Immerse Yourself in a Captivating Interview with Trapper Jack

Presented by Fr. Michael Denk

 

Father Michael: Hi everyone, my name is Father Michael Denk. I’m the Pastor of St. Matthias the Apostle Catholic Church in Parma, Ohio. I am very delighted to have with me today, Trapper Jack. Tell us about yourself. What is a Trapper Jack?

Trapper Jack: Where do people get these names? Obviously, all the good ones were already taken.

Father Michael: Yes, you have to brand yourself on the radio.

Trapper Jack: I got off the plane in Pittsburgh before I came to Cleveland. I did 25 years of radio here. I had to meet my wife first, so I moved from Seattle to Pittsburgh and I’m getting off the plane and I was Jack Elliott in Seattle because there’s an Elliot Bay so naturally, I was named after the Bay. My real name is Philip Keller, nobody seems to know that, which is fine. I like being anonymous.

I’m getting off the plane and the Program Director says, we need to make you memorable as quickly as possible and so you are now Trapper Jack.

Father Michael: Are you serious? You just made that up?

Trapper Jack: Yep, so now not just Jack Elliott, now you’re Trapper Jack Elliott. He said that their staff voted. You could have been interviewing right now Panama Jack, Slim Jack, Captain Jack, Cracker Jack. Yes, there’s a guy you want to interview. The vote was Trapper. Back in the old Mash series days, and of course the movie way back when, all that is where the Trapper came from.

Father Michael: Very fascinating. Yes, because I know in Hollywood you can’t use your name if that name’s already been taken.

Trapper Jack: There’s that. They just wanted to make me memorable. Your Father Michael, name that’s fictitious, isn’t it?

Father Michael: That is my actual name. 

Trapper Jack: Is that right Jerome? Let’s get the truth out here.

Father Michael: Father Michael James is my middle name.

Trapper Jack: So is mine.

Father Michael: Joseph, my Confirmation name.

Trapper Jack: So is mine. 

Father Michael: Wow.

Trapper Jack: I’m not kidding. James is my middle name; Joseph is my Confirmation because it’s my dad’s name.

Father Michael: Well, you probably can’t get these last two though. Sometimes we take names as Deacons and Priests when we receive those sacraments. I took Nathaniel for Diaconate.

Trapper Jack: Wow, true Israelite without change of Bartholomew.

Father Michael: Yes, and then John the Evangelist for my Ordination. Nobody really knows that. Now you do.

I’ve known you over the years. Never really had a chance to sit down and talk to you like this so I’m very excited. Part of the big reason you are here is because you just did a presentation not too long ago at St. Joseph in Amherst, which was a dear parish of mine many years ago. Doug George was one of the parishioners there and he heard you speak and called me and said, “Do you know who this Trapper Jack is?” and I said, “Yes.” And he said that he was amazing and now he’s listening to all of your podcasts. You have hundreds. I don’t know how many you have but he’s gone back to the very first one and is chronologically listening to them through. 

I’m excited to have you.

Trapper Jack: That’s awesome. The podcast is Touched by Heaven Everyday Encounters with God, which basically highlights what brought me back to the church. I left when I was 18/19 years old, and God was just boring to me. He was just boring and vague and distant. He was out there somewhere.

Father Michael: How old were you when you left.

Trapper Jack: Just out of high school at eighteen. I still remember it was just getting into radio and getting out of the church basically at the same time. The next day was Sunday Mass, and I was still living at home, and I said to my dad, “I’m not getting anything out of the Mass so I’m not going tomorrow. He said, “Not going? Then you’re not living under my roof.” 

I’m going, “Wait.” So, the battle was OK, wait-a-minute, an hour of aggravation with all the creature comforts or homeless or go live in a dump. I chose the dump.

Father Michael: Did you really?

Trapper Jack: I hated the Mass. I hated the Mass.

Father Michael: Wow. I thought Mass was boring as a kid. I’d like to talk to you about this. Why did you hate it?

Trapper Jack: It was irrelevant. God was irrelevant because the God I had been presented was 2,000-year-old God. Jesus 2,000-year-old Jesus. What fires me up about Touched by Heaven, is that you take that prayer, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be” and we’re really good in the as it was in the beginning. I don’t know that we’re all that great with the is now because the miracles are still happening; Jesus is still happening; He’s still healing people; He’s still sending His angels. The angels are not living off 401Ks in the Villages in Florida, I don’t think best I can tell. There are still prophetic dreams and visions. There’re near-death experiences. Paul had something like that happen to him. 

