#485 From Kathmandu to the Benedictines, A Young Monk's Tale and Discussion Of "Just for Today" Daily Meditations from Saint Therese of Lisieux and The Imitation of Christ!

In this episode we're going to be talking about his life , beautiful liturgy , what drew him to the Benedictines , and also a wonderful new book . It was just re-released by St Benedict Press , slash Tan Books , just for today . It's a book that was written a while back re-released . It's fantastic .

I've been reading it every morning by St Therese of Lisieux with entries that match those daily entries . It's a daily meditation book from the imitation of Christ . It's really been a blessing and it continues to be so in my life . One more quick thing before we start today's show is if you'd rather watch this in video .

We started putting just a couple of the podcasts up on video on X and on our website , so I'll have the links in the show notes if you'd rather watch that on video . Also , I pinned to X an interview I did with Jason Jones If you haven't seen that yet on his new book the Great and Against the Great . Please go to X or our website and check it out .

Buckle up and get ready for today's episode . I'm excited and grateful to have Dom David Waters with me today . Dom David grew up in Kathmandu , nepal , as a son of missionaries , and moved to the US when he was 12 years old . He converted to Catholicism while attending Baylor University so here's somebody in the university converting to Catholicism .

I like that and shortly thereafter started considering religious life as a convert . The liturgy was something that always stood at the forefront of his life as a Catholic , since it was not something he was very familiar with growing up , and he found it exquisitely beautiful . I love that , dom David exquisitely beautiful .

Consequently , when considering religious life , dom David naturally gravitated toward the Benedictines , whose great care is the liturgy Let nothing be put before the work of God as one of the rules of St Benedict .

Moreover , the Benedictines' groundedness in reality , the work in prayer was something that resonated with him , since the same sort of thing had been inculcated in him since boyhood .

Adoration also played a pivotal role in Dom David's conversion , and when he discovered an order of benedictines of perpetual adoration , it was the convergence of many desires that the Lord had put in place on his heart . Dom David entered in 2020 . He's currently in his simple vows and he hopes to make final vows in September of this year .

So it's coming up , dom David welcome .

We've got about 16 brothers here and we devote our lives well , first , as I mentioned in the bio , the liturgy and putting nothing before the work of God , but then also , of course , this charism of adoration and particularly adoration , the spirit of reparation for the sins of the world , for the church and for priests in particular .

So , yeah , yeah , and for priests in particular .

We do a lot of other things with the John Paul II Renewal Center , but it's that Sister Lucia of Fatima said the last great battle between our Lord and Satan is going to be over marriage and the family .

And we see that spiritual battle and so what you're doing there , you know , I don't know if people understand it as much If we get a couple of minutes through the show just to talk about that battle , I'm sure that you understand it very well . As you're in adoration praying , I mean we really need this , understand that very well .

As you're in adoration praying , I mean we really need this . People sometimes don't understand how important those prayers are from monasteries and convents all around the world , do they ?

That it's not , I mean it's ad adoration , but also very much in the spirit of trying to repair all of the , all of the , the damage done , I suppose , by , by the , by the great apostasies , by the , you know turning away from the truth and from , and you know , the , the crazy things going on in secular society and and the great attack on the family .

Absolutely it's , you know it's , it's , it's a spiritual battle and no-transcript and adoration is , is a , a great weapon in in that arsenal and in in the battle .

One of my favorite feasts is the feast of saint michael and there's a , there's an antiphon that we , that we sing that just about , while , while the dragon waged war , there was silence and adoration in heaven , and it's like this is how we wage our war is silence and adoration .

So I wouldn't put you in the reserves and I wouldn't just say , and even though you are there to help heal , you know the , the , the , the soldiers on the battlefield , you also are in the front lines of that battle because I I'm sure satan would love to get to you guys , you know , because look at one of the things of reparation , I mean the Catholic Church

really , you know , had some problems . We don't have to get into all that in Ireland . I mean , were the Irish lost their faith ? Basically , I mean I'm generalizing here- right ?

And , yeah , reparation is important on that front .

I don't know if you know who Jason Jones is , but he's an author , he's a movie maker , he wrote a book , a Sophia . Uh . A press published a book , uh , the great campaign against the great reset .

But anyways , we start to talk about pornography and the devastation it has for young men , and I've worked with a number of young men addicted to porn , and they all got into this , Dom David , by accident . You know , they'd hear something in school , They'd Google it , and this is hardcore porn and how it twists your mind , your heart .

