# 572 From Communist Poland to Building Families in Faith: Matt Lorens Journey and the Creation of 'The Holy Quest'

I love Matt . I love listening to families when they laugh , when they have joy , when they share love , when they share their faith with one another . Matt's developing board games and other ideas that bring these families together . But he's doing something very unique . He's not only bringing them together to sit at a table .

He's bringing them deeper into our Catholic faith , introducing them to saints and many other things . If we don't build up the domestic church , if we don't get families together , if we don't get families bringing a Christ-centered existence into who they are , we don't have much hope for the future . So , with all that said , matt , it's great to be with you .

Welcome to the show .

You know very well , matt , if I'm talking to you in the past , you know very well this battle between good and evil , between truth and lies , between this culture of death that John Paul II talked about and the culture of life that you're working on today . When you went to work for Planned Parenthood , did you have any idea what they did , matt ?

And because I was into computer science and the IT , we started talking and through him I got into Planned Parenthood , completely not knowing who they are , what they do and what the company is about . I was just interested in doing computer work , programming and designing and developing websites and things like that .

So that was my first job , first real corporate job , and that was back in 2001 . So you know we're talking- At that time ?

But I grew up as a young Catholic in a Catholic family , even though we didn't do things like praying the rosary every day . I didn't really read scripture at the time . And at the age of 15 , my father made a move , actually about two and a half years before , so I think I was about 13 or maybe 12 and a half when he left Poland .

He kind of escaped as a political refugee and he ended up in new york city , of all places , and it took about two and a half years for my family to join him . It wasn't difficult to get a visa from poland to the us at the time , but it was very difficult to get a passport from poland from the polish government . Okay , yeah , so it was .

You know , we had to jump through a lot of hoops to leave Poland , and it was my mother and my two brothers and myself , okay . So that was 1986 . Okay .

So he had to , you know , start working , making money , rent an apartment somewhere and , you know , furnish it and all that and get ready for my , my mom and my two brothers and myself to come over . And basically we started with pretty much with nothing .

Um , so so I know , you know , I value everything that I that I make , because I realize how difficult it is for certain families to , when they come in , start with nothing and they have to build everything from scratch .

But what we're really talking about is trying to take this election we just went through . It gives us a little hope , but within that hope that we can restore the United States to one nation under God , we're going to take all of us standing up , matt , and that's why I'm excited to have you on the show , because you're developing ideas and ways to do this .

So you're at Planned Parenthood , you're working there . Do you realize then at some point that , hey , this is not good ? And that's why I was asking you about the faith , because if you're working on websites and IT , at some point you realize , wow , I wonder what they do here , right ?

I got married to a polish girl and and then I had two children while at Planned Parenthood . And actually my second child , my son , was born with a disability . He has cerebral palsy from birth . So I think the best way I can explain it is I was very insensitive , even though I was church-going Catholic , so I would go to church every Sunday .

I didn't think I was sinning in any way by working there and for a long time I didn't even really give it much thought . And once I did realize that Planned Parenthood is probably the leading abortion provider in the world , not just the united states , I kept making excuses . Like you know , they also do good things .

Like you know , breast cancer testing and things like that women's health and they . And because I wasn't working at at any clinic , I was never exposed to what people see in clinics and the actual abortions and things like that . I was working at the very headquarters in Manhattan , so it was a very corporate environment .

It's like an office environment and you have cubicles and offices and you have your desk , you could see then , matt , how people can fall for these ideologies .

You know , when I'm in conversations every day with people , people that aren't conscious of the fact really and really thinking that we're taking a few human lives here , that yeah , well , planned Parenthood does some good things and they're giving health exams , and I hear that all the time we can really fall under that veil , can't we ? It's you know , you can .

I have empathy and some sympathy for people in conversations with them because I realize if it could happen to someone like you , matt , it could happen to anybody for a period of time it could happen to anyone .

So right off the bat bat , from the very beginning , they make it sound like it's a negative thing . Instead of saying pro-death and pro-life , they're saying you're against women's rights exactly you don't stand up for women .

They don't care about the babies , they don't care about children , their mother's wombs . You know none of that . But there are a lot of people who work there don't realize where they are , and I was one of those people , you know .

Or , you know , is there , you know , kind of an evil veil that comes over that we don't have as much of a choice over right ? It's a curious thing .

And even though I considered myself always a catholic , now going , looking back , you know , after many years and after I had my conversion , I would say that I was just blind , I just didn't see it . I was not thinking about the truth , I was not thinking about , you know , the love for jesus , for god , for m , all that stuff didn't really exist .

In that sense , yeah , we compromise , don't we ?

It is to really seek the truth , and you know it's not easy to do , but I think that's where we have to .

