Youtube Interviews
In this episode of Roadmap to Heaven, host Adam Wright welcomes guest Father Jeffrey Kirby back to the show. The discussion revolves around Father Kirby’s book, Sanctify Them in Truth, which addresses challenges we face in a fallen world, with a focus on the experiences of parents sanctifying their children in truth.
Father Kirby addresses the significance of prayer in various aspects of life, including parents praying for their children and married couples praying together. Prayer opens the door to grace and has the power to transform relationships and vocations. He highlights the importance of preparing oneself spiritually before engaging in difficult conversations, suggesting going to confession and attending Mass to receive God’s grace and strength.
Father Kirby acknowledges the challenges of following Church teachings and addresses the delicate balance between teaching Church doctrine and supporting children through various life situations. They discuss the difficulty of addressing sinful behavior in loved ones while still expressing love and a desire for their salvation.
Fr. Kirby delves into the idea of living in the liturgy within the secular world. He shares a powerful story of a wife’s unwavering love and support for her husband caught in a cycle of addiction, highlighting the importance of standing up for the truth and loving others despite the challenges it may bring. This is the Christian perspective on love, which involves accepting suffering and loving those who disagree with us the most. They discuss the importance of holding to what is right and wrong while at the same time embracing those who struggle to live up to those standards.
Father Kirby stresses the importance of sacraments, fellowship, community, and grace in raising children with strong Christian values. He also encourages listeners to be actively involved in their parish and in the holy community that Christians are called to be a part of.
Overall, this episode of Roadmap to Heaven discusses the role of prayer, discipleship, sacraments, and intentional Christian parenting in sanctifying children and navigating the challenges of Christian parenting in a secular world.
Adam Wright:
It has been a while since Father Jeffrey Kirby has been able to be with us on the show in a conversation. Although Father, we’re grateful for allowing us to play some of your homilies from time to time, especially your Lenten series on prayer. It’s good to have you back with us, though.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
It’s good to be back. Good to see you. Thank you.
Adam Wright:
We have talked about this book, Sanctify Them in Truth, that you published. It’s a wonderful book discussing some of the social issues that we confront every day in this day and age, in the year 2023. And we are always happy to grow in those, but today, I really want to talk about the “them” in “sanctify them in truth”. I think we’ve talked about the “truth” before, and we’ve talked about sanctification, but I want to get to the “them” in this title. And as a parent, I see parents at my kid’s school at other Catholic schools, at other schools (public schools), that every day, their children are out there. I’d like to think that my children lead a nice sheltered life free from any scandal, but just in going through our neighborhood, going to the local ice cream parlor of all places, we encounter questions. Then all of a sudden, I have my kids asking, “Daddy, why is this and why that? And can we do this? And can we do that? What’s going on here?” And I thought, oh boy, this would be a lot easier if someone else could just set them straight, but the reality is, Father, I suppose at their baptism, I stood up before the Lord and said I would be their first educator in all of this.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. Absolutely. I’m so glad to hear you say that as a Christian husband and father. And I think that a lot of Christian parents have kind of lost that realization, or the commitment to intentional Christian parenting. So as you mentioned, sometimes parents will say, “Well, you know, my kids go to a good school, a Catholic school. I make sure that they’re involved in the right groups and sports and so on. And so everything must be okay.” But then they never really take those extra steps about, talking to the Lord, or teaching prayer, or explaining more issues, or having an arena where their children can ask the hard questions when they see things or hear things from their friends or in society.
I think that notion of intentional parenting is very important. And once that’s done, suddenly parents do have a lot of other questions, and I have found that such parents oftentimes are more willing to want to be taught. So, a parent’s busy and they have other things and not really taking the Christian aspect seriously in charge of their children’s Christian formation, any effort to teach by the church is just an annoyance. Right? Like, another meeting, another program… But once parents begin to actually take the faith seriously, they’re like, “Yes, please. Give us some programs and instructions and help us with resources to understand this and how to explain to their children.
Adam Wright:
So one of the things I guess that we really have to start with here, before we can do anything because this is not an academic exercise. This is not “let’s have a class even for ourselves or for the children on what does the catechism of the church teach?” This is about salvation, and we have to keep it in that framework. Do we want to be saints, or do we not want to go to heaven? You know, it’s either we want to go to heaven or we don’t. I would imagine that as a parent, it’s important for us to start in prayer: to really just start by praying for the grace we need to be parents, to be able to understand so that we can teach our children. How important is that starting block?
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. Essential. Absolutely essential. In fact, in Sanctify Them in Truth, every one of the chapters where I address all the difficult controversial issues, they conclude with a whole section on prayer. Because this isn’t about being right, or some type of triumphalism. This isn’t about being condescending. This isn’t about nurturing any type of tension with our neighbors or causing problems with people that disagree with us. At the end of the day, this is about trying to be good disciples, to be faithful to the way of the Lord. His teachings are true for all humanity. We know that He was the perfect one who was given to us. He models for us what it means to be a human being, what it means to be a child of God. And so we can look to Him as Christians, but also share His teachings with nonbelievers because it can help them, too. This is the abundant life. and it all begins in that discipleship and that prayer we have with the Lord.
You know, sometimes I think as Catholics, we forget that the graces of our baptism, the grace of the other sacraments, they prepare us in order to make what Pope Saint John Paul II called a personal decision for Jesus Christ. Now to tell you, Adam, I’m in South Carolina. And as soon as I start to use this type of language, the Catholics will say to me, “Oh, no. You sound like a Baptist.” Or “Oh, Father, are you a convert?” And so on. And I’m a cradle Catholic, right? But there’s a language that, regrettably, they only associate with Protestant Christianity. Whereas, let’s give due where it’s merited, the Protestant Christians – they’ve got this one right. That as Christians, as we mature and grow in the faith, there’s that time when we make that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We say, “I choose you, Lord.” We hear that call and we begin to draw closer to Him.
