Ep 82 - Unveiling the Mystery of Personhood: A Catholic Exploration into the Divine Image Within Us with Gil Bailie

The Manly Catholic (00:01.521)
Did you get the, let's see, I sent the email to Sarah because I didn't have your info. Did you get, okay, so you got all that, okay, perfect. Yeah, so just a couple questions. I always ask, you know, like if you could be the patron saying of anything, what would you be and why? Just, it kind of gives our listeners a little bit of a taste into kind of you as a person. And then, yeah, well, before we get into the book, which I know is gonna be the focus, but I did want to get a little bit of background on

Gil Bailie (00:08.15)
Yes. Yeah.

The Manly Catholic (00:31.809)
on you, of course, and then your work at the Cornerstone Forum as well. And then we can kind of segue that into the book if that works for you. Excellent, perfect. All right, are you ready? Do you have any questions before we get started? Okay, and it's Gil Bailey, all right. I just wanna make sure I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Okay, excellent, all right.

Gil Bailie (00:47.659)
No, I don't think so.

Gil Bailie (00:53.688)
Sure.

The Manly Catholic (00:58.469)
Alright hello all, welcome to another episode of The Manly Catholic. This is James, your host, and with me we have a very special guest, Gil Bailey. Gil, welcome to The Manly Catholic.

Gil Bailie (01:08.93)
Thank you for having me.

The Manly Catholic (01:10.473)
Yes, thank you so much for your time. I know you are a busy man. Before we dive into you and your background, I thought we would start in a word of prayer. And we'll do the St. Michael prayer. So say in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou prince of the heavenly host by the power of God.

Cast in hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen Send the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen Well tonight everyone who's listening we will be talking about Gills newest book that he wrote and It is called the apocalypse of the sovereign self which is released by Sophia Press Institute And I will leave a link in the show notes, of course

But before we dive into that, Gail, why don't you just give our audience a bit of a background on yourself and I will lead with the question I always like to lead with our guests is if you could be the patron saint of anything, what would it be and why?

Gil Bailie (02:15.554)
Okay, first let me say the book is published by Angelico Press, but Sarah, who works for Sophia Press was helping with the launch. So that's how that, that's how that, yeah, sure. So what would I be the patron saint of? Fatherless Boys.

The Manly Catholic (02:21.183)
Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah.

The Manly Catholic (02:28.613)
Oh, that's good to know. Thank you for the correction.

The Manly Catholic (02:39.102)
Yes, sir.

The Manly Catholic (02:43.005)
fatherless boys a beautiful and why would that be

Gil Bailie (02:46.242)
Well, because I was one.

The Manly Catholic (02:48.422)
Oh, okay. That's good to know.

Gil Bailie (02:50.062)
So my father was killed in the Battle of the Bulge a couple of months after I was born. So I never knew him. And so I know the experience of being a fatherless boy. In my case, it was not a terribly traumatic experience because I was surrounded by this huge Irish Catholic family.

The Manly Catholic (02:56.899)
Okay.

Mmm.

Gil Bailie (03:19.938)
cousins and aunts and uncles and so on. But as I grew older, I lost my bearings a little bit. And I almost immediately began to look around for some older male mentor.

And I was very, very fortunate to meet some very important and impressive people, not important in the worldly sense, except for some were. But in any event, it was a blessing. But I know that experience. And I know that there are perils involved. And I also know that there's

There's certain grace that comes with it. So that would be, I don't think I'm going to be in a position to be a patron saint of anything, but that would be it.

The Manly Catholic (04:33.725)
You never know, right? God works in mysterious ways, doesn't he? So that could be yours one day. Well, Gil, why don't you give up, again, before we dive into the book, why don't you just give our audience, I know you're involved at the Cornerstone Forum, so maybe get our audience a little bit background of the work that the Cornerstone Forum does and how it impacts society.

Gil Bailie (04:35.31)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Gil Bailie (04:49.857)
Yeah.

Gil Bailie (04:56.598)
Well, it all goes back to this transition that I made in roughly the late 70s, early 80s. When I came back to the church, I as a young person, I went to mass every day. Up until my last year in law school, I went to law school. My last year in law school, I've walked out of mass.

and I didn't feel angry or reject. I didn't think I'd lost my faith. I just knew that I wasn't gonna come back. It was the stupidest mistake I ever made. But when I did finally come to my senses eight or 10 years later, I started going mass every day again. So it didn't trail off at either end. It was every day and then nothing and then every day again. So anyway, in the course of coming back,

to the church. When I was old enough to look around and see that the culture was in a terrible fix, not as bad as it is today, but bad enough, I realized I needed to know more than I knew about what it means to be, to live in a Christian culture and where that culture comes from.