It’s still happening today. What brought me back to the church, fifteen years went by and met my wife. She got me into the building, still nothing, still bouncing off my head. I don’t understand the cross.

Father Michael: You got married in the Church, in the Catholic Church?

Trapper Jack: Eventually.

Father Michael: Was she Catholic when you met her?

Trapper Jack: Yes, she was. I had been previously married, so I was still going through an annulment which wasn’t done yet. We got married outside first, then inside the church. It was still about another dozen years before. . . Here’s what I saw Father. I saw miracles. I’ll even tell you that Mary got me there. 

How much do you love Mary? How much do you love Mary? In 1999, I was working here in Cleveland on the radio. I had a great job, a great wife, a couple of great kids and I was home this Sunday afternoon crying my eyeballs out. I did pray. I did believe in a God, but it was kind of that literally Hail Mary kind of God. On this particular Sunday afternoon, I just looked up and said, “I don’t know what I’m missing but you do and just bring it on.” 

Weeks, maybe months later when I looked back on what day that was . . . it was August 15th, Feast of the Assumption. Fingerprints. Then there was one time a few years down the road in 2003, when the alarm was set for 2:30 a.m. to do the radio show and I woke up early and I was getting up and my wife had obviously left the light on in the bedroom. I was looking up and the light wasn’t on; I got a lamp here and that’s not on; a lamp over there and that’s not on and its pitch-black outside, and I suddenly realize I can see perfectly, and the room is completely illuminated and I’m as awake then as I am now. It lasted one minute. I could see perfectly for a minute and that’s a conversation. That’s basically Jesus saying, “Whether the lights are on or off, I’m here. I am the light of the world. Whether I heal you or not, I’m here.” There was just so much in that one minute that woke me up, but I could see everything.

Father Michael: You could, see? Were you blind before?

Trapper Jack: Yes, I’ve been legally blind, and if you’re going to be blind, please be legally blind, you don’t want to be illegally blind. You don’t want to be doing time over this stuff. I don’t know who these people are marauding gangs of illegally blind people.

Yes, I’ve been legally blind for I don’t know how long but I have been carrying the white cane around for a few decades.

Father Michael: After you were eighteen let’s assume.

Trapper Jack: At eighteen, I was kind of still stumbling along okay. I didn’t drive. Actually, I drove a little bit in my 30s and then stopped. It just didn’t feel too safe.

Father Michael: I didn’t realize you’re blind at that time in the room you saw.

Trapper Jack: I saw everything. That’s a statement. That’s a conversation and my point with the podcast is that God is speaking to you and to me and the church and the world. Yes, through scripture but most people as you know aren’t reading it; aren’t coming to Mass. So, God uses the entire canvas of the entire universe He created, and it can be that or . . . I love this story, it’s just short and sweet.

One of our listeners, George, I think he lives in Atlanta, was driving down the road and he was just really upset and yelling at God. Praying loudly and because a friend of his was going through all kinds of Hell, literally, in marriage and health, he’s yelling at God: “Life sucks.” He turns the bend and there’s a giant billboard, “Life is what you make it.”  To me, that’s God speak. That is not coincidence to me. 

It’s not coincidence to me that my birth announcement is a baby holding a microphone.

Father Michael: Are you serious?

Trapper Jack: True story. Dad got “A New Voice Is on the Air.” My Dad could have picked the one next to it, “New Voices on the Air.” Isn’t that great. I mean, why didn’t he pick the card next to it where the baby is holding a toilet plunger. No, microphone. Microphone.

Father Michael: In that moment, what happened? You said that you don’t know how long it lasted in the room.

Trapper Jack: It was just that one minute and I just went, “Wow, what was that?” Oh, by the way, it was December 8, 2003. As I say, Mary’s fingerprints are all over me, just all over me. We’re recording this on May 8th, right?

This was a big year for me last year, Father, if I might tell you a Eucharistic story.

Father Michael: Please, it’s a Eucharistic Revival.

Trapper Jack: Yes, it is and that’s what most of my talks are right now. First, I had a dream. Analyze your dreams, sometimes they mean things. In the dream I saw myself in bed asleep and then I was in my body and there’s a doctor in my body and he’s got a little pointer and he’s looking up to something and it looks like it actually looks like a carburetor and he’s talking to nurses out there. I don’t know what he’s saying but he is obviously diagnosing something wrong with me and then I woke up. When I analyze it, I thought that’s God, He’s the Healer; that carburetor is where the heart should be, so obviously it’s a reference to a hardened heart. I had no idea where we would go next. He was diagnosing the issue. 

