The evening's all yours.

Thanks so much.

Great.

Well, I am going to jump right in.

Always a great honor to be here at the Institute of Catholic Culture.

I'm especially excited to be reflecting on what I really, really am convinced is the issue of our age.

So take a deep breath here.

How do we best select what property best benefits the household and in turn helps develop virtue?

Great to be here with you.

I hope that with a lecture like this, I don't have to tell you right now to turn off your cell phones.

But I do want you to know the punishment will be severe.

If your phone does go off, I'm going to call you up to the front.

I just want you to know I have a sledgehammer in the back and you know where it's going to go from there.

All right? Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to tell you at what age to first allow your teenager to have a smartphone.

So I'm just curious about what's your opinion about those two things, the idea of helping sons be responsible and incorporating my family into my work in my particular scenario?

Loving it.

Loving it.

Keep looking for something to stomp on you for.

I'm not finding it yet.

I'm sure it will come.

Don't worry.

I mean, we're not expecting not to throw our listeners off, you know? Should my wife and I ever have a daughter, you know? What would I owe to, like, in particular, my daughter, hypothetically speaking?

Why would that be the case? Why is that a common experience for people today?

I think the reason this is a common experience is because we have enshrined it in our common practices.

The technologies that we use, our practices of how we do our professions, it shows up in all the different main areas of culture.

And again, very complicated kind of sad story of how we got here, but God's power, our God is always greater.

These are the times that God called us to live in.

And so it's, in a sense, it's very exciting, but we have to begin by being realistic, not negative, not moaning and complaining, but realistic about the challenge that we have there and saying, yeah, it is going to be challenging.

It's going to take intentionality, but this is God's plan for us.

When people hear that out on the airwaves, what do you mean, and what's the way that that helps us answer some of these difficulties you've brought up?

Why would that be the case? Why is that a common experience for people today?

I think the reason this is a common experience is because we have enshrined it in our common practices.

The technologies that we use, our practices of how we do our professions, it shows up in all the different main areas of culture.

And again, very complicated kind of sad story of how we got here, but God's power, our God is always greater.

These are the times that God called us to live in.

And so it's, in a sense, it's very exciting, but we have to begin by being realistic, not negative, not moaning and complaining, but realistic about the challenge that we have there and saying, yeah, it is going to be challenging.

It's going to take intentionality, but this is God's plan for us.

When people hear that out on the airwaves, what do you mean, and what's the way that that helps us answer some of these difficulties you've brought up?

So what are the principles, and are they grounded in Thomistic philosophy?

Absolutely.

And so here's the thing.

Much of St. Thomas Aquinas, as you know, but not all, is rooted in Aristotle.

And so there really is this beautiful kind of timeless beginning in ancient insights.

I always feel like I should mention here, there's certainly some key things Aristotle didn't see about the world and more specifically about marriage and family at the same time.

there was an amazing understanding of what in Greek, the oikos, the household.

What a great line.

Mm.

In many ways, w- work in the more proper sense will pass away when we move to the next life, but, but the way God has designed us embodied persons, us non-angelic persons, it's, it's, it's just part of the astounding gift of, of, of having our bodies and all the needs that come along with it, um, that we exercise, we develop our humanity through our work, and this in, in, in a particular way for men.

So i- i- in any age we're gonna have to try to figure it out and get it right.

I'm a big proponent of principles that go way back, ancient principles, but being applied today.

One of the great dangers in talking about these things for all of us, I know we all have at times, we, we'll, we'll start to see something from a prior age and we'll say, "Oh my goodness, I want that so badly." Can I just go back? And some people think that what I'm proposing in this book is a going back.

And, and so I, I, I like to say, "If you gave me a time machine, I'd leave it right there.

I've got much better things to do because I'm living today.

Mm.

Happiness is not the prize.

that is given as an award for having been virtuous.

If we think that, we're not even seeing what the Greeks saw, much less Christianity.

To live a certain sort of way, a certain kind of character, again, even to be aware, even when we say virtuous living, it's great to say to ourselves again, do we really know what the virtues are? Really, only those who live them really know what they are at the end of the day.

But we remind ourselves to be virtuous is to be most fully alive.

This is what we're designed for.

This is human happiness.

if

That,

ladies and gentlemen, is Thomistic wisdom for the pilgrimage.

Let's try to do that.

Remember, the wiser we become, the more we're able to see and the more we're able to say in very simple statements.

The more wise one becomes, really, the more simpler reality becomes.

It really is, in a profound sense, that simple.

Know your end.

and thus