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If you’re looking for some fantastic books to add to your summer reading list, you’ve come to the right place! Joe interviews 11 Catholic creators and asked them which book changed their life.
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and I’m actually here at the Catholic Creator Conference, and I was thinking as we get near to the end of summer, some of you’re going to have a little bit of free time, maybe go down to the beach or the lake or somewhere where you might be thinking I should get something good to read. And I thought this would be a great opportunity to ask some of my favorite Catholic creators who you may or may not have heard of a book that was life-changing for them. So let’s start with you if you would please introduce yourself.
Guest:
Well, my name is Keith Nester and I’m a former Protestant pastor Catholic Convert, and I make videos on YouTube and all that kind of stuff.
Joe:
And where can people find you?
Guest:
Well, they can go to down to earth ministry.org and that’s down the number two earth ministry.org for my website. Or you can just search Keith Nester on YouTube and you can find me there.
Joe:
And what’s a book that has changed your life?
Guest:
I think the most pivotal book to me is the Fate of Our Fathers by James Cardinal Gibbons. That was the book that sealed the deal for my conversion. And I probably look through that book at least once every couple of years just again, because to me that was a book that spoke to who I was. He was writing to Protestants and in his time, which was in the early 20th century. And it’s so clear, it just punches you in the face, which is the kind of book I need because I’m not a real intellectual reader guy. I needed someone to just talk to me where I was. And that book nailed the Catholic apologetic to me in a profound way.
Joe:
Beautiful faith of our fathers, and it’s for anyone who may be coming from Protestantism or interested in Protestant, Catholic kind of questions and sounds very readable. Give me just an example of some of the arguments he gets into, and you don’t have to go super deep, but what kind of topics does he cover?
Guest:
Well, he covers the papacy, which I know you’re familiar with, and he talks about that and just a couple of chapters that are real easy to digest. And he gives specific examples of things like, well, why are there appeals to the Bishop of Rome if the papacy isn’t true? And he speaks to an audience that he knows is having these objections. So he talks about that. He talks about the can of scripture a lot, so things that people who are into apologetics are familiar with, but the way that he phrases that and the way that he puts that was something to a Protestant ears that really, it almost felt like he was anticipating everything I was going to say
Before I said it. He talks a lot about some of the stuff that you wrote in your book, Pope Peter, about why the Lord singles peter out, why the Lord calls Peter to this ministry, and he shows in the Book of Acts, for example, when Peter speaks, that shuts the debate down. And then how that decision was then carried out to all the other churches. So the way he talks was pretty amazing. One thing I thought was very interesting though, kind of in the light of one of the things that we deal with today with people that talk about the liturgy wars or whatever is he makes the case for why the church should still be using Latin and why that’s a good thing. Of course, then it got changed, of course. So I think it’s kind of funny, but it was just a great read. It’s definitely one that changed my life.
Joe:
Excellent. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Guest:
My pleasure.
Joe:
Thanks for joining. Thank you for having me. Introduce yourself and explain where we can find you or maybe can’t find you.
Guest:
My name is Max. I am the husband of the religious Hippie, and I made it such that no one can find me.
Joe:
You’re usually behind the scenes. I like being part of your debut. What’s a book that has been life-changing for you?
Guest:
Well, I’m going to cheat and I’m going to mention two, but I think there are two books that go really well together. They’re both books by St. Louis de Monfort, their True Devotion to Mary and Secret of the Rosary. And they were really impactful for me because they taught me about the necessity of devotion to Mary. I think it allowed me to enter more deeply into the mystery of our lady. And I remember when I first converted, I had a tendency to over intellectualize the faith and systematize it into a kind of philosophy reading that just allowed me to enter more deeply into the mystery. And yeah,
Joe:
The way he writes, people tend to either connect at a more emotional level like you just said, or they get really scandalized. And I like John Henry Newman’s Council, which I think was inspired at least in part by his own reaction to reading him, which is we don’t read love letters like police reports, and you don’t want to conflate the style of writing to say, wait, that couldn’t literally be true, but understanding the way it’s meant to be received. So did you read that as a Protestant or as a Catholic?
Guest:
Well, I actually converted from atheism.
Joe:
Oh, I’m sorry. I knew you were a convert. I didn’t know your backstory.