A couple of days later Elizabeth and I, my wife and I, were at daily Mass. I always throw a prayer towards Mary before I go up for Communion, something I’m asking for, requesting, whatever. That particular day all I said was, “Get me closer to your Son. Just get me closer to your Son.” I go up receive Communion, OK, fine.

The next day in my YouTube feed there was a priest, I don’t know who he is, and he was talking about something I’ve never heard of. Tell me if you’ve ever heard of predominant fault? Probably not. Yes? No? Ring any bells?

Father Michael: What is my predominant fault? Me, I could understand that but maybe not the average person. 

Trapper Jack: It was basically, what is the most wrong thing with you. It’s usually one of the Seven Deadly Sins: fear, pride, anger, lust . . . whatever it is.

So, his whole point was that you need to find out what that is because the devil knows what it is and he’s playing you. Find out what it is. So, through the Eucharist you are supposed to go up and ask Jesus. Within a day or two you should know. If two weeks go by and you still don’t know, ask your spouse. They’ll tell you! 

I found out mine was fear, and I didn’t know. What am I afraid of? This is not fear of heights, fear of spiders, we’re talking about the fear in us that keeps us from loving the way we’re supposed to love and being loved. The way we’re supposed to be loved and there was this point where, and this is kind of this last two-year process and why May 8th is so important to me. I asked Jesus (and we can all do this; and you’re really good this). I’ve watched what you’ve done for years, I really have. 

Basically, I asked Jesus, “Show me the fear.” He took me back to when I was thirteen, going blind and how I was afraid to tell my parents. I didn’t tell my parents for six years that I was losing my vision. Why? Because there was something wrong with me and who would like a kid with something wrong with them? That is how insecure I was. That is how much the enemy had been chattering in my ears that you can’t trust anybody.

Then when I said, “Where did this begin?” He took me to when I was seven years old, and these older boys came that close to sexually abusing me. That moment told me you can’t trust boys therefore you can’t trust men. You can’t trust authority figures. All the walls started going up of what you can’t trust. I literally, in prayer, heard Jesus say, “I’m going to take a wrecking ball to your fear.” He gave me the imagery of He’s kind of running controls. I’m standing on the wrecking ball and He’s just throwing it against the walls and the buildings.

Then what happened? A year ago, today my white cane is down below here but here’s what I did. He’d been healing me from the ground floor up; He’d been taking me to those moments of fear and me realizing, “Oh that was fear.” That’s me listening to the enemy. He took me to the point where I looked at my wife and came to realize that it had literally been years since I went for a walk by myself. Why? 

What I learned when I was seven years old was, that moment where there was shame attached to it, there was embarrassment attached to it, there was fear attached to it, all these things became wound up together. So, if I went for a walk by myself with a white cane, I risked embarrassment. I might walk off a curb; I might be hit by a tree limb. All these things that might potentially embarrass me could happen. Embarrassments tied to fear, tied to shame. So, walking down the street with a white cane is the equivalent of people looking at me of basically walking bare-ass naked down the street if something goes wrong. Once I realized what it really was and it’s a lie and then renounce the lie and embed the truth that the white cane is freedom. That’s not imprisonment, that’s freedom. 

A year ago today, I grabbed my white cane, walked through the neighborhood, went over to the park, talked to some people, felt the grass, petted a dog. I saw my son as I was walking out of the park and I said, “I want to tell you a story.” He’s thirty-four now and we walk back over to the house, and I said, “Let’s sit on the porch, I want to tell you a story about the stuff that’s been going on here.” I said, “Grab a couple of beers.” He comes back, this is May 8th, he comes out and says, “I got the last two bottles of Christmas Ale.” May. We’re not big Christmas beer drinkers here. Even that I saw Jesus because Christmas Ale, Christ Mass, Eucharist. Again, this all began with the Eucharist of ‘get me closer to your Son’ and the Eucharist leading to predominant fault would lead to the acknowledgement of fear which let to Jesus taking a wrecking ball to it to ultimately as of a year ago I can walk around with the white cane without the fear. That’s the Eucharist! That’s the Eucharist! 

Father Michael: That’s alive right now.

Trapper Jack: That is the Eucharist that people don’t know. We see that little Eucharist and it’s such a puny Jesus and I think we keep Him kind of puny because if that’s Jesus then isn’t that the same Jesus as was healing the lepers and all that 2,000 years ago. Same Jesus, isn’t it? Any limitations on the Eucharist that you know of?