At the end of the day , one of the most beautiful things that you can do for a young man and young women I guess too , but I don't work with young women as much is to get them into a beautiful church and come back into the liturgy and they all have . I mean , if you're going to overcome this battle .

So let's just talk a little bit about you know you said exquisitely beautiful you were drawn to that liturgy . You know let's spend a couple of minutes because this will bring us right . You know , subway right into this book , because this is what the book does is bring beauty back into our hearts .

But when you contrast this , you the the of hardcore porn and the twisting and distortion of our beauty , of our bodies and sexuality . And did you walk into a church ?

A beautiful this is , and this is the question I want to ask you is how important it is to keep the liturgy beautiful , because it's not always beautiful and we're all fighting for that , like the young people that I know , gravitating to the , say , the traditional latin master doing it because of beauty yeah , yeah , absolutely it's .

your same eyes now gazing on true beauty . You know those same eyes that that might have , you know , looked at something terrible , but then now they're looking at , like , I guess , the reparative effect of beautiful liturgy .

It's totally inculcated into the , into the culture .

This is the beauty that actually has depth , this is the beauty that has truth . You know it's and and so and so it it . I guess it pulls you back in the right direction , as it were . Right , and if , if , if the liturgy doesn't , doesn't have that beauty , doesn't have that reverence , you know a true , a true direction towards God .

If there's sort of an aimless aimlessness about it , the human heart picks up on it quickly . Yeah , I realize is that there's not , there's not direction to this . You know there's not , it's not fulfilling .

But when there is direction , when there is that clear , I guess , intention to offer the best of our work to God , the very best of our craftsmanship , the very best of our music , the very best of everything to God , the heart picks up on and the heart realizes this is real and this is what I want you know .

As we reflect back on being created in an image and likeness of god , reflecting trinitarian love . It's also being reflected back into our lives . So you see these beautiful families at these great liturgies , right , and and and , and you know what . You know three or four kids , you know , between two young parents , and you just go , wow , that's so beautiful .

And then I look at the altar and I see this priest who's just the other bookend of this love story , right , that skipped , as you are doing , right , this earthly marriage to go right into the heart of God , to be able to turn around and to pour this back out into prayer and into the faithful and into the rest of us .

I mean , this is a beautiful love story really . Yeah , yeah , absolutely , this is a beautiful love story , really , yeah , yeah , absolutely .

And the last thing I'll say and we're going to get to this book is your adoration , because , again , you were drawn to adoration and it's another key thing for young people today , and I just want to remind you what you're doing and it's so important , you know , and to push this out to young people , and that's what we do , and that's why I want to get your

words on this a little bit , because I want to push this out to some young people that I know in young families that there's so much noise with social media apps and we're constant streaming and this constant noise that Satan really loves to keep you on the surface of things .

And now you walk into adoration and I'll tell you what I see young people when you explain it to them . You can't just bring them into adoration and tell them to sit there for you know , like for an hour right away , but I start with just a couple of minutes at a time , and they are drawn to that .

They want to do that because they want to go beneath the surface . They're looking for peace . They're looking for peace , they're looking for a certain joy and peace , and that's an incredible place to find it , isn't it ?

And he says , and he describes hell as the kingdom of noise , whereas silence and music , they belong in heaven and devils don't want anything to do with silence or music , they just care about noise . You know what ?

They sing upon the earth , they talk in the water . It's just silence beneath the surface , it's , you know as it right it's it's silence , but , but you know what , then ? what that then does is it , I guess , one .

It allows us to encounter god and ourselves , as it it were , for the first time , right , just like it's no longer putting , like Adam and Eve , it's no longer putting leaves and garments on ourselves , it's silences . There's a nakedness about it , right , and it's this intimate encounter with the God who loves us . You know , it's not just you're looking at God .

God in the Eucharist is staring straight back at you with a burning love that is incomprehensible . And that's another thing that people have a really hard time with nowadays is receiving love .

You know , often there's a lot of activism , right , I'm going to give myself to this , I'm going to give myself to this , I'm going to give to this and this and this , but then , in adoration , there's also that converse lesson , as it were , of receiving God's love , realizing that that is a person you know , and he's staring back at me , and he has given

himself the tremendous grace that I , a creature , dirt and mud , am before the creator of the universe . That is an incredible thought that the creator of the universe has given me this grace to just come before his presence for a moment .