So I began reading and I started with classical things, Homer and Virgil and Dante and Shakespeare and so on and so forth. And I had to support myself. So I had started a little organization in my little hometown, Sonoma, California. And people would come.

And I did classes here and then Napa and then Santa Rosa. So I was moving around. So I worked through these classes. And in the course of it, I don't want to get too long. Anyway, in the course of it, people brought their tape recorders and they recorded things. And then they moved away and they wanted me to send them a tape. So in a little while, it developed into one of those things where I'm sending dozens of tapes out every month.

Gil Bailie (07:24.526)
talks I've given every week. Anyway, at some point, my friend Randy Coleman-Rees came on the scene, and he said, you need some help. And he was right. So he and I put together the Cornerstone forums. And so it's a long story, and we didn't even get into it.

I moved back east. I lost my wife. I had, I came back to Sonoma. And by that time I had already written my first book, which is why I got on the road speaking, because it got a lot of play. So anyway, so what I've been trying to do.

in the last 10 years is to write. For some reason, I'm thinking of Leonard Cohen. In one of his early poems, he said, I tried to write what might be read on nights like this by ones like me. And that's basically what I tried to do. So.

The Manly Catholic (08:48.207)
Hmm.

Gil Bailie (08:55.006)
So that's it. And so for the last ten years, I've just occasionally, I get some talks or something, go to a conference. But for the most part, I've just been writing and reading and praying and anguishing over what's happening in our world.

The Manly Catholic (09:13.125)
And well, I mean, I can just tell by your background, Gil, you're clearly the well-read and learned man based on the library you got back there. Ah, that is true. That is the question. Well.

Gil Bailie (09:25.43)
Well, the question is compared to who. Sometimes people accuse me of being an academic. And I say to them, the problem is I know some. And so I know the difference between myself and my friends who are real academics. Well, I mean, I honor it. That's right.

The Manly Catholic (09:41.709)
Yeah

The Manly Catholic (09:46.113)
And I don't want to be an academic, right? Ha ha ha. Stop for everyone. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it kind of ties into your book because even in your intro, it says, for the same reasons as I have in my previous books, I have chosen to quote liberally from the sources to whom I am indebted, excuse me, rather than going to the trouble of paraphrasing the wisdom of others. And I love how you kind of set up the framework of your book with that statement because...

I feel like I could relate a lot to that, because I feel like every time I'm recording an episode or something, I'm quoting from other sources. So like none of our thoughts are truly our own. It comes from these giants of before us and things like that. So again, I love how you set up the book. So transitioning to this book, again, it's the apocalypse of the sovereign self. It kind of speaks to kind of what our culture is sort of going through in a way,

being humble enough to admit, hey, I don't know everything. And these people could say things a lot smarter than I ever can, definitely. And instead you, you come with this example of humility and you bring it, it's a beautiful contrast to what society tells us, which is all about you. It's all about fulfilling your pleasure and your desires. So maybe kind of dive into that a little bit, the difference between

what our culture is telling us and to just kind of take care of yourself versus what God is calling us to do, which is actually to die to ourselves, which is ultimately what leads to our ultimate happiness.

Gil Bailie (11:25.91)
Well, you use the word fulfilling. The problem is that worldly way isn't fulfilling. That's precisely the problem. And so we go from one thing to the next, desperately trying. You know, in many ways, this book is about how we're made. And Christianity understands how we're made, because Christ showed us. Christ is the template for what it means to be a human.

If we look to his life, death, and resurrection, we see what it really means to be a human being. So in many ways, this book is about how we're made. Of all the species on earth, what's the unique thing about ours? And I will say it is...

Religious longing. We all have religious longing. A lot of people don't think they have it, but they end up chasing all kinds of things. And it's religious longing that's prompting them to do that. So we have religious longing. And that is a blessed and a dangerous thing to have, because it can go sideways. If we

I mean, you know, Psalm 139, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And you think, well, if we're wonderfully made, how come we're fearfully made? And I would say...

But there is in us something that if it's honored is wonderful. And if it's betrayed, it's soul crushing.

Gil Bailie (13:30.51)
So it is that religious longing in us. And what do we do with it? Do we put it directed toward the right thing or towards the right model, the right exemplar? Or do we just farm it out to whatever the latest thing that titillates us? So.