And once , I mean , a lot of people don't realize but pornography is a real addiction and it's very , very difficult to get out of it .

Once you get into it it gets easier and easier and you know , over a short period of time you know you're like very deep into it and and then it's very difficult to abandon that and and I didn't- like when I was , when I was in that state , I didn't even think about like hey , I'm cheating on my wife , but this is actually cheating on your wife , even

though you're not physically with another woman . But it is really . I mean . Jesus said you know , even if you look at a woman in a lustful way you are committing adultery , so I was in this and it's interesting .

He says you're making an action and that action is affecting your heart . And this is the point , matt . It's so important what you just said right now , because it affects every action we take , affects us . We don't realize it at first , but then we get caught up into these things and we go wow , this is changing me .

I mean , we hear stories of you know when things come out and they're exposed , but you know we only hear , like you know , one story here , one story there . I think it's a much wider problem and you know Our Lady in Fatima , I think , said that men go to hell mostly because of the sins of the flesh , and so you know that includes all of it .

You know pornography , you know adultery , masturbation , everything that has to do with you know , sexual sins . That's the main reason why people go to hell . And you know it's amazing that you know , maybe my story will help someone to break out of it .

Or you know , because I don't think I could have done this on my own I had a conversion about , I would say probably like 11 years ago , and I say this as a catholic , and so it's not like I was . I was converted from being a catholic to a catholic , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . But but this problem affects everyone .

You know you have protestant ministers , you know priests in the Catholic Church , even bishops , who are all affected by this , and we hear stories like McCarrick and others . There are pedophiles , homosexuals . It's a huge , huge problem , and part of it is because it's the ease of access Internet , so that's why I'm developing board games .

So it's the three A's right Affordable , anonymous and accessible . And you put those together and it's very , very easy .

So that explains a little bit , matt , I think , as we start to move on a little bit , that explains a little bit about why you didn't see , why you're in Planned Parenthood and I'm glad you said that , because I knew there had to be something , because there's always something within a man or a woman that's eating at them and we're all broken , every single

person listening today , including myself and you and all of us . We came into a broken world , we came in under original sin and there's an evil force out there trying to take our heart . So it's so beautiful when you are willing to battle this on the battlefield of John Paul would say on the battlefield of the human heart , right ?

And so this is great because this is a battle . So you're not only , you know , have that addiction . You're working in Planned Parenthood . You know there's a dark place , man . So what propelled you into your conversion story ? Because God comes in and he rescues you if you'll say yes to him , won't he ?

My prayer life was almost like non-existent at the time and , like I said , I was addicted to pornography , so I was living in sin yeah not even realizing that I was really sinning . I didn't see it that way , and so it .

There was one day when I was reading a book on faith it wasn't the Bible , but it was a book on faith and while I was reading the book , I had my conversion and it was just like an instant . I mean , the best way I can describe it is just the Holy Spirit just comes over you and I fell on my knees on the floor and I started crying .

And I'm always like one of those guys you know , guys are tough , we never cry , we don't complain and I was crying like a baby and two thoughts came to my mind at the time . It was , I mean , this was an instant thing .

It was just like it lasted a split second , and two thoughts that came to my mind were number one you're going to hell if you don't change your life . And the second thought that came was you have been just unplugged from the Matrix .

Since that time it was just .

You were already baptized with water , so now you're baptized with water and the spirit , and this is a big distinction .

So so this , this moment came , you know , like 11 years ago , and it was the most profound thing that ever happened to me . I mean , to someone who has not experienced something like that , it's very difficult to describe , because you have to go through this in order to understand , and it's probably different for every person .

And I would just say for people listening as you mature into your faith , you realize every day , give us this day our daily bread . Every day is another chance to say yes . Today , I say yes every day .

Now I don't take it for granted , but , matt , you asked me in the beginning of this , right before we came on , if there would be an opportunity that came up . You wanted to say a prayer and let's take that time . Why don't you tell the audience what you're going to pray for ?

and let's take this time to do this , and then I want to move in after the prayer and into the work that you're doing right now . Thank you for sharing all that with us .

That we pray for the end to abortion , according to God's will . Nomen Patris Ili Spiritus Sancti .

But then afterwards it , the Holy Ghost , has been working on me for many , many years and it was gradual , you know it's I didn't stop being addicted to pornography like on day one , but over time it started going away . And then , you know , I'm completely free of it and I've been free for a long time , and I started praying the rosary .

I started started doing you know , many other Catholic devotions , including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and some 12-year devotion to the precious blood of Jesus and things like that .

And so I started applying my knowledge and my expertise of the IT and graphic design and digital photography that I've been working for in for many years , and I started applying that to creating Catholic art . And I started very slowly .