Guest:
Yeah, but I actually didn’t read those books until after I converted. But I remember our lady played a significant role in my conversion because I remember one time I was just having dinner with my mom and my girlfriend at the time, and I was just kind of talking to them about our lady and because at the time I was interested in Catholicism, but I hadn’t really committed to converting yet, and I was just talking about the beauty of the role of our lady and everything, and I just started weeping uncontrollably. It was absolutely insane. Wow.
Joe:
Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. That’s tremendous.
Guest:
Yeah. Thank
Joe:
You all. Well, that’s two good books people can check out. So first, please introduce yourself.
Guest:
Hi, my name is Evan Es. I’m a YouTuber and a proud Catholic.
Joe:
And where can people find you?
Guest:
Just Evan? August.
Joe:
Can you spell it? Just,
Guest:
Yeah. So it’s EVAN and then R, and then August.
Joe:
Perfect. And you’ve been blowing up on the internet, if you don’t mind me saying so.
Guest:
Yeah. Yeah, it it’s insane. Youve had some
Joe:
Pretty amazing, amazing stuff. So books would, or what book would you recommend people
Guest:
Yeah.
Joe:
That you’ve found just personally life changing. What
Guest:
Books have you written?
Joe:
No, no, not that I’ve written. Please don’t
Guest:
Do that. On a serious note, man, one book that really changed my life was Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I love that book. I love how CS Lewis just makes it so simple, makes it so easy to understand that literally any denomination you can watch it, read it, and I’m just blown away by it. I love CS Lewis’s. He’s great.
Joe:
And that particular series, I’m sure you know this, but it is adapted from radio talks, so everything is written in this extremely easy to read style because it was originally written to be listened to. So the prose is, it’s succinct and clear and it’s bracingly beautiful.
Guest:
Yeah,
Joe:
That’s an excellent choice. That’s one of my favorite books.
Guest:
Yeah, no, it’s great.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. That’s tremendous.
Guest:
Yes, sir.
Joe:
First do you introduce yourself?
Guest:
Okay, cool. Yeah, I’m Braden from the Catechumen. I run that YouTube channel dedicated to Protestant Catholic dialogue.
Joe:
Wonderful. And what is a book that you found personally life changing people might add to their summer reading list?
Guest:
I know it’s so hard to pick one book, but there’s this really good book from a really awesome, not really awesome, I’ll just say just an apologist. His name is Joe Meyer and he wrote this book called The Early Church was the Catholic Church. And I’m actually being serious. I was going to say, okay side. This is going to be a few other books, roses Among Thorns, St. Francis De Sales, really, really good devotional book. I went through that with my wife and it really helped me bridge the gap of being guilty for not having time to study as much and pray as much because we had a kid so couldn’t wake up early. And it’s crazy how applicable his advice is to people with who are their vocation is just the married life and having, just being among the lady. Right. So very, very good book. Sorry. We see
Joe:
That slowly. Can I throw a quick aside?
Guest:
Yeah, do it.
Joe:
St. John Paul, the first has a beautiful essay comparing Francis DeSales and Jose Maria Riva as Two Saints with a particular devotion to the lay apostolate. So yeah, your read of him saying this really, this hits home for a married person more than most spiritual writing. It is. It absolutely. It’s
Guest:
For, it’s so good. And it’s like if you’re trying to be faithful in a way that takes away from your vocation, from your time to your kids and your wife, that’s inordinate, then you’re not being faithful. So you have to have a balance there. But no, seriously, your book, the Early Church was the Catholic Church really helped me bridge the gap in my conversion. I had already made a lot of the pathway there on my own, but then when that book came out, I was like, okay, I got to read this. I’m coming from a Baptist perspective, and it seemed like a lot of the questions that you were addressing, baptism, the three tier church hierarchy, apostolic succession, that sort of stuff really resonated with me. And so it really helped me understand where we were getting that from the early church.
Joe:
Glory to God, I like being on the list with one of my favorite saints of all time.
Guest:
Francis sales. There we go. Yeah, basically kindred spirits right there. So good stuff. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, thank you so much. For sure. Alright,
Joe:
So first things first, can you introduce yourself and explain where people can find you?
Guest:
Yes. My name is Dom, do Maso. You can find me on YouTube. The Logos Project is the name of the channel, logos, L-O-G-O-S. And the channel revolves around the theology of Pope Benedict. Mostly other people too, but he’s kind of the main inspiration. So
Joe:
Beautiful. What’s a book that you’ve found personally? Life changing?
Guest:
Well, it’s going to be by Benedict.
Joe:
I was hoping it would be.