That basically is the two halves of this book. The first half is The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self, which is, and I've been doing interviews, as you know, so I try to, how do I summarize a 300 plus page book? So I keep trying. So there's a contrast. I contrast two simple short quotations.

And the quotation that represents the apocalypse of the modern self is the quotation, I'll read it to you, from Justice Kennedy in his 1992 Supreme Court Casey decision. And he said, quote, at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, and of the universe.

and of the mystery of human life.

So in other words, you can make it up as you go along. Freedom means you get to just make it up as you go along. And we now, if you wanna see the apocalypse of the southern self, it's what we're doing now with that freedom. We think we can be anything. A man can be a woman, men can have babies. I mean, it's become so.

Gil Bailie (15:30.438)
outrageously counterfactual that you realize there must be some, it can't be any kind of logic. It must be some desperate religious longing to be what? To be what? You see? I mean it's the alternative to that or what I would set up as the contrast to that.

The Manly Catholic (15:52.571)
Yeah.

Gil Bailie (15:59.35)
It's Saint Paul who says, I live now, not I, but Christ lives.

The Manly Catholic (16:04.317)
Hmm. Amen.

Gil Bailie (16:06.69)
Now that, what we have to ask ourselves, what was he talking about? What was he talking about? Was he just using an interesting metaphor? You see what I mean? I live now not I, but Christ lives in me. This is the Christian understanding of personhood.

The Manly Catholic (16:14.475)
I'm sorry.

Gil Bailie (16:37.45)
We are being our person is made available.

Gil Bailie (16:47.242)
the Lord of all creation to do with as you will.

used me with all my shortcomings and a few of my talents. However, however, I'm, you know, constituted because God had something to do with that constitution. You see, I'm, how, whatever, however much of a mess I might be, I'm, I'm wonderfully and fearfully made in, in my mother's womb. So here I am with my

everything about me, my faults, my sins, my hopes, my attempts at rectitude and so on. So where do I fit in? What do I do? This one wakes up and says, okay, what's next? What am I supposed to do? And that's...

The Manly Catholic (17:46.19)
Yeah.

Gil Bailie (17:49.622)
That's the beauty of a Christian life.

The Manly Catholic (17:54.745)
Yeah, 100% kill. I mean, just look at the culture like you said and that religious longing, I love how you unpack that because yeah, we've heard frequently is that we all have a God-sized hole in our heart and we fill it with whatever we want. As long as we fill it with something other than God, of course it's never going to fulfill us and it's not supposed to.

Gil Bailie (18:13.873)
Exactly.

The Manly Catholic (18:23.189)
It kind of goes back to, you know, we are made in the image and likeness of God, right? So we are designed to be imitate him, to be like him. And I love too in the in the book, excuse me, you say that and this actually you quoted Tertullian, he said the soul is naturally Christian. And I wanted to ask you that and have you unpack that a little bit because

I mean, obviously as Catholics, we believe that too, but someone who might not be Catholic listening is like, well, wait a minute, why is the soul naturally Christian? So maybe unpack that a little bit for our listeners.

Gil Bailie (19:00.43)
Well, Christ is the logos. The logos, the word logos is freighted with meaning. It doesn't mean word. It means, depending on how you're using it, it means the template, the exemplar, the embodiment.

of the truth. So the logos, Christ shows us what it means to be a human being.

And his life is incomparable, but at the same time, it's the model, and it's the universal model. It's not just the model for men in their 30s, which is what he was, or whatever. It's the model for any human being. You live not for yourself.

But to because Christ spent some time and I talk about this in the book. He, he, he was God from all eternity, but he spent time on earth, discerning his, his role, just like every other human being. He learned it from the scriptures, especially second Isaiah. He learned it from John the Baptist.

He learned it most especially from his mother. So he learned all these things and it came to, and he went to the temple to learn. People think he went there just to lecture the scribes. No, he went there to engage in a conversation. He was interested. He knew he was here to perform a singular, at a certain point he knew.

Gil Bailie (21:13.858)
He was here to perform a singular act that would forever change the world, the human world. But he had to discern. And so he's the example for us all of how to pick up on the cues, ask ourselves in prayer, what am I being asked?

Who? Where am I being asked to go? Now, I haven't always been good at figuring that out, but I have almost always asked that question. And so I think that's what it means to be the Logos. He's the example for every human being. He's the human being par excellence. He's God in human form.

