chavez

Father Chavez discusses the importance of faith and applying it to our relationships, especially with other men and our families. He emphasizes the need for mentoring and leadership in helping men overcome difficulties and find fulfillment and purpose in their lives. He highlights the battle mentality and the desire to lay it all down for a great cause, and encourages men to lead, protect, and provide for their families. Father Chavez also emphasizes the need for mentoring and guidance in helping boys transition into manhood. He emphasizes the importance of teaching boys constructive skills and providing them with confidence and guidance. Father Chavez's work involves our faith and applying it to those around us, especially other men and, importantly, our families. Gentlemen, please welcome Father Philip Chavez. It doesn't mean I have to sing now, does it? Gentlemen, after spending the day here hearing many of your stories, meaning many of you, I can only think of the words of Peter on Mount Tabor. It is good for us to be here, amen? Before I continue I want to thank Declan O'Sullivan, Mike McNamara, the whole team, Kent, Gus, all of you. You guys did a great job. Let's give them a hand. I appreciate the dinner you guys put on for us last night, the speakers and others who I got to meet, especially Tarek Sob, got to know him a little bit better. You know, at dinner you always expect sometimes a specialty of the local area. I was actually looking forward to some Montgomery in Riz, but bad chance of a Friday in Lent. Here in Cincinnati, as I understand it, he also specialized with that Skyline Chili, the three-way. Grater's ice cream. I'm from California, where we specialize in fruits and nuts. Now before I insult more individuals, I just need to know right now, on this stage, am I on the east side or the west side? I'm granting the west. I'll look for snipers on the east. Gentlemen, let's say a prayer. In the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us remember we are in the presence of God. Heavenly Father, gathered together here in your presence, we ask that you send forth your Spirit to enlighten us, that Spirit of light and fire, light for our minds, fire for our wills, to see clearly the path you have chosen for us as men in your service, and to be filled with the strength to enable this journey at every step. Grant that we may overcome our hesitations, surmount all our fears, deepen our faith in the words and work of your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and we ask all these things in His name, amen? As was mentioned in the introduction, gentlemen, I'm engaged now in full-time men's ministry. After fifteen years of priesthood engaged in these things, it's been an awesome blessing. Fifteen years, I give thanks to God. But gentlemen, in the course of all these years, I came to see men experiencing very profound difficulties of soul. Married men, single, young, old, even priests, suffering from a sense of insecurity, inferiority, problems navigating through life. Men moving forward, yet with a lot of fear, confusion, and this is sad, unfulfilled, hearts discouraged, some broken. Some lacking fulfillment and purpose. Many feel lost, thirties, forties, fifties, and even sixties. And some even asking, even at the age of sixty years, what is the purpose of my life? Isn't this a tragedy? Every man, every man sitting here desires to be confident, self-assured, filled with vigor, vitality. A man who inspires other men, strong in his service, can deal with his sins, loves his God in peace. A man who is a leader, one who guides all in his care, a fisher of men. A man who will give everything he has for a principle, a cause for an individual life. Every man here wants to be known as a man who is disposed, raised, and summoned to lay everything down, even his life. Because gentlemen, this is what you want to hear from your father or mentor figure in your life, my son. You have what it takes to lay your life down. Every man wants to hear this. Supernaturally, gentlemen, you see this is placed even deeply rooted in your soul. Why is that? So it can prepare you for the ultimate Christian calling. No greater love than a man has to lay his life down for his friends. Gentlemen, some of you question where you have that courage, but I can tell you, you have that incipient desire rooted right in your soul. But see, the difficulty is to get to this level, gentlemen, it's not that you don't have the heart for that, it's that many of you haven't had the mentoring and leadership to get you there. You know, women have a different way of giving. They do so naturally and spontaneously to lay it all down. But you see, men need training. You need training to be confident. Masculinity bestows masculinity. To be self-assured, approved by other men, you have to be led. We all want to be summoned by someone we respect, led forth by somebody who we want to follow in their steps. We need somebody to train us, to lay it all down, for God, family, church, community. Unless we have this guidance, this direction, gentlemen, you cannot necessarily be happy or settled or secure and fulfilled. I'm sorry that's just the way