I am not worthy to step foot into this , into this room , but he's having me come here and he's looking at me and he's telling me that he loves me immensely . It's and and and the silence . The silence opens that up , right .

It opens that up to that intimate encounter of here's God , and he's giving himself to me Something that you wouldn't otherwise encounter in the noise and in the chaos of so much other stuff .

He takes on human form and John Paul II would say , in a sense he takes on each one of our humanities right in union and communion with the divinity , as it was kind of in the beginning , before sin , and then brings us up to the Father . You see , all this taking place at the Mass , right ? Yeah , absolutely so . Thank you for all those insights .

So let's turn now . You know I have a couple questions on . So why don't you explain the book a little bit , how it works out and look at it ? I have , I've been reading this for the last couple weeks is when I got it right and just on my knees in the morning . So I have this little prayer that I go through .

I always tell people before you look at that stupid little screen in the morning their phone right , get on your knees and just make a fiat right with our blessed mother , just say your will be done right , or your word be done whatever , and then you can go about your day . Well , I've added this now along with Cardinal Burke's novena .

He has going through the interview .

I did a podcast series on her a couple years ago in a retreat , and so this is right up my alley , but then pairing it with the invitation of Christ . So explain all that . And the last thing and then I'm going to just be quiet is I always think of Thomas Kempis , right with the imitation , but maybe he didn't .

I always thought of him as the author of this , but I guess we don't know for sure . So unpack that a little bit too . So I'm going to just put it in your lap . You talk about what you need to talk about , and I'm going to try to bite my tongue for a minute .

Unfortunately it didn't have any entry on february 29th , but but otherwise it yeah , it's , it's just these . It's just these bite-sized pieces that basically pairs up a passage from the Imitation of Christ with the writings of St Therese of Lisieux .

For those who are or are not familiar with St Therese , the Imitation of Christ was the most influential book in her life . She lived and breathed it .

Often there there can be some things that are hard to digest for , for for people nowadays , but but then when you get it through saint therese , you know she's , she's it her own , and then she gives it back to us .

There's sort of a personal nature that takes this old text and then gives it back to us with a certain vivacity , a certain life and a certain lovableness , because everybody loves Saint Therese .

I grew up fast and I had to be practical and , and so we don't always remember this that our faith is a incarnate faith for one , and it's practical , isn't ?

Yeah , absolutely , and yeah , it's really beautiful when you see a passage from the Imitation and then there's a passage from the story of a soul that's mirrored it and it's like , wow , st Therese literally just lived that out in what she did and she demonstrated this heroic virtue and she really and , given that the title that she's following is the imitation of

Christ , it's like this this saint is imitating Christ . You know , this saint is really Christ-like and so then , ultimately then , what it , what it is , is it ? You know , it's a treasure chest pointing back to the source of all holiness , right To our Lord upon the cross , and that's that's just .

Yeah , that's incredible Then , yeah , so , getting back to sort of the way the way the book works is right , daily meditations , and they're not too long . You know some of the , some of them are it's a passage from the imitation and then from saint therese's writings , some stuff from , like , the story of his soul , some from letters , some from her poems .

Actually , my favorite entry is is the is the entry that the book is named after . So it's this poem that she wrote . If I can just read it for a second , yeah , and give me the page on that too .

The daily grace for which I pray will keep me to the end , will send the daily grace for which I pray , will keep me to the end . And that I can endure , just for today , the cross that thou wilt send the daily grace . You know that's the principle of the book . It's these daily graces , right ? It's these daily graces that are on offer , that you know .

How should I imitate Christ today ? Or what is the Lord trying to say to me today ? Or , you know , I need some encouragement , or I need some conviction , or something the book , you know , with these meditations , are , ultimately , they're these daily graces offered to us , right , and you were just mentioning , you added it to your morning prayers , you know .

And the fruit that it , hopefully , that it has borne and that it will bear right . That it's , you know , particularly , you know like reading it at the end of the day or at pivotal points in the day , to then have that turning over in your mind and in your heart as a source of life , a source of meditation , drawing your gaze back towards God right .

You know , I usually read scripture at night for the mass for the next day at night and go to sleep with that and I've been looking forward , you know , to waking up to this . I really have there's always something that's going to touch my heart in there . I had some fears last night about some different things happening .