The sacraments are there in order to help us with that personal decision. And I think this separation where the sacraments become this kind of odd reality and process on one side, but then if there’s any sense of discipleship, it’s way on the other. And Christian formation somehow has been removed. It’s just sacramental prep. And sacramental prep becomes this weird, peculiar thing that’s freestanding as opposed to just one aspect of our discipleship. And the grace of the sacraments are meant to help us to draw closer to the Lord Jesus. Well, if you take away this idolship, then what do people think the sacraments are for? What are the sacraments giving grace for? They kind of just sit there. These aren’t cold ceremonies. These aren’t rights of passage. You know, these aren’t cherished heirlooms that are being passed down from one generation to the next. These are powerful sacraments – encounters with the living God, means of grace. And the way that we begin to nurture that relationship with the Lord is the sacraments, and the life of prayer.
So I would say to every Christian parent: pray. Pray for your children. And I’m not sure if you’ve had this experience in speaking with other married people: I’m shocked as a priest when I hear from married people, that they don’t pray together. In fact, I remember one couple telling me that they’ve been married for many, many years. They never prayed together. And it sounded odd to them. It sounded uncomfortable to them. These people who’ve been married now for many years, and it sounded odd and uncomfortable to them to pray together. But they heard some preaching, they said, “Okay, we need to tap into some more graces of our sacrament, of our vocation.” They reached out to their priest to ask for help, which I think is powerful. Amen. Great. Come, Holy Spirit. And they said, “We don’t know what to do.” I said, “How about this? Start by just praying together in the evening, one Hail Mary for each of your children. That’s it. As you become comfortable, hold hands, and pray one Hail Mary, for each of your children. Start there.” And they were like, “Okay. That’s reasonable. It’s a set prayer. It’s a little more comfortable.”
Well, I’m happy to report a couple of years later now. Fast forward, they are like prayer warriors, like, “This is great!” I was like, “Yeah, because you opened up all this grace of the sacrament! All that grace was there. And once you unleash it, you open the door just a little bit. Just like a crack, and the Holy Spirit kicked that thing right open. You know? And they’re living and thriving in a different way, in a whole aspect of their sacrament of vocation they didn’t realize. So those called to holy matrimony and those who’ve been blessed to be parents, I would say, God just gives you the grace to do it well. For the sacrament of holy matrimony, when a man becomes a father, a woman becomes a mother, that grace is given. So, Adam, I’m stopping this because I think you’re starting in the right way, but yes, it has to be a response first of prayer.
Adam Wright:
Well, and that’s something I think we can’t say it enough. That especially if you know you’re going to have, whether it’s with your children, whether it’s within your family, maybe it’s something happening in your extended family, at work, in your circle of friends, that there’s going to be a hard conversation. You know it’s coming up. Well, number one: go make a good confession. Even if it’s a devotional confession, go and make sure that you are properly disposed to receive Grace. And then if at all possible, if it’s a weekday, go to morning Mass or go to daily Mass, whatever time it may be near you. Go and make use of the grace that God is freely offering to strengthen us for this journey. I laugh because it sounds so simple, and yet we mess it up so many times. What is simple becomes incredibly hard.
I do want to come back to that in a little bit here, Father, but of the things that I also worry, as a parent sometimes I lose sight of, especially when my kids, in the van ride home from school, they start asking questions. “Dad, tell us about this. Dad, can Catholics do that? Dad, can people do this? Is this possible?” Is that, again, I go, “Well, the church teaches x, y, and z…” And we get into, very clearly, this is what the church teaches, but sometimes we get so fixated on that that we forget the accompaniment that comes with it. That “And by the way, living this teaching can be hard. Calling someone to holiness can be difficult.” Loving someone who, I think every one of us has a family member or a friend or acquaintance who is probably living in some sort of grave sin, obstinately, and we grieve, and we want them to get to Heaven. We want them to be free of this, but we have no idea how to start that conversation, and we don’t want to trouble the water. Teaching the children that “By the way, when you stand up for the truth, it’s going to be difficult. Loving people is going to be hard, but we have no choice. We must love them. We don’t have to love the sin. We do have to love the sinner.” And we need to prepare for that.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Amen. Yes. Absolutely. And first of all, I have to say, as you’re describing the dynamics between your children yourself, I’m just thanking God, because you’ve created an environment where your children feel comfortable, are able to ask you these questions. They know that Dad has wisdom. And I think by exercising your vocation as husband and father, you’re giving so much security and comfortability to your parents. We look in general at parenting and specifically fatherhood – fathers are made to look like imbeciles. They’re idiots. They don’t know what they’re doing. If they’re around at all. And I think the moral authority of the father is so essential, and I think as you describe your children asking questions and you’re trying to guide them in the truth and, and to help them understand that, yes, it’s gonna be difficult, but this is love. Love is the cross, love involves and accepts suffering. I think that has to be our task. And that is our difference. That’s why we’re not social conservatives. We’re not philanthropists. We’re not ideologues. We’re Christians. So even as we disagree with people, we love them. In fact, we’re called to love the ones that disagree with us the most. We’re called to love them the most.
So if we look at Acts chapter 17, when the apostles are preaching the gospel and Ephesus. The men of Ephesus come and they say to the righteous man, Jason, who’s providing hospitality to the apostles, they say to Jason, “Kick those men out of your house so we can beat them up, because they have turned our world upside down.” And I think that is powerful, that the gospel turns the world upside down. And really, the world’s fallen. So really, the gospel turns it right side up. And so we can look at that, that when we love, we’re trying to help people to understand and to see things right side up. We’re trying to help them to realize that and to come to want within themselves to live right side up.