But I want to go back because you said that the Tertullian thing is, I think, exquisite. But somewhere else in the book, I can't remember now where, I quote the famous theologian Romano Gordini, German theologian of 20th century. And

Here's the quotation. The knowledge of what it means to be a person is inextricably bound up with the faith of Christianity. An affirmation and cultivation of the personal can endure for a time perhaps after faith has been extinguished, but gradually they will be lost.

Gil Bailie (23:14.49)
The knowledge of what it means to be a person is inextricably bound up with the faith of Christian. Because we think the word self and the word person are synonyms.

The Manly Catholic (23:20.475)
Hmm

Gil Bailie (23:28.05)
we think that's an absurd statement.

The Manly Catholic (23:30.149)
Mm-hmm.

Gil Bailie (23:31.842)
But the self and the person are not similar.

Dwardini is talking about the person. And most of what we do is try to figure out the self.

So.

The Manly Catholic (23:53.694)
As you're quoting, I was thinking about it. I mean, that's a very profound statement. I'm glad you quoted it. And that was Romano Gordini, right? I'm saying his name correctly. Yeah, and you bring up too the Jesus, and he was an imitator, right? Like he learned, I mean, he was truly man, right? So he had to learn these things. So he had to have great role models in his life, like our blessed mother, like St. Joseph.

Like the teachers that you mentioned too, and the synagogues, he didn't just go to preach, but we forgot too, he went to learn. And I think that goes hand in hand with the art of imitation. The great book by what's quoted as, or credited Thomas Akempa is, the imitation of Christ is being Christians, we are called to imitate Christ. And we're designed as humans to be imitators, right? So I think in our culture too,

You know, I guess a lot of it is who we surround ourselves with too as we you know, we see these things in our culture You know athletes or in Hollywood and you know that the craziness in our culture if that's what you're surrounding yourself with You're gonna naturally imitate that especially when we're young our brains are just sponges So, you know, maybe you can speak to I mean obviously you spoke about with Jesus but the importance of imitation and how it can lead us Obviously astray and lead us closer to Christ, too

Gil Bailie (25:18.926)
Well, as you may know, I've written three books. All three of them are indebted to the work of a Stanford professor who's no longer with us, René Girard. And René, I had great good fortune. Speaking of role models, male role models as I sought out, I didn't exactly seek him out. He came to my office.

The Manly Catholic (25:32.509)
Yes.

Gil Bailie (25:50.178)
to talk to my class. And anyway, we became friends. And he has left a huge contribution to human self-understanding. And it has to do with imitation. Imitation leads us to all kinds of conflict, including violence. But nonetheless, we are imitative creatures.

We need a model. And the question is, do we have a model that is sufficiently transcendent so that we don't end up having a rivalry? Early in the book, I use the Willie Loman story and his sons to get to show how the imitative thing can become rivalistic.

You can imitate somebody and then you realize I'm really trying to imitate that vice president of marketing, but now suddenly there's only one vice president of marketing and how am I going to get, take his place, etc. So you see, so what's ideal? Of course we need models that are in our...

The Manly Catholic (27:08.302)
Right.

Gil Bailie (27:19.262)
realm. But ultimately, we need a model that is transcendent, that cannot possibly become a rival. I mean, even Nietzsche turned Christ into a rival. So, and in many ways, people are still doing that. But that just shows they have no idea what they're talking about. So, the imitative

The Manly Catholic (27:36.494)
Hmm.

Gil Bailie (27:49.038)
propensity of our species is absolutely essential to understanding the crisis we're in and also the way out of it.

The Manly Catholic (28:00.869)
Yes, I guess, Gil, that given everything that is going on in our culture, what is the way out of it?

Gil Bailie (28:09.325)
I'm sorry.

The Manly Catholic (28:11.428)
That's a million dollar question, isn't it?

Gil Bailie (28:13.548)
Well, no, it's yeah, it is in the way. But first of all, I would say the way out of it is to understand the situation.

Gil Bailie (28:34.479)
I, again, I just quote people, you know, that's what I do. But.

The Manly Catholic (28:36.611)
Yes.

Gil Bailie (28:40.727)
We are.

We're in a situation.

which Hans Erwin Malfus, our great, perhaps the greatest theologian 20th century, arguably. He said, human history.

is the mutual intent. What's going on in human history?

is the mutual intensification of the yes and the no.