You know , and you know , a lot of times it's fears for my kids or my grandkids , and you know the future or whatever . And here's Therese . I mean , it was a tough . It was a tough one this morning , but she's actually talking about being excited because , look , she got she .

She felt some blood actually come out you know , and so she's thinking most people would be horrified by that . And she's thinking I think God is calling me , you know , and getting ready to take me to heaven , and I go whoa , wow , wow , I mean , she just gave me that courage , like you know , like , dude , you'll be fine , get out there .

We're going someplace , right , we have an end . God won the battle , he , you know . All these things started going through my mind right and I'm thinking you know , mary , you know , crushed the serpent's head already . You know , we're just fighting in this temporal space and we're not going to be fighting forever .

So get up , do your best and and get on with it . Right , and it was beautiful .

You know , match them up that you have , you know , these great treasure chests that , even though separated by such a long period of time , nonetheless you know they reflect the strong current of the church's spirituality , as it were .

You know these aren't things to go away , Don . David , right , I mean , you know these are timeless and I love the idea that . You know , here's this woman that's probably started putting it together for herself , right , wasn't thinking I'm going to publish this thing and didn't really care if she was put down as an author or anything .

You know , right , and , and it's amazing , you know that so . So I'm saying that because I just feel even more like somebody handed me just this gift from heaven and I'm going to talk to this , this anonymous benedictine nun , and just tell her thank you , you know , and hopefully , hopefully , I can develop a relationship , you know , just in thankfulness , with her .

You know , yeah , absolutely Absolutely .

The thing is there is , there were some suggestions going around by different historians and such but good , I guess , catholic historians in the in the last century that actually suppose we're thinking that actually this , this text , the imitation of christ , for such striking resemblance to certain things in the rule of saint benedict that made that that it was , that

there was , and then they actually found evidence that perhaps it was a benedict and abbott around the same time as thomas the campus . Who ? Who wrote it ? I'm not , I'm , I'm just I'm not gonna take a stand on that , but I'm just going to throw it out there to maybe put up a little flag or something for the Benedictine order . Maybe we wrote this .

Yes , how beautiful . Otherwise , it's largely attributed to Thomas Akempis .

You know that what fed us once will continue to feed us .

Now I don't know what the difference between simple orders , and and your , your , your , your , your initial vows coming up , but you're considered a monk at this point . Then you see , right . So here I am speaking to a young monk now that has come through all of this , and now I get a chance to speak to you in Ireland , you know .

So technology does have one or two benefits , right , it brings a lot of evil in , but there are good things to be used properly , right . And so now I'm speaking to you . So tell us your heart . Now you know , and , and , and , and you know , I would love to know just a couple of minutes .

Look , there's so much I could have asked you about Kathmandu , but your missionary parents are on my mind . And then how you converted , and how do you tell that all in five or six or seven minutes , look , we don't have a hard stop . And then the conversion from missionary parents to Catholicism , and then the joy that's on your face .

And so you know , in this crazy world , I mean , I think it's important , you're telling an important story with your life .

And we came back to the States when my older brother he was just about to enter college and my parents wanted him to get a little bit , of , a little bit of experience in American high school and then , but then , particularly because they wanted him to start preparing for college , and so it would be just also just more helpful for him to have the guess gone

through American education a little bit in order to prepare for college .

So we came back the last two years of his high school I was 12 years old and when we came back so maybe rewind just a little bit that in Nepal all I knew that was I was a Protestant , I had no idea about denominations , like because there was only one church in Kathmandu , so everybody went to it and like I didn't even know that like there were , you

know it had everything from Episcopalians to Methodists to Southern Baptists , like , like the whole spectrum and and so .

But then we got back to the states and we moved to Texas , and then Texas is just Baptist , thrown through basically , and but I guess , and kind of non-denominational Baptist , methodist , maybe those are the big ones and we go to , we go to a church and just absolute culture shock . Like is this Christianity in the U ? S ?

So you know , we've just moved from our lifelong home in Nepal to the States .

And and I mean you , I I grew up knowing that blood would be shed for the faith by people I know and by and by people my parents knew and things like that . And then I come back to the states and it's just totally watered down and so totally destabilized . My brother then goes to university . He starts studying great books . He's also a convert .

He converted before I did and through his conversion he kind of dragged me along with it .