I want to say from the beginning, as we talk about this, we respect the freedom of all. People can choose the path of sin and misery and self-destruction. We’re not going to force and coerce anyone. We’re not ideologues. We’re not activists. What we will do is speak the truth, and we will love, and we seek to witness that love so that it becomes compelling. And that’s, I think, the difference, as we speak about our Christian faith. How we can disagree with someone while also loving them. Yeah. I’d like to emphasize as well that as Christians were the first ones to hold what is right and wrong, and were the first ones to embrace those who don’t live up to what is right, or who are pursuing what is wrong. And to a fallen world that sounds opposite. It sounds like a paradox, because they don’t understand love. No, love means you agree with me. Love means you do what I want. That’s not love. Love is I’m going to speak the truth. I’m going to walk with you and I’m going to seek to bring out the good in you. That’s love.
Adam Wright:
I think of two things here, Father. One is a talk I heard at a men’s conference recently, and the speaker was talking about living in the liturgy versus living in the secular world. And referring to the book of Revelation quite often, when saying living in the liturgy. But he was telling the story of a husband who, his wife comes home – I can’t remember if she came home or she woke up in the morning – but there he is in the den. The computer’s on and he was on pornographic websites. There was a bottle of whiskey that was pretty much empty that had fallen on the floor. He had fallen on the floor. And it was just a miserable situation. The wife was livid. The wife was upset. She was sad. All of the emotions you would expect, but what does she do? Instead of storming out the door, she cradles him into her arms and starts nursing him back into consciousness (he had passed out). And loving him through this. And by no means, saying, “Let me go get you another bottle and let me click the next website for you” or any of that. But saying, “I love you so much. I refuse to just give up on you and walk away.”
Which leads into the second story, that I know several people have been asking questions. A lot of faithful Catholics when they’re invited to weddings. One in particular was a family member who was born and raised Catholic, who was engaged to her boyfriend, but they were going to get married outside of the church. Her faith wasn’t important to her anymore. And the couple struggled with this idea, “Can we go? Can we go to this wedding?” They knew by asking that question, the answer was, “No, we really shouldn’t give witness to this because this is outside of the church. This isn’t what we’re called to.” And, sad to say, that’s a very mild example in the times we’re living in, when we talk about marriage. But what they ultimately decided to do was decline the invitation, but they penned a beautiful letter saying, “It’s not that we don’t love you. But this is why. And because we care about you and because we care about your soul and because we want what’s best for you, we highly encourage you to have a regular marriage. And even if you’re reading this after the date of the ceremony in the park or wherever it may be, go see your parish priest. There are things that can be done, and we’re not telling you to split up or anything like that. But because we love you, we owe it to you to share, and not just say, ‘No, we’re not coming’ and slam the door, but in love to say, ‘This is why.'”
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. Absolutely. And I’ll tell you, Adam, that can be very difficult because in the examples you’ve given and the dozens and dozens of examples that people have going on in their lives and a fallen world, it can be difficult because oftentimes we have an emotional response to a situation. So if we’re not careful, we can fall into self-pity, or anger, or bitterness, or entitlement. Oftentimes then we react out of these emotions, or these feelings, or the situation we find our own soul in, rather than kind of realizing where we are, ordering it by grace, dying to ourselves, and then seeking to serve the other in a selfless way. Selfless way, so that then the good in them can flourish. This is, of course, immensely difficult, because we ourselves are fallen and wounded.
So when we talk about this, I want people to realize that neither of us – Adam, myself, and those who are listening – thinks that this is a walk in the park, and this is something that’s just, “Oh, yeah. Sure. Just do this.” No, but the task of love, when we say that love involves suffering, and that love is the way of cross, we mean that. With all that goes along with that: the death to self, the anxiety, the frustration, the wrestle with our own emotions, and so on. I like to highlight that the model for us as Christians, in terms of love, is the cross of our Lord. That He died, that we might live. He died so the good within us might flourish, even into eternal life. So, it is. It’s difficult. But it really involves a death to ourselves because then the good in the other flourishes.
Let me give a completely different example, but same in principle, but different context. There was a senior VP. He had a young executive working for him. The young executive made a huge mistake. Lost the company had a couple million dollars. And the young executive was very frustrated with himself. He goes to the senior VP, offers his resignation. The VP looks and says, “What is this?” The young executive says, “This is my my resignation.” And the senior vice president says, “Why are you doing this?” He says, “Well, because I just cost the company two million dollars by making this mistake.” And the senior VP says to him, “Why would I fire you or let you resign if I just spent two million dollars training you?” So again, it comes down to the context in terms of, if we really want to love in the state in which we are, the state of affairs, our state of life, then we look for those opportunities in order to show that love. Love confounds the fallen world. It confuses the fallen world because we have this misdefinition of love.
Adam Wright:
Yeah. Father, we said we want to kind of circle back to prayer. One of the things I don’t want to lose sight of as well is this idea that when it gets hard, it’s not just, “Okay, before we go have the hard conversation…” but when we’re dealing with it, because very rarely is it we have the conversation and that’s it. We’re through. We can move on to the next thing. Box was checked, situation dealt with, move on. When it’s hard, when you’re in the midst of that difficulty, keep going back to prayer. Keep going back to the sacraments, keep going back to our Lord.
I think of that image of the woman at the well, where He very clearly says, “I’m the well that will not run dry.” So let’s not ration it and say, “We better be careful. We might run out of our Lord’s grace here.” Let’s keep going back to Him and asking for that grace. But that’s the other thing I kind of wonder about, especially in the context of the Eucharistic revival right now. I read a piece the other day, talking about all these different ideas for what does Eucharistic revival look like? Some say it’s greater reverence and piety for the Eucharist. And some say it’s better understanding of the communal celebration that’s involved. And some say this, and the person writing the op-ed said, “Well, actually, it’s all of these things. It is the communal. It is the piety. It is the reverence. It’s not either or.” Having that community, and this is where it becomes so important for us to have that faith community of like-minded believers, not only to say, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not just validating what you believe is true.” It’s “I’m here to say, ‘Yeah, it stinks right now what you’re going through, but you’re not alone.'”