Guest:
Yeah, it’s a very nerdy book. It’s probably his most dense book,
Joe:
Which is saying something for Pope.
Guest:
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it’s called Eschatology Death and Eternal Life. It would take too long to explain why it changed my life, but
Joe:
It’s not the end of the world.
Guest:
Yeah, I mean, I was reading a lot of NT Wright years ago, and I love Nt Wright still, but he created a crisis in my way of understanding how Catholic tradition works with Greek influence on the Bible and on the church fathers. And Benedict really helped me in that book basically come to terms with that and understand it better. So I used to be very anti Plato, and thanks to Benedict, I actually developed a love for Plato, but he talks about so many different things, the soul communion, the Trinity life and death, and it was just like an experience of a read. And so it’s so prayerful,
Joe:
Beautiful
Guest:
And poetic, and I don’t think I’ve ever come to a book that’s risen to that level yet. So
Joe:
Yeah, I personally have found his Regensburg address to be one of the best defenses of the harmonious encounter between Christianity and Greek thinking.
Guest:
Yes,
Joe:
And it’s perfect, of course for the Logos Project where you take this term from Greek philosophy and it’s brought into scripture in an inspired way.
Guest:
Exactly. Yeah, no, that address I’ve read several times and every time I read it, there’s something new that comes out of it. It’s such a masterful address and it’s very personal. He’s just addressing the university based on his life as a student. And so all his theology is like that. It comes from his personal life. So it’s never like this cold science, it’s always a personal science, and that’s always drawn me to him.
Joe:
Yeah, you’re right. It is on the one hand, it’s very deep and someone’s even very dense, and it is always still extremely personal. He is never lost sight of his own standing as a person before their creator. Well, would you say that people who the Regensburg address are likely to also enjoy eschatology? Are they similar enough stylistically that
Guest:
Yeah, actually I think that a good summary of big chunks of eschatology would be his encyclical space. Alvy.
Joe:
Wonderful.
Guest:
That’s great.
Joe:
Okay.
Guest:
So I would say go read space. It’s more accessible. Eschatology is dense. I struggled through it in several areas, but if you’re up for it, it’s rewarding. It’s definitely changed my life.
Joe:
I like that you’ve given people kind of an easy mode and a hard mode and even easy mode’s a little bit hard.
Guest:
Yeah, no, absolutely. But he’s just such a wonderful man. I think he’s a saint, and it’s not just me saying this, but I think he’ll be a doctor of the church. I might be biased, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Okay, there you go.
Joe:
So I’ve heard many people say the same thing.
Guest:
Yeah, his writings are beautiful, and they’re meditative, they’re spiritual, and they’re very intelligent.
Joe:
And
Guest:
So that’s the motivation behind so many of the videos that the Logos project.
Joe:
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much. That’s a tremendous recommendation. You’re welcome.
Guest:
You’re welcome.
All right.
Joe:
First things first. Can you introduce yourself and where we can find you?
Guest:
Yes. So I’m Amber Rose, a religious hippie, and you guys can find me basically on any social media platform except for TikTok at the Religious Hippie.
Joe:
And you’ve already been proceeded by your husband who mentioned he’s kind of behind the scenes at Religious Hippie. So if people want to make that connection to say, oh, okay, I think we just heard about that channel a minute ago.
Guest:
Yes, yes. He does all my lighting and all my editing. Well, not editing, but he does all the crazy camera stuff too.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, what is a book you would recommend, particularly people who might be end of the year or end of the summer, they’re going to have a little beach read or a lake read or something, and a book that you found personally?
Guest:
Yeah, the one that I’ve carried with me for the last five years is actually The Imitation of Christ.
Joe:
Oh, by Tom’s campus? Yes, yes,
Guest:
Yes. And I just have always loved that book because I felt like I was always, and this is just a personal opinion of mine, I had always been very soft on myself. I always gave myself excuses for sin. I always gave myself like, oh, God will forgive me. Oh this, oh that. And this book really put into perspective how horrible that mindset really can be and how much we hurt God during when we sin. And so for me, this book really put into perspective just how much we really do need to get sin under control, and we do need to basically just get our flesh under control in general. That book just calls me out so much. It’s crazy.
Joe:
I read somewhere that it was the second most copied, I think, second most printed book after the Bible in the medieval period. I
Guest:
Think
Joe:
I heard that too. It was just like this tremendously influential book of, and it’s written at a level that is pretty accessible. It’s a very popular book and yeah, very challenging book as well.