it is. And while men need mentors, they need to be led to something higher. You need to feel like you're working for a great purpose. All of you want to make a difference. Isn't it rooted in all your souls? And so you see, there's a reason why movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, the Kingdom of Heaven are men's favorite movies. You know, the movies your wives just can't stand? Men love these movies, gentlemen, because they want to be led by a great leader and for a great cause. Every man here wants to be led forth by a William Wallace, a Maximus, a George Washington, a George Patton. He wants to lay everything down for what he believes. This is deep in your heart, and it's deep in all of you, and you can't take it away. And battle, gentlemen, and do not be apologetic about this, battle is your paradigm. It's every man's paradigm for sports, work, loving a woman, raising a family, because all of these things are struggle, heroism, deep hardship sometimes. You know that. The battle starts early in life. You know, you see that in every boy. Every stick is a sword or a spear, isn't it? He can make a fort out of anything, especially the kitchen table, and he loves his guns. You take away his crackers, excuse me, you take away his guns and I'll make them out of his crackers by chewing them in the shape of a gun. He can make a weapon out of everything, the toilet paper rolls, the hangers, the sister's jump rope, which he ties her up with. Everything is a weapon for him. You can't take away his arms, he'll figure out a way to make them. You can't take away a boy's Second Amendment rights, sorry. Every man wants the battle to live and to die for. How many of you guys want to die in bed? So close, gentlemen, is this paradigm of battle. Understand this very clearly. It is also the paradigm for divinity because God himself refers to himself in this way. The Lord is a warrior. Lord is his name, amen? You see, gentlemen, this battle mentality or this vigor you have for it, this zest and this zeal, which is placed in your heart whether it's exercised or not, you see, it's placed there so you can move ahead in battle with some courage to lay it all down for God, family, church and community. This is what stirs you. You know, if I break down in the schoolyard, where do you go? To the restroom? No, you want to get engaged right there. Men run to the battle. But you see, gentlemen, again, these instincts in us help us to rise up and to move ahead, to lay it all down for what we believe. Now how exactly does a man do that? What does that mean, practically speaking? Because we're not necessarily engaged in war all the time. Gentlemen, for you, to lay it all down means to lead and protect and provide all of those in your family, your care and your periphery, amen? And let me tell you something. The women in your life are desiring this. But the sad thing is, let me tell you, I was at the University of Nebraska working with a group of Catholic men there about three weeks ago, four weeks ago actually. Speaking to these men about this, they found the whole dimension of a man as being a natural leader, unintelligible. They could not understand that. So what's the thing about what they're learning in our schools? Gentlemen, leadership is not arrogance or selfish. True leadership, gentlemen, is sacrificial. You have to die to yourself in order to put others before you. Isn't that right? Do not apologize, gentlemen. Do not apologize for claiming to be the leader of your family. Your wives, your children, nieces, nephews, young men in your church all want you to lead. The women are looking at these two hundred plus men's group in this diocese, and they're saying, OK, where are they going to lead men next? They have their eye on you, gentlemen. Where are you going to take them? You know, you see this need for leadership right at the outset of adolescence. Now I understand as a boy needs cultural formation. You must understand, you see, when he reaches twelve, along with his burgeoning psychosexual drive, what goes on inside him is that desire and yearning to be a man. So he's looking for those conquests, those challenges. He wants to take life to the next level. He wants to go deeper. He wants skills to hunt, to camp, to fish. All of us have this in us, gentlemen. We had it at one time. Every boy wants to build engines, build houses. If you don't teach a boy to be constructive, he will be destructive. I'm sorry. And that's where a lot much of our rebellion comes in our society. And more than the girlfriend, he desires that other men and mentors come into his life to teach him these things so he can get confidence, gentlemen, in the world he's trying to navigate in. Remember how lost you yourselves felt, unengaged. But you have to lead men, gentlemen, to these adventures. Every boy loves adventures. He's built for it. You know, young mothers, young women see this in their husbands. They see the adolescent that just hasn't quite come to maturity, and they understand that they need other men to lead them. And this is where many of you are stuck. I'm sorry. And this is where it hurts. Some call this a spiritual problem. It's definitely