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. You know, it’s interesting: if you were to ask most Christians, “In the 14 Apostolic letters of the New Testament associated with Saint Paul, what is the one theme that Saint Paul most speaks about?” Whenever I ask that question, the majority of the answers are sexual sins. They think that’s all Saint Paul is talking about, is sexual sins, and so on. In some of his letters, he does address some of those, but the one thing he most emphasizes in his 14 Apostolic letters is holy fellowship. The importance of Christians being together. And we certainly see it in the acts of the apostles. So, in the acts of the apostles, we see how the church came together for worship, for prayer, for holy fellowship, to study the teachings of the apostles, to serve the poor, the suffering, the sick. And so we see this example of what it means to be in holy fellowship. And why is it so important that the Christians are together?
Well, if we go to the book of Proverbs, we can draw on the simple divine wisdom: “As iron sharpens iron, so man sharpens his fellow man.” So as Christians, we come together to commensurate, to be consoled, to be encouraged, but also to be admonished, to be called forward, to be instructed. So the Christian way of life, we can’t live as individuals. Adam, I would say this: I think this is where the loss of parish life in many areas has been a tremendous, tremendous cause of suffering and disassociation (or dislocation) of Christians who are trying to lead a Christian way of life. You can imagine the young person, or the Christian, who suddenly has this deeper conversion. They say, “I want to start living more faithfully” and so on. They go to the parish. And the parish, it seems dead. People aren’t excited. It seems as if most of the people in the pews have given into ideology, and so on. This can be the case in some parishes. We have other dynamic parishes, I should mention, to balance the scene, but the loss of so many parishes to that kind of holy fellowship, the fact that not all of our Catholic parishes are models of that apostolic way of life that we see in the acts of the apostles, is a tremendous loss because we can’t walk this alone.
The Lord sent out the disciples in twos. He called and founded a church. Right? He did these things on purpose. He knows our fallen nature. He knows what the path of holiness looks like. One of the first things He did in his public ministry was call together a community to Himself. Even He Himself, in His human nature, needed that community life. And so I think that there’s a challenge. I think that when someone has a deeper conversion, I encourage people to invest in their parish. If maybe their parish needs some growth, then be a part of that. Don’t just dismiss and boohoo, but roll up your sleeves, get involved. Help to be one of the sources to make the parish what it should be. If your parish is thriving, then jump in. Ask the pastor, “What can I do? How can I help? Where do you need the most assistance? What’s available?” I think there’s so much more we can do in that area.
Adam Wright:
You know, I think at some point in time, every parent has said, “Well, maybe if I just lock my kids in a closet until they’re eighteen, they’ll be sheltered from the world. I don’t have to deal with any of this. I won’t have to worry.” But, obviously, that would be a faulty method of parenting. Actually, our job is to prepare them to be out in the world. Not to be of the world, but to be in the world. And that fellowship of having families that we spend time with where their kids are on the same page as our kids, because sometimes, mom and dad’s wisdom is only gonna be heeded so much. But when their best friend, whether they slip up and they curse, or they take the Lord’s name in vain, if their friend’s the one saying, “Woah. Hey, we don’t do that here.” That’s probably at some point going to carry a lot more weight than me, as dad, saying, “Hey, we don’t do that here. And if you do that again, we’re gonna have trouble. Now let’s go get in line for confession here.” That’s the importance of that holy fellowship. But that’s kind of where I want to really – I guess we do need to wrap up here – is that idea that we can’t shelter our children. So if we’re going to embrace our responsibility as the first educators of our children, raising them in the faith. We have to use every tool that God has given us. From the sacraments, to fellowship, to community, to grace, and, hopefully, when they do encounter these things in the world, our children will be sanctified in truth already. And who knows? Maybe they’re going to sanctify someone around them.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Amen. Let me just add, Adam, as you described, the importance of having other families like-mind and so on. Years ago, a gentleman in the parish, a father of several children, he said to me – and at the time, it took me a while to process what he meant – because he said that he likes that he comes to the parish and other adults know his children by name. I thought, okay, I’m not sure what that means. Later, I was able to understand and talk with him. And he said that his children could come and they have peers, friends that are also trying to live the Christian way of life, but also there are other adults who serve as Christian mentors. Who know his children, who interact with the families and so on, so that the children see their peers, their friends within the Christian web, they also see other adults. The other adults serve as models and so on. He said that as much as he wants his children always to come to him, and similar to as you were describing your relationship with your children, he’s very open. His children have a great relationship with him. He realizes there are going to be times where they might want to turn to a different Christian mentor to ask questions or seek guidance. And he said to be in a parish where that’s naturally there is a great blessing. So the holy fellowship, the call to be out there, and to kind of fight the good fight. I think that’s where we’re going. So, yes.
Adam Wright:
Yeah. Father, I want to thank you for being with us. Again, the jumping point or the starting point for our conversation today is Father’s book: Sanctify Them in Truth. It deals with some of the most hot-button issues of our time that we need to be prepared to answer. It’s available through Tan Books. So be sure to check that out if you’re looking for a resource to help you navigate these things. In the meantime, Father, we’ve talked so much about the importance of prayer, I think the best way to end our time together is to pray for all of the parents out there. And everyone who encounters the need to stand firm in the truths of our faith. And I’d love to ask you to close us out with prayer.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
My pleasure. Let us pray. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we are told that you have given every family its name. We ask that you bless and guide all families. We ask that you particularly allow Christian families to know their vocation. To be salt, light, and leaven in the midst of our world. Will you bless and inspire those that you have called to parenthood? Will you bless the Christian family? May there always be beacons of hope, of faith, of mercy, of love. We seek, Father, always to do all that you ask of us. May you continue to move our hearts, guide us, teach us, grant us these and all good things through Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Adam Wright:
Alright. Well, Father Kirby, thank you so much for being with us. All the best from us here at Covenant Network to you and team Grace, down there at Our Lady of Grace in South Carolina. We look forward to the next time we get to have you with us on the show.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Thank you, Adam. God bless you.