Guest:
Yeah, it just challenges you spiritually. And that was something that I didn’t have previously. Everyone always kind of just was like, oh, well, you’re just human. Oh, it’s just human. You mess up. But nobody was ever telling me, yeah, okay, it’s okay to mess up, but you have to make amends and not want to do that again. You can’t just presume God’s forgiveness. And that book really put that into perspective for
Joe:
Me, the difference between striving for greatness and falling short and not really striving for greatness at all.
Guest:
Yes, exactly. And it was so crazy because I found out that Thomas Keas wasn’t canonized yet because he was buried alive.
Joe:
This is a really dark story, but they buried him. And occasionally in this period, people made their best guess as to whether someone was dead. And the vital signs are very faint or seemingly non-existent heartbeat. You don’t feel any breathing. But when they went to move his body, they found claw marks on the inside of the coffin. And so they weren’t sure if he’d despaired or not. And so he was never canonized, but he has tremendously valuable spirituality. It is really a tragedy that this final mysterious battle that he faced, it’s
Guest:
Just unknown, plowed
Joe:
His legacy in that way
Guest:
Because it is
Joe:
Incredibly influential.
Guest:
He’s fantastic. He’s helped me so much spiritually, and I think that in itself kind of calls to his holiness and things of that nature. Of course, we can’t say for sure either way, but we also don’t condemn anyone to hell. So we can also just be like, oh, well maybe we’ll ask for his intercession and see if he maybe gets canonized one day. We’ll see.
Joe:
There you go.
Guest:
We’ll see.
Joe:
He seems like the kind of person a cause could be opened for.
Guest:
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. That’s what I’m thinking. Hey, you never know.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Guest:
Thank you, Joe. I’ll talk to you later.
Joe:
Alright.
Guest:
Alright.
Joe:
Well first things first, could you introduce yourself and say where we can find you?
Guest:
Yes. My name is Adrian and I run the channel Sips with Sarah on YouTube. And you can also find me at sips with Sarah on X Instagram, TikTok sip with sarah.com, all that good stuff.
Joe:
Wonderful. And end of the summer people might be looking for a good read. What’s a book that has changed your life,
Guest:
Man? So this book, actually, it came out a long time ago, but I think a lot of people are picking it up again. Atomic Habits not a theological book, but it has actually helped me in some spiritual aspects as well. So I can tell a little bit about the
Joe:
Book, please, please do.
Guest:
So it’s basically about how to form good habits and get rid of bad habits. So it’s very practical. You might not think of it in a spiritual sense, but what it helped me do was be more disciplined. At the time I was in college and I was terrible with managing time,
So it basically gave very practical tips. So some of the tips it gave were like make the things that you want to do more of that are better for you, easier to do. So if you’re like, I don’t read enough, well have your book out on your table, open to the last page you read or something like that so that it’s super easy for you to see it, remember to read and pick it up and sit down. Whereas things that are less healthy habits make those harder. So if you play video games too much, which I did at the time, take your PlayStation, unplug it, put it in the closet, and when you want to play it, plug it back in when you’re done, unplug it, put it back in the closet. So make there more steps to things like that. And then it also just taught me the value of doing small things and not worrying about making the maximum amount of progress in one sitting with something. If you want to be somebody who reads a lot, for example, we’re talking about books, maybe just read a couple pages every day and you don’t have to worry about, well, I only a couple pages, I didn’t read four chapters today, so I’m a failure. No, you’re making progress. And that’s way better than reading four chapters one day and then not reading for three weeks, which is most likely what happens if you try to over whatever you call it, overcompensate in one sitting for lack of progress.
Joe:
Going from sedentary to marathon runner isn’t the way you go from sedentary to doing a little bit of
Guest:
Walking
Joe:
And then maybe a little bit of jogging, a little bit of running.
Guest:
So that’s helped me a lot in spirituality. Some of the same principles apply. People are like, what should I do for my prayer life? And some people think that you’re not praying unless you’re praying for two hours every day. I wake up at 4:00 AM before the sunrise rises so that I could pray with the sunrise for three hours. And then you don’t have to do that. And if you set that as your standard, you’re going to fail because anybody’s going to fail that if you’re not a monk, and then you’re going to be discouraged and you’re just not going to do it at all. So it’s better to just pray. I’ve told people if you want to start praying the rosary, but you’re like, that’s kind of a big time commitment, which it’s really not, but I understand some people might feel that way. Just pray a decade. It’s what, three minutes, four or five minutes? Just pray a decade every day. That’s great.