I started just making some wall art and things like that of the Blessed Mother , the angels , but then I took some of my work to a Catholic festival one day and I started selling it . I didn't make any money , I actually was in a hole and I ended up adding money into it .

But on the last day it was a four-day event , and on the last day , a woman walked up to me and she said why don't you start making holy cards ? And you know , st Paul wrote about . You know we might be entertaining an angel , you know when we someone a stranger , and so I think you know .

For me I don't know if the lady was an angel , you know , but or not , but for me she was , because I listened to what she said and I started making prayer cards , and this was in 2018 , so about six years ago , I started this and I started making prayer cards .

Today , I have done probably over 150 saints , over 40 apparitions of mary , multiple cards of jesus . I have , like I don't know like 500 prayer cards that I made in these six years and I sell them online in my , in my store on Etsy , and I have customers all over the earth .

I have customers from Japan , new Zealand , all over Europe , south America , mostly United States .

So I've been selling these cards and then , once I have done enough work on saints and things like that , I said you know , I have so much artwork on my computer right now that I need to start doing something different , something new , and so that's when the idea of making board games with the graphics that I've created , and so I think like 99% of my work is

based on digital photography . I think like 99 of my work is based on digital photography . So I go to churches , I photograph statues , stained glass windows , icons of saints and things like that .

Then I bring it in , I clean it up in photoshop , I do my you know my magic , I work my magic on it and then I usually I end up with an image that is more beautiful than the original after I clean it up , and then I use that for prayer cards .

I started making rosaries and things like that , but then I said I'm going to apply that to board games and target the family and the children , because we need to preserve and build the faith in our kids . It starts at a very young age and , you know , multiple saints have said that the final battle will be over the family .

Saint charbel from lebanon is a great saint , you know like I think they attribute over 50 000 miracles of healing to him . He's a saint for our times and he said . He said that the final battle will be also , you know , for the family , because the family is the most basic building block of society .

So if you can destroy the family , you destroy entire nations , you destroy the world . You know , if we don't have holy families , we don't have priests , we don't have nuns . You know , everything falls apart if you destroy the family . So my target is really the Catholic and other families that may be brought to faith through this .

So what I try to do is I try to make games that are both entertaining but also educational . I don't want them to just sit at a table and have fun , but I also want the children to learn about the faith , learn about the saints . You know , understand what it is to be a saint , what it means . Why would you want to be a saint ?

Why should we seek holiness and all that ? So why not have some little bit of fun but at the same time , learn the faith ? And what better way ? It's also like an icebreaker for parents who don't know how to talk to their children about the faith . And what better way ?

It's also like an icebreaker for for parents who don't know how to talk to their children about the faith . You know , if you play a game and you're saint padre pio in the game or you're saint teres , well , now , after playing the game , you have a way to connect with your child , because now you can bring it up .

Hey , you know , we just learned about saint dominic or whatever . He received the holy rosary from the blessed mother and now we can , we can use that to build on that . Yeah , so that's so .

So I came up with this idea that we're going to produce a limited version of the game , like a limited edition , which will have a lot of extras in it . So the actual game , the name of the game , my first game .

I have actually 16 board games in in my lineup , so as time progresses I'm going to be producing more and more , but this first game is called the holy quest the holy quest . I like the holy quest and it has 16 saints in it and the game is designed around religious orders in the Catholic Church .

So you have the Franciscans , you have the Jesuits , Dominicans and Carmelites , and so each order has four saints in the game . So you have 16 saints and children are actually or players . You know , if parents play , grandparents can play with their kids , grandkids . You have four saints per player .

It's a four-player game but there are like five different ways to play the game . So there's like an advanced mode . There is a teamwork mode , there is a way for younger children to play . For older children there are trivia cards with questions . So you really have a very large span of age groups .

So the game is recommended from children from like five years old all the way to late teens , and there are different ways to play the game In the limited edition , what I've done , and I'm going to show that to your audience here .

Matt's going to describe this verbally and you'll be able to follow it , but if you want to see the visuals switch over to the Rumble , Top of the 16 saints that you normally would have in the game .

You will have something like you know you're going to have this certificate and there's going to be a matching number on the box saying you have game number zero , zero , two , zero out of one thousand . So we're only going to make one thousand of these games and then after that we're going to switch back to the standard version .

So you're going to get 16 additional saints . So you're going to have 32 saints to pick from . You're going to have 32 saints to pick from . You're going to have a certificate , there's going to be a special poster for the game , just for the limited edition , and there's going to be some extras .