Adam Wright:
It has been a while since Father Jeffrey Kirby has been able to be with us on the show in a conversation. Although Father, we’re grateful for allowing us to play some of your homilies from time to time, especially your Lenten series on prayer. It’s good to have you back with us, though.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
It’s good to be back. Good to see you. Thank you.
Adam Wright:
We have talked about this book, Sanctify Them in Truth, that you published. It’s a wonderful book discussing some of the social issues that we confront every day in this day and age, in the year 2023. And we are always happy to grow in those, but today, I really want to talk about the “them” in “sanctify them in truth”. I think we’ve talked about the “truth” before, and we’ve talked about sanctification, but I want to get to the “them” in this title. And as a parent, I see parents at my kid’s school at other Catholic schools, at other schools (public schools), that every day, their children are out there. I’d like to think that my children lead a nice sheltered life free from any scandal, but just in going through our neighborhood, going to the local ice cream parlor of all places, we encounter questions. Then all of a sudden, I have my kids asking, “Daddy, why is this and why that? And can we do this? And can we do that? What’s going on here?” And I thought, oh boy, this would be a lot easier if someone else could just set them straight, but the reality is, Father, I suppose at their baptism, I stood up before the Lord and said I would be their first educator in all of this.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. Absolutely. I’m so glad to hear you say that as a Christian husband and father. And I think that a lot of Christian parents have kind of lost that realization, or the commitment to intentional Christian parenting. So as you mentioned, sometimes parents will say, “Well, you know, my kids go to a good school, a Catholic school. I make sure that they’re involved in the right groups and sports and so on. And so everything must be okay.” But then they never really take those extra steps about, talking to the Lord, or teaching prayer, or explaining more issues, or having an arena where their children can ask the hard questions when they see things or hear things from their friends or in society.
I think that notion of intentional parenting is very important. And once that’s done, suddenly parents do have a lot of other questions, and I have found that such parents oftentimes are more willing to want to be taught. So, a parent’s busy and they have other things and not really taking the Christian aspect seriously in charge of their children’s Christian formation, any effort to teach by the church is just an annoyance. Right? Like, another meeting, another program… But once parents begin to actually take the faith seriously, they’re like, “Yes, please. Give us some programs and instructions and help us with resources to understand this and how to explain to their children.
Adam Wright:
So one of the things I guess that we really have to start with here, before we can do anything because this is not an academic exercise. This is not “let’s have a class even for ourselves or for the children on what does the catechism of the church teach?” This is about salvation, and we have to keep it in that framework. Do we want to be saints, or do we not want to go to heaven? You know, it’s either we want to go to heaven or we don’t. I would imagine that as a parent, it’s important for us to start in prayer: to really just start by praying for the grace we need to be parents, to be able to understand so that we can teach our children. How important is that starting block?
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. Essential. Absolutely essential. In fact, in Sanctify Them in Truth, every one of the chapters where I address all the difficult controversial issues, they conclude with a whole section on prayer. Because this isn’t about being right, or some type of triumphalism. This isn’t about being condescending. This isn’t about nurturing any type of tension with our neighbors or causing problems with people that disagree with us. At the end of the day, this is about trying to be good disciples, to be faithful to the way of the Lord. His teachings are true for all humanity. We know that He was the perfect one who was given to us. He models for us what it means to be a human being, what it means to be a child of God. And so we can look to Him as Christians, but also share His teachings with nonbelievers because it can help them, too. This is the abundant life. and it all begins in that discipleship and that prayer we have with the Lord.
You know, sometimes I think as Catholics, we forget that the graces of our baptism, the grace of the other sacraments, they prepare us in order to make what Pope Saint John Paul II called a personal decision for Jesus Christ. Now to tell you, Adam, I’m in South Carolina. And as soon as I start to use this type of language, the Catholics will say to me, “Oh, no. You sound like a Baptist.” Or “Oh, Father, are you a convert?” And so on. And I’m a cradle Catholic, right? But there’s a language that, regrettably, they only associate with Protestant Christianity. Whereas, let’s give due where it’s merited, the Protestant Christians – they’ve got this one right. That as Christians, as we mature and grow in the faith, there’s that time when we make that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We say, “I choose you, Lord.” We hear that call and we begin to draw closer to Him.
The sacraments are there in order to help us with that personal decision. And I think this separation where the sacraments become this kind of odd reality and process on one side, but then if there’s any sense of discipleship, it’s way on the other. And Christian formation somehow has been removed. It’s just sacramental prep. And sacramental prep becomes this weird, peculiar thing that’s freestanding as opposed to just one aspect of our discipleship. And the grace of the sacraments are meant to help us to draw closer to the Lord Jesus. Well, if you take away this idolship, then what do people think the sacraments are for? What are the sacraments giving grace for? They kind of just sit there. These aren’t cold ceremonies. These aren’t rights of passage. You know, these aren’t cherished heirlooms that are being passed down from one generation to the next. These are powerful sacraments – encounters with the living God, means of grace. And the way that we begin to nurture that relationship with the Lord is the sacraments, and the life of prayer.
So I would say to every Christian parent: pray. Pray for your children. And I’m not sure if you’ve had this experience in speaking with other married people: I’m shocked as a priest when I hear from married people, that they don’t pray together. In fact, I remember one couple telling me that they’ve been married for many, many years. They never prayed together. And it sounded odd to them. It sounded uncomfortable to them. These people who’ve been married now for many years, and it sounded odd and uncomfortable to them to pray together. But they heard some preaching, they said, “Okay, we need to tap into some more graces of our sacrament, of our vocation.” They reached out to their priest to ask for help, which I think is powerful. Amen. Great. Come, Holy Spirit. And they said, “We don’t know what to do.” I said, “How about this? Start by just praying together in the evening, one Hail Mary for each of your children. That’s it. As you become comfortable, hold hands, and pray one Hail Mary, for each of your children. Start there.” And they were like, “Okay. That’s reasonable. It’s a set prayer. It’s a little more comfortable.”