Joe:
Yeah, baby steps.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Chester said that. And there’s a real sense in which we see the ideal as unreachable, so we don’t bother trying. And I think this is a great, and I might even pair your suggestion if you don’t mind, with the books, the Power of Habit and a book called Deep Work. Those three are kind of a trifecta where it just is really like, okay, you want to live a more virtuous life, you want to have better habits. Here are really practical ways, and you’re right that they’re not explicitly religious books because plenty of non-religious people also want better habits in their life, but they certainly matter if you’re someone striving to live a life of virtue rather than a life of vice or someone just trying to say, you’ve got these great goals for yourself. And maybe you look back over your summer and you say, I was going to read 10 books and I’ve read half of one. What are some ways I can change that moving forward? I like that. That’s a really good one. And I think there’s something very encouraging about the power and the efficacy of those baby steps.
Guest:
And then I was reminded of this recently because a friend of mine, Franco, I hope he won’t mind me saying that It’ll make him look good, don’t worry. He was telling me that he was going to adoration more often and it was really good for him. And I was like, yeah, I love going to adoration, but I just can’t commit to sitting there for an hour or something like that. And he’s like, why do you have to go for an hour? Just go for five minutes if that’s all it is.
Joe:
Yeah, exactly.
Guest:
Five minutes of adoration is better than no adoration. So go for whatever amount of time you’re willing to commit and then just leave at
Joe:
Least. And once you’re committed to five minutes and once it becomes really part of your habit and it’s no longer a struggle to do five minutes, 10 doesn’t feel like that much, and then you can kind of grow from there. But if you start with going from nothing to an hour and you feel like you failed during the hour, then you might give up and that’s worse.
Guest:
Right? Yeah, definitely.
Joe:
Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate
Guest:
You. Yeah.
Joe:
So first things first, can you introduce yourself and say where we can find you?
Guest:
Sure thing. So my name is Vanessa Blad for
Now,
In a few months I’ll be Vanessa Parrish. I’m that one Catholic girl, but I also do social media for you, Johs Ma, shameless Ri, and also for the Council of Trent.
Joe:
If anyone’s ever been part of the YouTube live streams and they’ve done q and a and they put in a super chat and you wonder how did Joe find all those super chats Without scrolling through the chat, you’re the one doing behind the scenes work.
Guest:
That’s me.
Joe:
So end of summer, a lot of people are going to be going to the beach or the lake. They might be looking for a good summer read. What would you recommend as a book that has changed your life?
Guest:
So I was thinking about all of my favorite books, and so I had to single it down to one, and it’s one that changed my life, and it’s why we’re Catholic by Trent Horn. Wonderful. And I was like, do I bring this up to Joe? Because I’m like, I do stuff for Joe and I do stuff for Trent. I
Love Trent.
I know me too, but Wire Catholic really changed my life. I found my first copy of Wire Catholic at the thrift store and I fell in love with it. It’s probably the first book I read cover to cover. And after I found that book, I set out to find every copy of why we’re Catholic so I could give it to everyone I knew and I started collect. And honestly, I would find a lot of copies of it, which I don’t know if that’s a good thing to say that I would find a lot of them at the thrift store and I would collect them so I could give them to people, and I just started collecting them and not giving them to people. So I have probably upwards of 20 copies.
Joe:
You’re a very specific type of hoarder. So
Guest:
What
Joe:
Is it for those who may be aren’t familiar with the book, what is it about the book that is so and so impactful? I guess we’ll say.
Guest:
So I’m a cradle Catholic, but I don’t think I really understood the beauty of our faith until I got into my late teen years. And that book explained the faith in a way that I never truly understood. I found this through various authors and various people in the faith where parts of the faith resonated with me through various speakers. For example, pop 16th explains the faith in a way that I understand that other people I don’t understand. And for some reason, the way Trent explains the faith just resonates with me. And so when I read that book, I understood the faith in a way that I never understood it before. And so I’ve always felt like that book would also have that impact on other people. So why it’s just so close to my heart,
Joe:
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention for people who want to get bulk copies of this book, you don’t actually have to go to all of the thrift stores in Las Vegas. You can also go to shop.catholic.com and for pretty cheap, you can get a set of 20, I think, and give them out to friends and loved ones who might also be looking for a book on why they’re Catholic or why they should be Catholic.
Guest:
Yeah,
Joe:
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Vanessa.