spiritually related, but gentlemen, it's a problem on the natural level. We need guidance. And so, gentlemen, what does that tell you about our natural vocation? That is to lead other young men in our care. Teach him how to be men. Every man needs a mentor at least until the age of 50. Spoke to a man yesterday in his mid-40s. Sadly resigned that a mentor may never come into his life. And so what does this mentor do? He teaches you how to love a woman, to raise a family, to face yourself, to help you with your weaknesses, to summon you in your strength, to face your heart, to help you face and look at your deepest longings, your desires, your troubles, what yearns deep within your soul. Gentlemen, you have to answer the call to bring this forth in every young man and every young boy in your care and periphery. And then you will lead him on the way he needs to go. And so, gentlemen, as we lead boys in this direction, we have to lead them in teams. Every boy wants to be part of a pack, a platoon, a band of brothers. You see this in young boys. They don't want to be with girls. They want to be with their buddies doing things. Every man is like a dog. Your wives already know that. Every man is like a dog, because he wants to be in his pack and he wants to be on the move. Gentlemen, it's in your nature. You can't domesticate him too much. You can't tame a tiger. And watch it. The ladies mean well, gentlemen, trying to domesticate them. But they must let boys be boys. And you have to protect them sometimes in these daycare centers and sometimes in your own homes. For the women who are well-intentioned, but over-suppress them and control them. Can't tame a tiger. Can't do it. And if you try to over-domesticate him, gentlemen, he will become resentful against women, maybe even hateful. I've seen this in many cases. Gentlemen, we have to protect the formation of our young boys assiduously and quickly. Amen? Now, he needs to be in his band of brothers because he wants to do things with them to gauge these ventures, to hunt, to camp, to fish, all these things I'm telling you about. But you see, it's in every boy to learn how to fight. He wants to learn how to box and wrestle. I learned how to box when I was fifteen. It's like riding a bike you never forget. You know, incidentally, this is how the Christian brothers used to get vocations in the seminars, you see. They would box with young boys in the basements. Imagine that. For centuries in European Christian history, we used to have guilds and fraternities, particularly, yes, in the Western European area where men used to fence with each other regularly, and so would the boys. They'd have clubs for this. And priests oftentimes used to be their instructors. The oldest existing image of a fencing instructor in the world is a priest. Imagine that. We get priests teaching boys how to use the sword again. You think we'd have any problems with vocations? Notice Father Kyle, he's your vocations director, started learning how to use a two-handed broadsword last year. Gentlemen ecstasy. Now some of you gentlemen are saying, well look, Father, I don't have these skills. Gentlemen you're natural leaders, you're natural mentors. Not all of you have some kind of skill which you can share. But you see, it's not too tough, because it's already in your nature to lead, and there are men around you begging for your leadership. All you need to do, first step, is just reach out. This is not that hard. It's actually very simple. You just need to reach out. Reach out to these young boys, summon them, engage them, work with them, spend time with them. Invite them out to dinner, to lunch. Every man here should have a list of men that he calls regularly, just to check in with them. How are you doing? Do you need help with anything? There's something I can do for you. Gentlemen, as we're promoting here with the Catholic Men's Fellowship, every man has to have a band of brothers to make it. This is good, and I think in the level of nature, a man needs his band of brothers to bond with him at least once a week. I understand it's difficult, so I recommend once every other week. It's a lot more feasible. But at minimum, once a month. Gentlemen, you have to band with your brothers to preserve your masculine identity, to not be apologetic for it, to find the boys and young men you need to mentor, and to find others to mentor you. Gentlemen, we've got to stick together. We've got to support each other. And one thing I've learned about men, the one thing, or the one reason rather, above all, is why men are having difficulties loving the woman they have brought to their side, is because they first have not been loved and experienced that love fully by another man first. Because you see, it's being loved by another man, and being served by him, and strengthened by him, and summoned by him, that he gets the strength of his masculine identity. And he can indeed love like a man. If we did this, gentlemen, we could save a lot of marriages. Amen? Love in a man's language is when you spend time with him doing things. Come here, son, and I will teach you. Come here, and I'm going to lead you. I'm going to take you out to those