Well, I’m happy to report a couple of years later now. Fast forward, they are like prayer warriors, like, “This is great!” I was like, “Yeah, because you opened up all this grace of the sacrament! All that grace was there. And once you unleash it, you open the door just a little bit. Just like a crack, and the Holy Spirit kicked that thing right open. You know? And they’re living and thriving in a different way, in a whole aspect of their sacrament of vocation they didn’t realize. So those called to holy matrimony and those who’ve been blessed to be parents, I would say, God just gives you the grace to do it well. For the sacrament of holy matrimony, when a man becomes a father, a woman becomes a mother, that grace is given. So, Adam, I’m stopping this because I think you’re starting in the right way, but yes, it has to be a response first of prayer.
Adam Wright:
Well, and that’s something I think we can’t say it enough. That especially if you know you’re going to have, whether it’s with your children, whether it’s within your family, maybe it’s something happening in your extended family, at work, in your circle of friends, that there’s going to be a hard conversation. You know it’s coming up. Well, number one: go make a good confession. Even if it’s a devotional confession, go and make sure that you are properly disposed to receive Grace. And then if at all possible, if it’s a weekday, go to morning Mass or go to daily Mass, whatever time it may be near you. Go and make use of the grace that God is freely offering to strengthen us for this journey. I laugh because it sounds so simple, and yet we mess it up so many times. What is simple becomes incredibly hard.
I do want to come back to that in a little bit here, Father, but of the things that I also worry, as a parent sometimes I lose sight of, especially when my kids, in the van ride home from school, they start asking questions. “Dad, tell us about this. Dad, can Catholics do that? Dad, can people do this? Is this possible?” Is that, again, I go, “Well, the church teaches x, y, and z…” And we get into, very clearly, this is what the church teaches, but sometimes we get so fixated on that that we forget the accompaniment that comes with it. That “And by the way, living this teaching can be hard. Calling someone to holiness can be difficult.” Loving someone who, I think every one of us has a family member or a friend or acquaintance who is probably living in some sort of grave sin, obstinately, and we grieve, and we want them to get to Heaven. We want them to be free of this, but we have no idea how to start that conversation, and we don’t want to trouble the water. Teaching the children that “By the way, when you stand up for the truth, it’s going to be difficult. Loving people is going to be hard, but we have no choice. We must love them. We don’t have to love the sin. We do have to love the sinner.” And we need to prepare for that.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Amen. Yes. Absolutely. And first of all, I have to say, as you’re describing the dynamics between your children yourself, I’m just thanking God, because you’ve created an environment where your children feel comfortable, are able to ask you these questions. They know that Dad has wisdom. And I think by exercising your vocation as husband and father, you’re giving so much security and comfortability to your parents. We look in general at parenting and specifically fatherhood – fathers are made to look like imbeciles. They’re idiots. They don’t know what they’re doing. If they’re around at all. And I think the moral authority of the father is so essential, and I think as you describe your children asking questions and you’re trying to guide them in the truth and, and to help them understand that, yes, it’s gonna be difficult, but this is love. Love is the cross, love involves and accepts suffering. I think that has to be our task. And that is our difference. That’s why we’re not social conservatives. We’re not philanthropists. We’re not ideologues. We’re Christians. So even as we disagree with people, we love them. In fact, we’re called to love the ones that disagree with us the most. We’re called to love them the most.
So if we look at Acts chapter 17, when the apostles are preaching the gospel and Ephesus. The men of Ephesus come and they say to the righteous man, Jason, who’s providing hospitality to the apostles, they say to Jason, “Kick those men out of your house so we can beat them up, because they have turned our world upside down.” And I think that is powerful, that the gospel turns the world upside down. And really, the world’s fallen. So really, the gospel turns it right side up. And so we can look at that, that when we love, we’re trying to help people to understand and to see things right side up. We’re trying to help them to realize that and to come to want within themselves to live right side up.
I want to say from the beginning, as we talk about this, we respect the freedom of all. People can choose the path of sin and misery and self-destruction. We’re not going to force and coerce anyone. We’re not ideologues. We’re not activists. What we will do is speak the truth, and we will love, and we seek to witness that love so that it becomes compelling. And that’s, I think, the difference, as we speak about our Christian faith. How we can disagree with someone while also loving them. Yeah. I’d like to emphasize as well that as Christians were the first ones to hold what is right and wrong, and were the first ones to embrace those who don’t live up to what is right, or who are pursuing what is wrong. And to a fallen world that sounds opposite. It sounds like a paradox, because they don’t understand love. No, love means you agree with me. Love means you do what I want. That’s not love. Love is I’m going to speak the truth. I’m going to walk with you and I’m going to seek to bring out the good in you. That’s love.
Adam Wright:
I think of two things here, Father. One is a talk I heard at a men’s conference recently, and the speaker was talking about living in the liturgy versus living in the secular world. And referring to the book of Revelation quite often, when saying living in the liturgy. But he was telling the story of a husband who, his wife comes home – I can’t remember if she came home or she woke up in the morning – but there he is in the den. The computer’s on and he was on pornographic websites. There was a bottle of whiskey that was pretty much empty that had fallen on the floor. He had fallen on the floor. And it was just a miserable situation. The wife was livid. The wife was upset. She was sad. All of the emotions you would expect, but what does she do? Instead of storming out the door, she cradles him into her arms and starts nursing him back into consciousness (he had passed out). And loving him through this. And by no means, saying, “Let me go get you another bottle and let me click the next website for you” or any of that. But saying, “I love you so much. I refuse to just give up on you and walk away.”