And so he started slowly moving towards Catholicism and he and I are very close friends so he was considering it more and more . He and I had lots of conversations . He kind of used me like a sounding board . He's like what do you think of this ? Does that sound crazy ? I was like no , actually maybe it doesn't . And then he converted .

then , baylor , okay right and then at that point I was basically convinced of the Catholic church as well .

But even in high school , actually , what really got me and this is why I put liturgy into the bio was I was a big soccer player and I would travel from where I was and go up to Dallas , which was a couple hour drive for for soccer games over the weekends , and typically they would be on Saturdays .

But then one year they started getting moved to Sundays and so I it's like well , what do I ? I want to go to church . What do I do about church ? At this point my brother had started going to daily mass and so it's like why don't I go along with my brother to daily Mass ? And the first time I went to Mass I was blown away .

I mean , it wasn't exquisite or spectacular , but at the same time it totally was . It was unlike anything I'd seen and I was just this is incredible .

You know , this is actually something that speaks to my heart , rather than a lot of the watered down kind of super emotional , gooey stuff at the other church Like , this is something that has substance to it and I remember I went up to . It was just a regular nova sort of daily mass .

I went up to the priest to get a blessing and he put he put his hand on my head and it was . It was like fire going through me . I was like this place is real . This place is real .

Yeah , and , and also at the parish there was adoration every single day , and so then becoming really really intense on going to that every day before mass and that really doing , having having a lot of healing as well , and so yeah , you know , you mentioned um david , pope benedict the 16th .

It's always going to be an encounter with an event , you know , an encounter with a person , and that encounter will give you a new horizon and a definitive direction for your life . But he always talks . The point is the encounter . In other words , pope Benedict XVI , when he spoke , you know , he said you know you will encounter Christ .

If you stay at this , you will encounter the person of Jesus Christ . I had that experience . Many other people do . I mean that initial time where that priest touches your head like that , you know it's so important , I think and maybe just speak to it just a little bit is for us to somehow remember those moments . I mean , you know you you need to .

I always tell people you know you don't have to have a diary , but just a little journal somewhere that you put these , these , these , these God encounter moments down , because because otherwise , 20 years from now or when , when you personally are my age , you'll think , ah , that didn't really happen . You know what I mean . You need to unpack that power of that .

So speak to that just a little bit . Do you feel like that was an encounter ? Or have you had other things ? Because again , something happens to the human heart and there's this . You know , the saints talk about this right , and St Teresa of Avila and St John , I mean they were ooh , something's happening here , right , and not to overdo it either right ?

So we're always expecting lightning , but I think that that was a little lightning there on your head .

You know people are here and they're emotionally charged , but like , is god really here ? I don't know . And just in that moment it was . It was god is in this place . Yeah , kind of like the patriarch Jacob when he sleeps on a rock and he has the dream of the ladder into heaven and he wakes up and he says , surely this is the gate of heaven .

And how does it go ? Something like , yeah , surely God is in this place and this is the gate to heaven , or something like that . And just given the context of everything that was going on in that moment you know , it was the holy sacrifice of the Mass I was the closest I'd ever been to our Lord's true presence in the Eucharist .

I had never , you know , I guess , yeah , and then there's this moment , moment where it's I mean , it's nothing . It's nothing else than just the conviction of the holy spirit . You know that , that god spoke to my heart in that moment . Yeah , and and and the entire complex of everything that was happening around . You know God had aligned all of the .

You know he brought all of the paths into line and everything . You know all the circumstances of life , everything in that particular liturgy , everything happening , so that in that moment it was , it made perfect sense and it made yeah , it made perfect sense that what was happening was God and there , and it would be foolishness to doubt that it was him .

And I mean ultimately that's . I mean that's what God , god does to souls . He lines things up in his providence . You know , even even when things feel like they , you know they might be falling apart . Even when things feel like they , you know they might be falling apart .

He'll line things up and all of the circumstances in life so that he knows right when to pull on the string and catch us . You know , and he prepares those moments .

You know , so often we're like when , god , when , when , when he's lining things up so that in the right moment , he'll pull the string and will say I know that was you , I know you were there the whole time . You have been guiding and protecting and leading me this entire time , and now I'm yours .

So do me a favor keep the John Paul II Renewal Center in your prayers , if you don't mind , and we'll keep you in ours , especially for the young people that are out there struggling .

So I think you're going to be a good example for them and I hope that the words that you shared with us today get out to some of them and you'll touch some hearts , brother .

Goodbye everyone .