Guest:
Well thank you so much, Joe.
Joe:
Alright, first things first, can you introduce yourself and tell people where they can find you?
Guest:
Yeah, my name is Javier. You can call me Javi. My channel on YouTube is just a Catholic, and I do a lot of nice content there where I’m sort of elucidating things and trying to just be a representative of the Catholic faith and sort of share and work alongside my formal education, which I’m trying to get through right now.
Joe:
Wonderful. So what’s a book that you’ve found that’s just been life changing that maybe people should pick up a copy of?
Guest:
Okay, so I’m going to go off the
Joe:
Road. Oh yeah, that’s right. You told me you were going to cheat on this
Guest:
One. I’m going to cheat. So I’m not going to give you a book that you should read. What I’m going to do is I’m going to perhaps give you a way of how you should read some of those life-changing books.
I can’t really say that I’ve ever watched or read or seen anything just like a single object in a totality which really gave me anything life-changing. It’s interesting, most of the life-changing moments that I have are in a single phrase, a single sentence, maybe a paragraph, one thing that I see or hear that changes my life in the sense that it strings together all of these things, all these pieces, which the Holy Spirit has led me to. And it led me through it puts it all together. What I’m going to give is a letter, it’s not a book, but a letter, a personal letter that was written to me. It was at the end of my first year of high school, this class where there was a bunch of upperclassmen. I had this one person in there that I also had an orchestra, and she just seemed to be such a joyful person.
So kind and smart, just someone that I really looked up to. This person was a role model to me. And at the end of the year, she gives me a letter and the letter was talking about what she appreciated about me, also giving me criticism, the way I was, the way I acted, how I carried myself in a way that was arrogance and that was sort of lording over others and how I should perhaps maybe think about that and reflect on that so as to become a better person and to be more palatable to other people. So I really wasn’t arrogant. I was a bad person at that time, to be completely honest.
Joe:
You were a 14-year-old. I mean,
Guest:
I was something, but I don’t know what I was, but was a bad little kid. I was a bad child. And that letter I think just changed my life. I respected this person. I had that charity with their, that was a fraternal correction that I was given. And it really helps me to realize the way I act towards other people is under scrutiny and that I can’t just not care about other people, not care what they think about me. That letter, it helped me to want to reform myself and to be cognizant of the way I act towards others and the way that I understand my relation to other people. And I think that that was what really set me down the path of my conversion because it opened me up to consideration of morality and how to be a good person for everyone who is looking to books to things that they want to read. Perhaps not look to any one book to change your life, maybe because that book that you read probably isn’t going to be the one, it isn’t going to be the one that gives you the answers because I’ve struggled with this constantly
In my vocational discernment, these feelings that I’m balancing and I just want to find the answer. I want to read something perhaps that’ll give me the answer. And oftentimes no individual book is going to give you the answer.
Joe:
And if I may add to that, the thing that was life-changing for one person may not be life-changing for another, which I think is an important kind of caveat, frankly, to this whole episode and the whole idea, you can often find great benefit from what somebody else benefited from, but there’s always something so personal about it. That letter was addressed to you, and there are things in your life that are meant for you, and they may not have the, you couldn’t just hand that letter to someone else and expect it to change their life. And so recognizing God can put things in your life for you, and you can’t just generate that for yourself.
Guest:
Perhaps. I don’t get it now. I’m not entirely sure where this is going now, but to appreciate all the time that you hear that little voice speaking to you in one day. Perhaps it’ll all
Joe:
Click, you know what, you were cheating, but it’s still pretty encouraging.
Guest:
Thanks
Joe:
A lot. I appreciate
Guest:
That. Yeah, no, appreciate it. Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah, absolutely.
Joe:
Alright, well, first things first, could you introduce yourself and actually maybe share your connection to this channel for those who don’t know?
Guest:
Sure. Okay. I’m Michael Caprice. I was a full-time YouTuber, but also do editing support, things like that for shameless, popery,
Joe:
Thumbnails, titles, all that stuff.
Guest:
So
Joe:
Yeah, a lot of the visual aesthetic, you’re the brands behind all that.
Guest:
My choice for a book that changed my life was Mother Angelica’s biography. So if you remember when I first applied to Catholic Answers to Be yours and Trent’s editor, and that interview was awesome. And then Trent’s Stone Cold Face bothers me to this day. I don’t like not being able to read people so much.
