're like, unfolding and developing at the same time. 

[00:40:26] Peter: Yes, apostolate exists to, or, uh, Happens to the extent that holiness exists. Okay. Now, again, we are temporal beings. So there are temporal dimensions to this, right?

So on the one hand, look, you can look at this like fire, right? So heat radiates forth from the flame. It happens at the same time as the flame. It's just how big is the flame? So how much is the heat going to, how much, how violently is the heat going to radiate forward from the flame? Right. That being said.

Like, okay, there's a certain amount of maturity. So let's get into ontological maturity. How do you know something in the order of being is mature? Well, maturity is evidenced by something's ability to reproduce. 

[00:41:18] Jim Jansen: Right. Mature apple trees just produce apples. That's right. They usually don't need to go through a training program if they're healthy and mature. Right. Here come the... 

[00:41:27] Peter: Right. That being said, there's There are, there are levels of immaturity, right? So yeah, so there's, there's, there's a little bit of dancing around to this. There's nuance to this. You don't necessarily expect, I would not expect someone who had kind of an initial conversion experience.

I'm not talking like the two by four over the head, kind of the conversion experience, but like a subtle conscience moment. Maybe they're on retreat for the first time in some years or they go to confession for the first time and they had this like a, like a conversion experience where, Ooh, something things are starting to look different for me.

I would not now expect all sorts of apostolic, I don't know, uh, waves of apostolic activity coming from this person. 

[00:42:19] Jim Jansen: In another way, it's proportional. So I'm thinking, right, most listeners know, right? I've got, I'm an amateur fruit farmer. I've got apple trees and pear trees now, peach trees as well. And like, literally, the first crop was like five apples.

And then the next year, it's like, Oh, cool. Now there's 20, you know, and they're just like, they continue to bear fruit. proportionally. And if it's not proportional, if I'm not pruning and, you know, and, and taking care of it, the fruit can easily break the tree if I'm not careful. 

[00:42:53] Peter: Totally. You said something really key there. You said something about you need to be taking care of it and pruning. Yeah. So, so herein lies the grave importance of pastoral workers. Yeah. And this is going back to kind of full circle ecclesial governance, right? Which is the ordering, organizing of charisms and vocations, the creating conditions for Christian flourishment and Christian maturity.

And so, um, So that's, it's important that we have to accompany people along the way and have those conversations of life growth mission for, for like a person who's, who's just experiencing the very beginnings of conversion and growth and holiness that person needs cultivating that person needs you to get together with them and talk about life because they have to live a unity of life.

They have to know that their secular life is not opposed. To their life of holiness. In fact, their secular life ought to be the matter that grace informs. Okay. Um, that's the stuff of their holiness. And so they have to develop this unity of life and they have to then talk about growth. What does it mean to grow in that?

And then mission it's a unity of life because we, I'm one person. I live one life only. I don't live two, three, four different lives. I live one life. Uh, and that life has to be filled with, with the radiance of God's. Grace. And so the, uh, the, the pastoral worker and priests have to have to work hard to always be helping people to develop this unity of life.

[00:44:34] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:44:34] Peter: Helping them mature and grow and gradually because there's a law of gradual this, right? I'm going to be God willing. I'm going to have a higher capacity for mission, you know, 10 years from now, then I, God willing, I don't know. Um, yeah, because we should be growing continually. Right. And in a certain sense, I should be more capacitated for fruitful apostolate when I'm 85.

Then now it's going to look different for sure.

[00:45:06] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Yeah, maybe less hours, but maybe the fruit will be all the more sweeter because God willing, those are going to be more love in it. Peter. Our time is totally flown here, but I want to give you a chance. You've seen so much around the United States. Your colleagues at the Evangelical Catholic really get a beautifully broad view to see this like Like come to life parishes that are evangelizing individuals that are living out of their personal apostolate.

Um, I just want to give you a chance to share some stories, share a little bit about what you've seen where this has come to life. 

[00:45:50] Peter: Oh boy. One young lady was, uh, over the course of. I don't know, months, years developed a relationship with her hairdresser and her hairdresser was, you know, living far from God.

And just over the course of months, years developed a friendship and trust curiosity, those thresholds kind of developed. And now this, this hairdresser and her husband and their entire family has come into the church. They're sending their kids to the parish school. And They're they're trying to make a go of it in their new cat.

Well, now it's not so new Catholic life. They've been Catholics for a few years now. Um, but that's just, is this, these are long things, right? This isn't like an overnight transformation. Sometimes it is. Uh, but it was, it was the, the long term perseverance of friendship that did it. No small group, you know, no, no parish program.

Uh, this wasn't a ministry of, of this young lady. This was, this was her apostolate. 

[00:46:56] Jim Jansen: Just some haircuts. At a certain point, it's clear. It's like, I think Jesus wants me to go in and get my haircut again, just so we can, just so we can visit. But that's the fruit of amongst a variety, I'm sure, of different, you know, manifestations of holiness.

It's patience, just staying with the conversation. 

[00:47:18] Peter: One of my favorite stories is there's one of the parishes that we advise a parishioner is a major airline pilot. He just discerned that his apostolate is the cockpit. And so talk about a captive audience. Like he, he has conversations with his co pilots with the, with the flight attendants and it has led to some of them, you know, disclosing, you know, like, Broken relationships with him and seeking guidance and, and it has in other circumstances is just led to just simple friendships.

Um, I think one of the, there, there was one of his copilots that went back to confession, went back to the church. Uh, so this is the, the, the stories are as varied and multicolored. 

[00:48:11] Jim Jansen: Mm hmm. As people, right? Every walk of life, every, but if we can start to imagine a parish full of individuals who are letting the spirit guide them into those conversations who are patiently for love of the Lord.