Gil Bailie (29:17.89)
Now, this was an unbelievably learned man. He read it in five, six languages, and he knew the Church Fathers, everything. I mean, he was a concert pianist. Human history is the mutual intensification of the yes and the no of Christ. Human history after Christ.

The Manly Catholic (29:28.599)
Oh wow.

Gil Bailie (29:46.602)
It doesn't appear to that way to most people.

But that's because we have such short lives.

You know, Chesterton is always as masterful quip. Chesterton said if everybody lived to be a thousand, they'd all die Catholic.

The Manly Catholic (30:14.637)
It's very true.

Gil Bailie (30:16.08)
So the thing is, we don't live to be a thousand, thank God. But still, if we lived to be a thousand...

The Manly Catholic (30:20.667)
No.

Gil Bailie (30:29.39)
When we got to be a thousand, we could look back on it, and we would be able to recognize that all the little decisions we made along the way were...

decisions.

about the yes and the no to Christ. It's just that we don't accumulate enough experience in the 70 or 80 or 90 years of our lives to get that, the picture. But if we had a thousand years to look at, we would come to realize that Von Bulasaw was right about.

The Manly Catholic (31:13.083)
Hmm.

Gil Bailie (31:16.307)
that that's the situation we're in. And to keep it from being too theological, I start the book talking about Bob Dylan, which will shock my more traditional Catholic friends. Probably not. Because at this point, Dylan has kind of become an interesting figure.

The Manly Catholic (31:30.385)
Mm-hmm

The Manly Catholic (31:36.861)
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Gil Bailie (31:44.918)
But Dylan experienced something in 1979. He published the album Slow Train, I think it was called. And this song in which he said, you've got to serve somebody. And the refrain of the song is, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you got to serve somebody.

That's just reiterating von Balthasar's thing, because both von Balthasar and Dylan give us only two choices. Ultimately, it's only two choices. Often, we make a decision and don't notice that it's hedged in one direction or another. It doesn't look like it's a.

terribly evil thing. It's just a, you know, it's a convenience or it's a whatever. But if you live to be a thousand years, you realize that was a step in the wrong direction. So that's the apocalyptic part of it. Apocalypse is not. I mean, it can it can be, you know, nuclear holocaust, which is not out of the realm of possibility.

But really, the kind of apocalypse that Christians have been wary of for all these centuries is

an authority that claims to be more Christian than Christ.

The Manly Catholic (33:38.03)
Mm.

Gil Bailie (33:39.638)
more compassionate, more nonjudgmental, more sympathetic to this group or that group. That's the Antichrist. Christ's compassion is a stern, it's loving, but it has criteria. It's

It forms us.

Gil Bailie (34:16.96)
So yeah, the apocalypse is appropriate, I think, in that title, because the experience of the subject in our world today is so fragile among the young especially. And there's some very, there's some very

evil people. They may not know they're evil, but there's some very evil people tampering with the young at a very early age in a way that should shock us all.

And so we, because they know better than we in a way that it has to begin when they're young.

Gil Bailie (35:07.936)
They have to be catechized one way or another. Now, there are plenty of incredible adult converts. So I don't mean to say if you don't get it in your youth. But still, today, the danger is that a great sloth of our young people are being.

The Manly Catholic (35:12.771)
Yeah.

Gil Bailie (35:34.574)
caught up in the world of TikTok and God knows what else.

The Manly Catholic (35:38.492)
Hmm.

Yeah, Gail, you're exactly right. And I love I'm going to try to see if I got this quote right, because I wrote it down and it says human history is the intensification of unity between the yes or no of Christ. Did I get that quote right?

Gil Bailie (35:55.706)
It's the mutual intensification of the yes and the no to Christ. In other words, the yes, so we've, and it's, so right now, if you look around, it looks like the no is winning out.

The Manly Catholic (35:57.977)
mutual. That's what it was. Yeah. Okay.

The Manly Catholic (36:04.134)
And that's...

The Manly Catholic (36:19.805)
Hmm, right.

Gil Bailie (36:22.646)
But it's a mutual intensification. Now we're beginning to see an awakening on the part of those who want to say yes. That's one of the most promising things of our moment in history. We don't know where it's going to go. Is it going to bear fruit? Is it going to save Western civilization? We don't know. But if.

We're very close to losing Western civilization. And I think that it might awaken people. People are now awakening. But it's not just a question of making, moralizing about this or that. Because the moral, although it's ultimately important, it doesn't draw on those spiritual resources that Christianity makes available to us.