Joe:
He has a great job interview stoic face where he’s not going to give you any clues. It is terrifying. Yeah,
Guest:
He would run the table in poker, but I wound up not getting the gig, but I did get an email from John Sorenson saying like, Hey, let’s stay in touch. I mean, he really liked me, so that made me feel good. But I was also profoundly disappointed and I had just gotten done in between the interview and getting the rejection email reading Mother Angelica’s book because
Joe:
Is this the one by Raymond Dero?
Guest:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I had just gotten done reading that, and what struck me the most was this absolute abandon to faith. Many people don’t realize while she was alive, EWTN never had a budget. She was told by God to do something that we would say is insane, crazy
Joe:
Impossible, even. Yeah.
Guest:
Yeah. It’s like, oh, we’re going to have a TV dish show up and they don’t have the money to pay for things and magically in quotes, but through the Lord.
Joe:
Yeah, miraculously, really.
Guest:
Yeah. The money shows up to pay for the things that the Lord wants her to do.
Joe:
And always seemingly in the 11th hour when everybody else around her is ready to say, we’re toast. We’re doomed.
Guest:
Yeah,
Joe:
We’re cooked.
Guest:
And you want to talk about a test of faith, an actual abandon to it. She did not ever worry. She never doubted. She asked really hard, probably sweated a bit, but that was such a shining example to me of how you should live your Christian life. But especially as a creator, having been a creator for as long as I was, I was afraid to let go of what I had been doing for years because I was afraid it was all going to go away from me. And it was another reminder that it’s not mine. If the Lord wants me to have it, he’ll give it to me.
Joe:
And then he did.
Guest:
I have never been this fulfilled in my entire life, and I was a literal dream chaser, and I’ve never been this fulfilled.
Joe:
I am thrilled to hear it. I didn’t ask you to say that on camera, but next time if you want to raise, I’m just going to be like, oh, we’ll just play this clip and be like, well, Mike Gurdy is fulfilled. How can we possibly improve on that? But in all seriousness, I think that’s tremendous. I remember that book was tremendously influential in my own life, and I don’t even remember why I picked it up. I sort of knew who Mother Angelica was when I got it. I mean, this was years and years ago, and for some reason I just felt it was important to get it. I remember it was at the it pist Pauline Bookstore in Alexandria, Virginia, happened to see it there, picked it up and was riveted by it. And it’s very well written and the stories are just incredible.
Guest:
Oh yeah, I did get the audio book version. So Raymond Del Royo does all of these voices of lady nuns. That’s a little takes you out of the moment for a bit. So fair warning to anyone who gets the audiobook. But yeah, it was amazing.
Joe:
It’s an easy read too. I mean, you won’t be too daunted getting it and hard back.
Guest:
Oh yeah, not at all.
Joe:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Guest:
Absolute honor.
Yeah.
Joe:
Alright, so first things first, can you introduce yourself and say where people can find you?
Guest:
Yeah, my name’s Sam Rodin. I run the Channel Master Samwise on YouTube. I have a Twitter account technically, but they pretty much find me on YouTube making videos about stories that I find interesting. Sometimes stories that I find are told poorly and how you could tell them better. But mostly focusing on stories and the characters and themes within them specifically that move us in various ways.
Joe:
I was struck, so for those who weren’t able to make it to the Catholic Creators Conference, you gave a beautiful talk yesterday on the power of story, and it’s a good reminder. I mean, our Lord does so much of his teaching through
Guest:
Stories,
Joe:
And it just is incredible way of reaching people. So you seem like the obvious person to be the pinnacle of the question of what should be on the summer reading list and what was personally life-changing for you?
Guest:
How many people have already said Lord of the Rings?
Joe:
No one?
Guest:
No. Okay. Well then I’ll say, well, Lord of the Rings, but the name channel, name Master Sam was obviously the premier example. So I first encountered Lord of the Rings. My parents had us listen to the audiobooks when I was, I think starting at seven, eight years old. And that was right when the movies were coming out.
So I think I actually watched the first movie before we finished the first book, and then we proceeded to listen to the rest of the trilogy before the two towers came out in theaters. And I can’t say they changed my life then I think they really started to take hold on me and I always liked them. But the books really started to take hold on me in college when I had the opportunity to take a seminar, so small class 12 or so students where we read the Lord of the Rings and we discussed it. And ever since then, I’ve really loved it, read it several more times. And now I have a YouTube channel where that is one of the main stories that I focus on,
Joe:
If I may jut in with a shout out to book club, because most people can’t do seminars now of just saying, how do I get a group of people? But if you have a few friends, particularly in person where you can just say, okay, we’re going to go through this book and we’re basically the same reading pace, and we’ll get together every now and then and maybe have some wine and cheese talk about the book. It’s such a deeper way of appreciating the stories sometimes than just reading it in isolation.