Which leads into the second story, that I know several people have been asking questions. A lot of faithful Catholics when they’re invited to weddings. One in particular was a family member who was born and raised Catholic, who was engaged to her boyfriend, but they were going to get married outside of the church. Her faith wasn’t important to her anymore. And the couple struggled with this idea, “Can we go? Can we go to this wedding?” They knew by asking that question, the answer was, “No, we really shouldn’t give witness to this because this is outside of the church. This isn’t what we’re called to.” And, sad to say, that’s a very mild example in the times we’re living in, when we talk about marriage. But what they ultimately decided to do was decline the invitation, but they penned a beautiful letter saying, “It’s not that we don’t love you. But this is why. And because we care about you and because we care about your soul and because we want what’s best for you, we highly encourage you to have a regular marriage. And even if you’re reading this after the date of the ceremony in the park or wherever it may be, go see your parish priest. There are things that can be done, and we’re not telling you to split up or anything like that. But because we love you, we owe it to you to share, and not just say, ‘No, we’re not coming’ and slam the door, but in love to say, ‘This is why.'”
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. Absolutely. And I’ll tell you, Adam, that can be very difficult because in the examples you’ve given and the dozens and dozens of examples that people have going on in their lives and a fallen world, it can be difficult because oftentimes we have an emotional response to a situation. So if we’re not careful, we can fall into self-pity, or anger, or bitterness, or entitlement. Oftentimes then we react out of these emotions, or these feelings, or the situation we find our own soul in, rather than kind of realizing where we are, ordering it by grace, dying to ourselves, and then seeking to serve the other in a selfless way. Selfless way, so that then the good in them can flourish. This is, of course, immensely difficult, because we ourselves are fallen and wounded.
So when we talk about this, I want people to realize that neither of us – Adam, myself, and those who are listening – thinks that this is a walk in the park, and this is something that’s just, “Oh, yeah. Sure. Just do this.” No, but the task of love, when we say that love involves suffering, and that love is the way of cross, we mean that. With all that goes along with that: the death to self, the anxiety, the frustration, the wrestle with our own emotions, and so on. I like to highlight that the model for us as Christians, in terms of love, is the cross of our Lord. That He died, that we might live. He died so the good within us might flourish, even into eternal life. So, it is. It’s difficult. But it really involves a death to ourselves because then the good in the other flourishes.
Let me give a completely different example, but same in principle, but different context. There was a senior VP. He had a young executive working for him. The young executive made a huge mistake. Lost the company had a couple million dollars. And the young executive was very frustrated with himself. He goes to the senior VP, offers his resignation. The VP looks and says, “What is this?” The young executive says, “This is my my resignation.” And the senior vice president says, “Why are you doing this?” He says, “Well, because I just cost the company two million dollars by making this mistake.” And the senior VP says to him, “Why would I fire you or let you resign if I just spent two million dollars training you?” So again, it comes down to the context in terms of, if we really want to love in the state in which we are, the state of affairs, our state of life, then we look for those opportunities in order to show that love. Love confounds the fallen world. It confuses the fallen world because we have this misdefinition of love.
Adam Wright:
Yeah. Father, we said we want to kind of circle back to prayer. One of the things I don’t want to lose sight of as well is this idea that when it gets hard, it’s not just, “Okay, before we go have the hard conversation…” but when we’re dealing with it, because very rarely is it we have the conversation and that’s it. We’re through. We can move on to the next thing. Box was checked, situation dealt with, move on. When it’s hard, when you’re in the midst of that difficulty, keep going back to prayer. Keep going back to the sacraments, keep going back to our Lord.
I think of that image of the woman at the well, where He very clearly says, “I’m the well that will not run dry.” So let’s not ration it and say, “We better be careful. We might run out of our Lord’s grace here.” Let’s keep going back to Him and asking for that grace. But that’s the other thing I kind of wonder about, especially in the context of the Eucharistic revival right now. I read a piece the other day, talking about all these different ideas for what does Eucharistic revival look like? Some say it’s greater reverence and piety for the Eucharist. And some say it’s better understanding of the communal celebration that’s involved. And some say this, and the person writing the op-ed said, “Well, actually, it’s all of these things. It is the communal. It is the piety. It is the reverence. It’s not either or.” Having that community, and this is where it becomes so important for us to have that faith community of like-minded believers, not only to say, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not just validating what you believe is true.” It’s “I’m here to say, ‘Yeah, it stinks right now what you’re going through, but you’re not alone.'”
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Yes. You know, it’s interesting: if you were to ask most Christians, “In the 14 Apostolic letters of the New Testament associated with Saint Paul, what is the one theme that Saint Paul most speaks about?” Whenever I ask that question, the majority of the answers are sexual sins. They think that’s all Saint Paul is talking about, is sexual sins, and so on. In some of his letters, he does address some of those, but the one thing he most emphasizes in his 14 Apostolic letters is holy fellowship. The importance of Christians being together. And we certainly see it in the acts of the apostles. So, in the acts of the apostles, we see how the church came together for worship, for prayer, for holy fellowship, to study the teachings of the apostles, to serve the poor, the suffering, the sick. And so we see this example of what it means to be in holy fellowship. And why is it so important that the Christians are together?
Well, if we go to the book of Proverbs, we can draw on the simple divine wisdom: “As iron sharpens iron, so man sharpens his fellow man.” So as Christians, we come together to commensurate, to be consoled, to be encouraged, but also to be admonished, to be called forward, to be instructed. So the Christian way of life, we can’t live as individuals. Adam, I would say this: I think this is where the loss of parish life in many areas has been a tremendous, tremendous cause of suffering and disassociation (or dislocation) of Christians who are trying to lead a Christian way of life. You can imagine the young person, or the Christian, who suddenly has this deeper conversion. They say, “I want to start living more faithfully” and so on. They go to the parish. And the parish, it seems dead. People aren’t excited. It seems as if most of the people in the pews have given into ideology, and so on. This can be the case in some parishes. We have other dynamic parishes, I should mention, to balance the scene, but the loss of so many parishes to that kind of holy fellowship, the fact that not all of our Catholic parishes are models of that apostolic way of life that we see in the acts of the apostles, is a tremendous loss because we can’t walk this alone.