battles. I am going to make you, son, a fisher of men. I started explaining this two weeks ago to a young ordained priest, recently ordained last summer, and he started weeping. He was looking for his bishop to call him to a higher level. Gentlemen, what are the battles today? They're all around us, and we are seldom engaged, let's be honest. And the difficulty is, most of us who are engaged, it's on the academic level. Oh, we can argue so good about our position. But gentlemen, we need to be out there in the fields, taking those hills. We need to be in front of those abortion clinics, standing up physically before these places and taking a stand, strategizing to close down these clinics. And we need to be addressing pornography, homosexuality, and some perversion, objectionable atheistic teachings that are being shoved down your kids' throats and grandkids' in the public schools. Gentlemen, you can be successful. I've seen it from just well-intentioned men, young men even, who have closed down abortion clinics just by banding together and strategizing. Because of a man I hear, Simon Lice, there are no strip clubs in Hamilton County. God bless you, sir. I'm not even sure if he's Catholic. So gentlemen, what about the porn shops and the strip clubs in your county, in your city, in your town? Or the pornography that's in every convenience store? You band together with your brothers, and you figure out, strategize how to face this need and address it. It's how we protect our families, gentlemen. You are the protector, and we have to protect them from these perversities. And I'm telling you something, gentlemen, right now at the outset, and I'm not going to be apologetic or hesitant to say this, it will cost you something. You have to take a risk. Some of you heard about Ed Snell in Harrisburg, a friend of mine, actually, who I've been with at the abortion clinic many times, Planned Parenthood Clinic in York, VA. On December 28th, he was counseling women from a platform on his car so he could see over a fence that was put in front of an abortion clinic. A man shoved him off of that. He broke a number of ribs, dislocated his shoulder, hit his head hard on the ground, knocked him out. There was bleeding on the brain. The doctors did not think he was going to make it. There are other men engaged in Philadelphia who I know, called the King's Men, protesting outside these strip clubs, trying to close them down, all these porn shops as well. They're trying to rid pornography in their county outside of Philadelphia. And Damien Warga, one of these men, said, you know, Father, I remember the last time we were outside the strip club, this owner came out with some vitriolic hatred, and I realized, Father, that this man could have pulled out a gun and shot us. That's right, Damien, so keep going. Gentlemen, I'm telling you right now, listen. If we are to stop abortion and pornography in our country, it will not end. It will not end until men get summoned under their leaders and lay everything down, even their lives, so this slaughter can cease. These things will not end until men start standing up. And you know one of the difficulties, especially in the abortion fight? The men aren't engaged. The women are. Mostly. You go to these clinics and you see the women, the mothers, and the older guys. You know, when a middle-aged guy shows up, it's like the cavalry is coming. Gentlemen, yes, we assemble in our groups, we deepen our spiritual walk and our spiritual journey. But gentlemen, this is so we gear up and put on that armor of faith and move out into the real battle. Amen? I understand we need spiritual strengthening first. That's very, very clear. It's your duty, gentlemen. It's your duty to protect and defend human life. It's not that women don't participate, they should, and provide their help and assistance where they can, because women have incredible abilities to help in this battle, but gentlemen, by nature, by your natural calling, that duty to protect and defend is in your hands, not the woman's. So stand up. And gentlemen, we are in defense of life. You see, it's not because we're tagged pro-life, or just because we're Catholic, but because, you see, it's deep in our souls that we will not let, we will not allow innocent blood to be shed on our soil. Amen? It's in your soul, gentlemen. It's planted there by nature. So, gentlemen, this is what we have to do, is lead men out in the battles. But you see, the difficulty is, I know, I know what you're thinking. Well, Father, that sounds all good, but you know, nobody led me, nobody showed me the way. So, gentlemen, guess what you have to do? You have to lead, although you have not been led. It's not fighting because you do not have the strength, but the leaders in society necessarily also have not been leading you as well. Gentlemen, some of you have been called, and you feel this, and you know it, it's in your heart. The Spirit has summoned you to go out into the fight, and you're afraid. What's it going to cost me? What's my boss going to think? Are the men in my men's group going to think I'm nuts? I want to take it to this higher level, but I don't know if I've got it. I'm not a