Guest:
And Lord of the Rings needs that. So people will say, oh, I know Lord of the Rings. I’ve even read the books. No, you don’t. I I think I do, but I know I don’t mean Thomas Graft just ambushed me with, here are the 10 quotes, Lord of the Rings versus Bible. I think I got four or five. I was like, oh my goodness. I don’t know either of these books as well as I should. Clearly I
Joe:
Was similarly embarrassed, but on the Bible side.
Guest:
And so it’s one of those things where this is not just a novel.
This is the product of decades of work by a man who was thoroughly devoted to the love of language and the power of it, and just the power of song in particular, which comes through very clearly in Lord of the Rings. And you see the depths of Tolkien’s world building in instances such as where there’s one scene where leg loss hears the cry of the gulls, seagulls. And he in that moment finds a longing in his heart for his homeland, for valor, which had never been there before. And he hears that and he’s like, I know I need to go there now. This will not go away because the cry of the birds is a form of music.
And music is how this world is created in Tolkiens mythos. And that’s so cool because music has this transcendental power in our world even. And so Tolkien just takes that to a whole other level. This is how the world was created, is through discordant music that hor tried to ruin things essentially. And even how it manifests in nature through the seagulls, it has this incredible power over our hearts. The wailing of the nozzle is described as kind of a dissonant, unearthly, high note. So all those little things where you read Lord the Rings, you’re like, oh, oh, oh,
Joe:
Yeah, it’s so good. Okay. Well, I think you’ve sort of given an answer to this already, but I know some people will just say, I don’t really do fiction. Can you make a case for why it’s not a waste of time to read and enjoy fictional works?
Guest:
So my best answer is you just should read on fairy stories by jr. He’ll probably give a better case than I ever could. But essentially, I was just talking about this with another conference attendee. We were talking about the movie Terminator two and how the Terminator or the T 800 Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character embodies a great number of virtues. And the argument would be against that would be, well, he’s a machine. He’s just programmed that way. Okay, well, any fictional character is just written that way. He still embodies those virtues. And you see characters in Lord of the Rings or any fictional story, and you look up to them, we look up to Aragorn, we look up to Luke Skywalker or whoever because of their courage, their perseverance, their hopefulness, et cetera, and like, okay, why do I care? He’s not real. He didn’t have to do this, but their virtue is real.
So I think Peter Craf puts it very well. I think that’s where I first really heard about him, heard about someone talking about this. I’m not a philosophy student by any means. So Peter creates the philosophy of Lord of the Ranks or the philosophy of token. I forget the title. He talks about how platonic ideals shown in story. That’s why, that’s what makes them real to us. So that courage still exists. We can still want to embody that courage, and it is very likely that the courage or the perseverance or just the selfless love that is shown in novels or in movies or video games for crying out loud, can be a higher height of virtue than we can see in our own world.
Joe:
Yeah, the fact that they’re fictional means that you don’t have to say, ah, but they’re still fallen. And yes, I like this thing, but this other thing, it can be a sort of uncomplicated relationship where they can just be heroes or just be villains.
Guest:
Yeah, virtue is virtue. I don’t really care if it’s fiction or nonfiction. It gives an example or it provides a
Joe:
Cautionary tale. Nobody hopefully listens to the parables of Jesus and says, oh, I don’t think that really happened. I don’t think a man really had a prodigal
Guest:
Son. That’s probably a much better counterpoint to it’s fiction. It doesn’t matter. Well, our Lord taught in fiction,
Joe:
Right? He uses fictional stories to tell true things, as you say. Beautifully put. Well, thank you very much. This was tremendous
Guest:
Of Thank you for inviting me on, Joe. I appreciate it.
Joe:
Absolutely. Thank you again to everyone who participated in this. Thank you to the people who put on the Catholic Creator Conference. Kyle and Drew did a tremendous job. Brooks has been doing everything behind the scenes. I asked him kind of last minute to run the cameras to do this episode we just experienced, and hopefully it gives you something to read, maybe something to meditate or pray on, or maybe a new appreciation for the things you’re already planning on reading this summer or as you move forward. For Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.