The Lord sent out the disciples in twos. He called and founded a church. Right? He did these things on purpose. He knows our fallen nature. He knows what the path of holiness looks like. One of the first things He did in his public ministry was call together a community to Himself. Even He Himself, in His human nature, needed that community life. And so I think that there’s a challenge. I think that when someone has a deeper conversion, I encourage people to invest in their parish. If maybe their parish needs some growth, then be a part of that. Don’t just dismiss and boohoo, but roll up your sleeves, get involved. Help to be one of the sources to make the parish what it should be. If your parish is thriving, then jump in. Ask the pastor, “What can I do? How can I help? Where do you need the most assistance? What’s available?” I think there’s so much more we can do in that area.
Adam Wright:
You know, I think at some point in time, every parent has said, “Well, maybe if I just lock my kids in a closet until they’re eighteen, they’ll be sheltered from the world. I don’t have to deal with any of this. I won’t have to worry.” But, obviously, that would be a faulty method of parenting. Actually, our job is to prepare them to be out in the world. Not to be of the world, but to be in the world. And that fellowship of having families that we spend time with where their kids are on the same page as our kids, because sometimes, mom and dad’s wisdom is only gonna be heeded so much. But when their best friend, whether they slip up and they curse, or they take the Lord’s name in vain, if their friend’s the one saying, “Woah. Hey, we don’t do that here.” That’s probably at some point going to carry a lot more weight than me, as dad, saying, “Hey, we don’t do that here. And if you do that again, we’re gonna have trouble. Now let’s go get in line for confession here.” That’s the importance of that holy fellowship. But that’s kind of where I want to really – I guess we do need to wrap up here – is that idea that we can’t shelter our children. So if we’re going to embrace our responsibility as the first educators of our children, raising them in the faith. We have to use every tool that God has given us. From the sacraments, to fellowship, to community, to grace, and, hopefully, when they do encounter these things in the world, our children will be sanctified in truth already. And who knows? Maybe they’re going to sanctify someone around them.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Amen. Let me just add, Adam, as you described, the importance of having other families like-mind and so on. Years ago, a gentleman in the parish, a father of several children, he said to me – and at the time, it took me a while to process what he meant – because he said that he likes that he comes to the parish and other adults know his children by name. I thought, okay, I’m not sure what that means. Later, I was able to understand and talk with him. And he said that his children could come and they have peers, friends that are also trying to live the Christian way of life, but also there are other adults who serve as Christian mentors. Who know his children, who interact with the families and so on, so that the children see their peers, their friends within the Christian web, they also see other adults. The other adults serve as models and so on. He said that as much as he wants his children always to come to him, and similar to as you were describing your relationship with your children, he’s very open. His children have a great relationship with him. He realizes there are going to be times where they might want to turn to a different Christian mentor to ask questions or seek guidance. And he said to be in a parish where that’s naturally there is a great blessing. So the holy fellowship, the call to be out there, and to kind of fight the good fight. I think that’s where we’re going. So, yes.
Adam Wright:
Yeah. Father, I want to thank you for being with us. Again, the jumping point or the starting point for our conversation today is Father’s book: Sanctify Them in Truth. It deals with some of the most hot-button issues of our time that we need to be prepared to answer. It’s available through Tan Books. So be sure to check that out if you’re looking for a resource to help you navigate these things. In the meantime, Father, we’ve talked so much about the importance of prayer, I think the best way to end our time together is to pray for all of the parents out there. And everyone who encounters the need to stand firm in the truths of our faith. And I’d love to ask you to close us out with prayer.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
My pleasure. Let us pray. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we are told that you have given every family its name. We ask that you bless and guide all families. We ask that you particularly allow Christian families to know their vocation. To be salt, light, and leaven in the midst of our world. Will you bless and inspire those that you have called to parenthood? Will you bless the Christian family? May there always be beacons of hope, of faith, of mercy, of love. We seek, Father, always to do all that you ask of us. May you continue to move our hearts, guide us, teach us, grant us these and all good things through Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Adam Wright:
Alright. Well, Father Kirby, thank you so much for being with us. All the best from us here at Covenant Network to you and team Grace, down there at Our Lady of Grace in South Carolina. We look forward to the next time we get to have you with us on the show.
Fr. Jeff Kirby:
Thank you, Adam. God bless you.
In this episode of Roadmap to Heaven, host Adam Wright welcomes guest Father Jeffrey Kirby back to the show. The discussion revolves around Father Kirby’s book, Sanctify Them in Truth, which addresses challenges we face in a fallen world, with a focus on the experiences of parents sanctifying their children in truth.
Father Kirby addresses the significance of prayer in various aspects of life, including parents praying for their children and married couples praying together. Prayer opens the door to grace and has the power to transform relationships and vocations. He highlights the importance of preparing oneself spiritually before engaging in difficult conversations, suggesting going to confession and attending Mass to receive God’s grace and strength.
Father Kirby acknowledges the challenges of following Church teachings and addresses the delicate balance between teaching Church doctrine and supporting children through various life situations. They discuss the difficulty of addressing sinful behavior in loved ones while still expressing love and a desire for their salvation.
Fr. Kirby delves into the idea of living in the liturgy within the secular world. He shares a powerful story of a wife’s unwavering love and support for her husband caught in a cycle of addiction, highlighting the importance of standing up for the truth and loving others despite the challenges it may bring. This is the Christian perspective on love, which involves accepting suffering and loving those who disagree with us the most. They discuss the importance of holding to what is right and wrong while at the same time embracing those who struggle to live up to those standards.
Father Kirby stresses the importance of sacraments, fellowship, community, and grace in raising children with strong Christian values. He also encourages listeners to be actively involved in their parish and in the holy community that Christians are called to be a part of.
Overall, this episode of Roadmap to Heaven discusses the role of prayer, discipleship, sacraments, and intentional Christian parenting in sanctifying children and navigating the challenges of Christian parenting in a secular world.
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