real fighter. I don't think I've got what it takes here. Gentlemen, the evil one, Satan himself, wants to either infuse or reinforce these negative sentiments. And so you have to pray against that. Lord, I rebuke all these demonic powers, infernal legions, all these wicked assemblies and sects who are trying to bring me down, to cast me down. Lord, show me my strength. Yes, Lord, I am a natural leader. Yes, Lord, I am a provider. Yes, Lord, I am a protector. Lord, you have called me forth with the strength of your Spirit. I do have what it takes. And I rebuke all this negativity against me in the name of Jesus Christ. Gentlemen, I realize in the church, many of you have not been summoned in your strengths. Because in the church, as priests, we are called to examine men in their weaknesses and in their sins. On behalf of the church, I apologize if her ministers have in any way brought you down by focusing on your weaknesses or your sins and not summoning you in your strengths. We didn't learn this in the seminary. It's not in the manuals. I think those manuals have got to be rewritten. Yes, we face our sins and we confess them and we deal with them and process them. Some of you men won't even move forward because of your past sins, an abortion, a sex addiction, some offense you've caused to somebody else, an injury, and you're brought low by this, even though you've gone to confession. Gentlemen, we have to help lift other men out of this mire that they're stuck in. And you cannot depend on a priest to do this. A priest helps his confession as much as he can, but it takes other men to pick him up. Gentlemen, let's start picking men off the ground and lifting them up. Don't be cutting them down. Build them up, gentlemen. That's what they're looking for. It's in your heart, gentlemen. You've got it in you to stand up and to lead. And you remember when Saul disappointed our Lord and Samuel was to choose another leader to lead Israel. Samuel goes before Jesse's sons. They're all brought in. The first one, he's tall, good-looking, strong. No, our Lord says to Samuel, no, not him. And he goes down the list. No, not him either. No, he doesn't have it. And so all the sons have been gone through, they've been passed over. And so Samuel says, now, now, Jesse, is there...is there another son here? And he says, well, there is my son David. He's out...out in the field there, tending the sheep, picking up Coke bottles with a slingshot. Well, bring him in. And our Lord tells Samuel, do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. What as a man sees, does God see? Because man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart. Gentlemen, it's in your hearts. Support each other and summon that forward. Look into the heart of every man that's in your periphery and in your association, and you validate that, and you show him his strengths. You show him where he's strong, where he is vital, where he can serve, where his post is, where he should be placed in the battle. And you will be doing him a great service. Gentlemen, this is what we need as men, we've got to fortify all of us, each other, under our care. Now, gentlemen, to help you, I've brought some CDs, I have a full-time ministry to help men understand their masculine identity and walk that masculine journey. And so I've met many of you already, I hope to meet as many of you as I can afterwards in the main lobby. We'll have CDs, I'll be joined with Tarek Saab, he'll still have his materials. We'll be in the back talking to any men. We want to summon you to battle, gentlemen. We have got to go forth. We have got to answer that call, amen? So the sources in the back, I'm trying to price them as low as I can, gentlemen, because I don't want any men here to be refused for cost for any of these materials. And, of course, any donation to my ministry is appreciated because, gentlemen, I'm trying to do this full-time to summon men to the battle. Gentlemen, fifty million babies snuffed out on our soil. That has got to stop, amen? Gentlemen, once I saw that natural quest and vocation of mentoring other men personally in my own priesthood, my priesthood changed. I learned how to mentor men just like Christ did. This is what our Lord did in His apostolic ministry. He spent ninety percent plus of His time mentoring twelve men. This is what you have to do. And like the prophets, the kings, the saints, and all other men, they were made, mentored others. They took others into their care. They led them out into battle. Gentlemen, answer this call to lead them out into the battle. Answer the call to lead them into their hearts. Answer this call. Take them where they need to go. Answer that call to help them. Lift them up out of their weaknesses. Answer that call, gentlemen, to summon them in their strengths. And I promise you, you will find that deep sense of fulfillment you're looking for in this life. You'll find that peace, identity, and union with Jesus Christ you have never known. And you will realize one of those keys to finding happiness in this world and life everlasting. God bless you, gentlemen, on your journey. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now move ahead.