Laboring and for love of their, their neighbors, laboring in conversation day in and day out, patiently, they're loving people, uh, literally like back into relationship with God, Peter, if I just want to give you a moment, maybe as we close here, you know, those who are like, maybe they're a little discouraged, maybe they're feeling, uh, convicted to either begin again or Or to, to start evangelizing, to bring mission kind of back into their, uh, their plan of life.

Where should they begin? 

[00:49:08] Peter: With the Eucharist, I would say, um, Mass, uh, but you know, on maybe like a, uh, a more, I don't know, a more quiet level, I would just encourage those people out there who would fit this description. To um, spend some time in adoration and with a piece of paper and a pen or, you know, some notes app on your phone or whatever, turn on airplane mode though.

So you're not distracted. 

[00:49:44] Jim Jansen: That's great advice. Start on airplane mode. 

[00:49:49] Peter: Listing people, just write them down. Just write the names on anything, whatever comes to your mind. It might be the people who are closest to you. It might be just stream of consciousness might be just the people who are on your mind more than other others and just start asking the Lord like it just start asking Jesus.

You're right there face to face with him. Um, veiled that is ask him, you know, what? Why are you bringing this person in my mind right now? Why, why are, why are you inspiring me right now to write this person's name down? What do you mean? What do you want me to do about this? What do you, what do you want me to do about these people?

Maybe you focus on one or two of them and just start meditating about your relationship with them. Maybe you start meditating on the qualities of that person. What do I know about this person? Lord, um, what do I notice about this person? What do you want me to do? Um, how do you want me to be you for them when I go home?

Jesus, what are you doing and how can I help? I would recommend making that a regular practice of your prayer life. Um, maybe it's once a week, Maybe it's maybe it's twice a week. I don't know. I would say start with once a week, put it on your calendar that this, this holy hour or this holy half hour is dedicated to praying about and for people and make some come out of those with some resolutions.

[00:51:14] Jim Jansen: You know, I love it. 

[00:51:16] Peter: It's almost embarrassingly simple, but I mean, that's, that's what I would say. 

[00:51:20] Jim Jansen: No, it is. And you know what? But it's, it's so good. I mean, Pope Francis says, yeah, Almost as much a couple of times enjoy the gospel. He talks about contemplating God's people. He talks, he notices how full Paul's prayer is of people.

So like he gives us permission and I'll make a prediction. When you do this, these people are going to show up in your life. Like the same, the same Holy spirit that was, Bringing them to mind while you're there is going to bring them around the corner tomorrow. So just watch for it and let that be an encouragement to you that he has, like he's arranged this.

He has this in mind. It wasn't just an exercise in your head that he's actually, that's so good. He's inviting you to do something. 

[00:52:07] Peter: Yeah. People forget about that. Like, like as if we're the, the, uh, the primary agents of evangelization, right? We, we are definitely agents, but we are definitely secondary agents.

The same Holy Spirit that's, that is, that is inspiring you to write this name down is already working in the mind and heart to that other person and is, um, taking into consideration freedom and everything else is orchestrating all of time and space, uh, You know to have you two together in life together.

[00:52:35] Jim Jansen: So, um, it is so free. It's so freeing, right? It's like we could do a whole conversation, you know, uh about like, oh man all the insecurities we face as we Set out to evangelize or to to be more present more loving in people's lives, but half of that is Diminished and kind of fades away when we realize Okay The Holy Spirit must know what he's doing.

He apparently thinks I have something for this person, right? That there is something in me or at least, uh, something that he's doing in me that can be a gift. And so he, he, he match made this, I'm going to go for it and trust that he knows what he's doing. 

[00:53:19] Peter: Right. And, and quite possibly, if not, probably the things that you perceive as your weaknesses might be precisely some of the things that are going to render your apostolate fruitful.

I mean, this is, this is like the, the, the law of St. Paul's apostolate. You know, he has, you know, three times I asked the Lord to remove this. This thorn from my side, and he says, my grace is sufficient for you, what he perceived as a limitation to his mission, um, quite probably, um, was, uh, was the condition for its fruitfulness and it's perfecting.

[00:54:00] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Oh, this is so good. Okay. We could talk forever. I just want to give you a chance. We mentioned the conference. Uh, I mentioned, you know, a couple of times the, the article in church, church life journal. We will, uh, link to that in the show notes. We'll, we'll link to the, uh, the evangelical Catholic, the whole organization there.

People can find information on the conference. Uh, Peter, how else can people connect with you? Uh, if they want to learn more about your work. 

[00:54:26] Peter: Yeah, just go to EvangelicalCatholic.org. That's our main website and everything, everything is there, right? So there's, uh, as you said, we've got a priest conference, priests for an apostolic age conference that's coming up in January.

It's going to be in San Antonio. And so it's a pro a conference for priests. Uh, we had one two years ago and it was awesome. Uh, this year we're partnering with CLI Catholic Leadership Institute, um, and let's see Father John Ricardo is one of our keynote speakers. Um, and it's going to be great. So we also have a podcast priest for an apostolic age podcast.

It's a podcast for priests. It's up on Spotify. So you can check that out. So I would just go to our website, check out the podcast. And we also have a podcast called the reach more podcast. You can check that out. It's on Spotify as well. 

[00:55:16] Jim Jansen: Nice. All right. We're going to link to those things. Peter, thank you.

Thank you for what you do. Thank you for your, uh, your labor for, for the church, your personal apostolate. Thanks for having me. All right, everybody, you know, somebody who needs to hear this. So I just encourage you, uh, take a moment, share this out with a friend and, uh, gather together with a friend and take Peter up on his challenge to just, uh, come to the Lord and to, to bring, bring those people in your heart and mind with you.

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