So the resolve that will be required in the coming years, long after I'm gone, will be successful if it draws on the energy of Christ in this church.

The Manly Catholic (37:45.806)
Yeah, I mean...

Gil Bailie (37:46.494)
the authentic energy of Christ in this.

The Manly Catholic (37:49.585)
Right, I mean, and Gil, that's the hope that we have, right? I mean, exactly what you said too, they mean the apocalypse, when we think of the apocalypse, we think of world destruction and a nuclear bomb, which obviously could happen, like you said, but then it's the choices that we make as individuals and the great lie is that the choices that I make don't affect anyone else, like of course they affect everyone. I mean, and St. Paul says too, you know.

about the body of Christ. If there's a brother or sister that's sinning, it's gonna affect the body as well. But again, the great hope is that we can choose to say yes more often than we say no to Christ. You know exactly what you're talking about with Chesterton. If we lived 1,000 years, we can look back at our life and see all the times that we said no. Because either you're going towards Christ or you're going away from Christ. There's none of this, I'm just gonna stay right in the middle.

You got to pick a side either you're going towards him or leaning against him and running away from him So gil before I let you go. I Guess I guess would that be your great hope for our culture. I mean, obviously we have That the obvious things that are going like you said especially towards the young but then as you mentioned in the previous segment that You know people are starting to awaken to that. So I guess leave our listeners with a bit of hope for our culture if you will

Hahaha

Gil Bailie (39:17.134)
Well, I am hopeful. I think, I mean, one doesn't write books if you don't have hope. I mean, I feel like, if I didn't think this book had potential readers, it would have been hard to stick with it. But I think that, not that I want to give my book too much credit, but I do think that.

that we're ready now in light of everything that's happening, but to realize how important it is. Now, let me say in closing, let me say something. Another thing that on Balthazar gave us is the idea of what he called the field drama, the field dramatic history, which is the mutual intensification of the yes and no of Christ.

It's a Theodrama in which we are all actors in the drama. So that it doesn't matter what your profession is, what your job is, what your situation in life is, but we should conduct ourselves.

in such a way that anyone who happens to be looking on...

will notice that there's something different about us. And it's not anything to do with our ego or any, our intellect or anything. As a matter of fact, it's more obvious in very simple people that are unlearned than it is in, you know, people who read and write books for a living.

Gil Bailie (41:14.358)
When a person can walk or can travel through life, it helps to realize that other people are catching a glimpse of the world when they look at us.

They will either be in our existence, will incline them to, you know, fritter away their time doing something, or they will think, you know, what is it about that person? Why is he or she, why are they happy? Why are they at peace? You know, why are they going to, into church every day to say the rosary and go to mass?

what's going on with those people? You see what I mean? This just shows you how vain I can be in some way. The church that I go to every morning, there's two entrances. One goes out onto the main street. And the other, the side entrance, where a lot of people park and they come in. And I've always thought we should all go out the entrance that goes onto the main drag. Because there's

The Manly Catholic (42:07.077)
Those weirdos.

The Manly Catholic (42:31.185)
Hmm.

Gil Bailie (42:33.326)
probably 60, 75 people go to mass every day. If we all walked out at the end of mass, at more or less at rush hour, the cars driving by, it would give some people, it would make some people think, what in the world are those people doing, going to church on a Wednesday? So, you don't wanna overdo it because you become too.

The Manly Catholic (42:50.425)
Mm.

The Manly Catholic (42:55.66)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gil Bailie (43:02.562)
self-conscious. But we should always remember that other people are getting a picture of the world when they see us.

The Manly Catholic (43:04.029)
100%.

The Manly Catholic (43:14.081)
Yeah, no, amen. Yeah be that example that makes people question what's different about that person I love that in a perfect way perfect way to end well gil Thank you so much for your time before we let you go Where can people find this book and i'll be sure everyone who's listening i'll leave Links in the show notes to the best place to find the book and purchase it

Gil Bailie (43:32.39)
Well, it's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. So it's a great title and subtitle, but it's hard to remember. So if they type in my name, Bailey, with an I-E, and the word apocalypse, it'll show up.

The Manly Catholic (43:36.685)
Okay, all the places.

The Manly Catholic (43:48.901)
Perfect. All right, I will leave links in the show notes again for you guys, but Gil, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. And yeah, while everyone out there listening, make sure you go out and purchase it. And until next time, go out there and be a saint.

Gil Bailie (43:54.606)
Thank you. I really enjoyed it.