So you're going to get all that and then , once we finish the first 1,000 copies , we're going to switch back to standard version and if people still want extra , additional saints , they can purchase what's called an expansion pack , okay , and that's going to have the 16 additional saints , but you're not going to get the poster , you're not going to get a numbered

version and all that . So we're raising money for this . We have about five thousand dollars raised so far , so we're like 10 in and that's why we're doing these podcasts , so that we can bring this , because a lot of people don't know this is happening .

So I'm going to give you a link to the website for the game where people can learn everything about the game . We have frequently asked questions . We have what's in the box so people can actually see there's a lot of . This is like a very high-end game . By the way , it's got a . It's got a leather dice tray with nice golden dice , you know .

Okay , here's an example of the actual pawns , the Saints in the game . You know they have tokens with the crests of the religious .

If you can allow me to share my screen , I can quickly show the board for the game , so let me Okay .

Yeah , but this game has , like action tiles , as you can see over here , and these are the bases , the home bases for different orders , like the Franciscans , the Carmelites and Dominicans and all that , and these are the different actions , so action tiles where kids can take actions . There's a lot to the game .

It's been , it's been like really built up quite a bit . You know , once you go to the website you can learn all about it . We're going to be .

For those of you who are just listening and not looking at the audio , the video , it's a very good looking board game . Matt , you did a good job . It looks really good .

Obviously you can donate any amount to the game campaign as little as five dollars or whatever but if you want to purchase the limited edition of the game , you have to donate 120 , which is going to give you the game and all the extras and everything okay and so I really , you know , urge all you know big , especially big catholic families with a lot of

children . This is a great project and I think you know , because it's a limited time offer , I would urge everyone to spread the word and just go to , you know , give this to your friends , your family members who have children , and get them interested in this , because when this game is made , it's also going to pay for all the future games .

So we're only doing this fundraiser once and I think the revenue that we generate from this is going to pay for the next 15 games that we're making . So we only have to do this once . But the first time is the most difficult because we're starting with nothing and trying to create something that is very useful to Catholic families , and here you can donate .

You can send us a check . Gives you the address where you can see . If you'd prefer to pay by check , you have to provide us with your email address and your mailing . You can . If you prefer to pay by check , you have to provide us with your email address and your mailing address so we know where to send the game .

The game is more than likely going to be available early next year . We're looking at february , march right now okay so you know , when you donate today or you purchase the game , you're not going to receive it until february , march of next year okay , I'm gonna miss christmas , but we're gonna get .

We're also going to be posting updates on where we are so you can go to news and updates and you can find all this stuff . You know we had an article on EWTN's National Catholic Register . We were on EWTN radio . We're doing the podcast with you , jack , right now , and there's going to be others . So we're getting the word out there and we ask everyone to .

If you can't help us financially by donating or purchasing this game , then please share it on social media , share it with your friends , family , so that we can get the word out , because my feeling is that this game is going to become very , very popular , because there's really not much out there right now For Catholic families In terms of board games .

So this is a brand new tool for evangelizing , for keeping the family together and bringing the children more closer to the table with their parents and grandparents and siblings , rather than being on a cell phone and on the Internet .

And is this the same website they can go to and look at some of the holy cards and some of the other things that you have on there , too , I have , so I have two websites now , which one should they go to with the board game ?

Collecting first and second class relics is creating healing , anointing oils and relic cards that actually have a piece of fabric included in the oil and the card . That was touched to first and second class relics , so I think these are becoming very popular .

The blessed mother I have over 40 relic cards and oils of different apparitions and I'll just show very quickly . So this was touched to nine actual relics of the blessed mother . And then for jesus this is really awesome . I was .

I actually had a relic reliquary in my house that a priest gave me for a time that had over 20 relics of our lord me for a time , that had over 20 relics of our lord in it , and I had this in my home . I was like , wow , what a blessing . Here's a list of relics that were in there .

And so this was touched the shroud of turin , the cross , the crown of thorns , the crib of baby jesus . I mean it's like everything is in there . It's like I was like , wow , you know so . So this , this oil and this prayer card with the relic that you can see on the screen , this was touched to all of these , so it's very , very special .

You know , it's very important for all of us to support one another , especially people that are working for marriage and the family right now . This is the battleground . As Sister Lucia Fatima said , the last great battle between our Lord and Satan is going to be over marriage and the family . We're seeing that now .

Divine providence is playing down right before our eyes right now . So when we can support people that are working on projects like Matt is to help us all . I think this is going to be a great game , matt . I'm excited . I'm excited to see it and I'll do my best to make sure that my friends see this game and we'll start to put some orders in , hopefully .

So God bless you , matt .

So so we're like really asking people to go to visit the game website and get involved , get the game early . That way , you will enable us to not only to produce it , but you also will enable us to produce the next 15 games at the same time , and you're really going to be helping thousands and thousands of children getting this game into their hands .

So that's the general idea . Good .