Father Michael: No. I would like to recap though for our viewers really quick because maybe this could happen to them. By that I mean, just as you did, you can go up the Eucharist with the intention of drawing closer to Jesus and just say, “Mary, help me draw closer to Jesus.” Then you ask that follow-up question, “What is my core sin,” or what was the phrase? “What is my predominant fault? What is the capital sin in my life?” 

It’s terrifying to ask that. It’s very terrifying to ask that because I did this years ago, but once you find it you discover that there’s so much shame and hiddenness around that you want to keep it hidden. Satan wants you to keep it hidden because once it’s revealed and brought to the light it loses its power. So, if you can realize what that is and what I like teaching people about prayer too, is usually God will present forth some kind of memory or image or He’ll give you something that will draw you deeper into that and then begin to bring about the healing.

Trapper Jack: That’s exactly what happened. Then you can go in and renounce the lie which is so important and proclaim the truth “I Am…”

Father Michael: How do you do that? How do you renounce a lie? What did you say? How did you renounce it?

Trapper Jack: Are you familiar with the Encounter School of Ministry locally? They helped me a lot with this. We went out there for a year.

I think there were a number of lies in there. I renounced the lie that there’s anything wrong with my body. I mean there is a body thing involved in that too. I renounced the lie of authority figures can’t be trusted. I renounced the lie of fear. As we all know, perfect love drives out fear. If there’s fear, there is something wrong with the love. So, you start renouncing the fear in there as well and then proclaiming the truth, “I’m a beloved Son of the Father”. I proclaim the truth that the white cane gives me freedom. There is nothing to fear. I just proclaimed all these truths and renounced all the lies I could think of at the time. All of a sudden, I could pick up that cane and just go for a walk. It was completely freeing.

Father Michael: I would have never guessed that you didn’t do that. What a wonderful gift.

Trapper Jack: I can fake it with the best. We fake things, right? We do whatever we can to fake it but until you make it kind of thing.

Father Michael: One of the things you can say out loud, “In the name of Jesus, I renounce this fear. In the name of Jesus, I renounce this lack of trust.”

Trapper Jack: Thank you for adding, “In the name of Jesus” part because that is the key to it. There is power in His name. He will do things and He will change you.

What’s interesting is that I ask Jesus, “Heal my blindness,” and the first thing He’s going to do is heal my spiritual blindness. He might work on the physical but isn’t it funny we always ask God to change things and then when He says, “Well, how about you change a couple of things first.” We go, “Wait a minute.” 

Father Michael: You’re God, I need you to do this.

Trapper Jack: Can’t you do that “snap finger” thing? Come on. He wants things changed too. He wants things to change in us as well. This was the beginning of my turnaround twenty-four years ago when I started to see the miraculous and realizing He wasn’t boring.

There was one day I was just sitting in my office, and I was buzzing. I mean literally my body was just buzzing because I was seeing the is now. This wasn’t just 2,000-year-old stuff, I was seeing people being healed in prayer. I was seeing people’s prayers actually move the hand of God. It’s still going on today.

I was watching this. I was home and I thought, OK my vision is not getting any better but I’m seeing miracles here and I’m looking up going, “What are You doing? Why are you doing this?” I had a Bible, I’m Catholic so I wasn’t reading it(laughter) I kid you not, now obviously I am. But I did the Bible roulette thing . . . Psalm 40 I cried out to you God, and I had just a few months before when I was talking about that August 15th time, and You stooped over and plucked me out of the muck. Put me on firm ground steadied me and put a new song in my throat, for others to hear and be affected by and I can’t stop singing. It’s why I am here today. 

I can’t stop singing about the miraculous things God is doing because the miraculous things, the big dazzling things that I talk about, it’s not like that’s a real big deal to me anymore but that’s what woke me up. Now, my favorite part of the day is grabbing my coffee mug, going downstairs and sitting with Jesus. Just trying to hear Him, and talking to Him and here’s my day and here are my issues. For me and I’m thinking 83% of Catholics who stay home on Sunday, no particular schedule for going to Mass. It is 83% and if it’s true, 70% that don’t believe that the Eucharist is Jesus, there are a lot of people just sleepwalking.

What I see working is when I talk about the miraculous, here’s what happened. I start coming back to the church and I’m seeing miracles and then for the first time I start reading about Eucharistic Miracles where bread is turning into heart tissue. How did I not know this? Bread turns into heart tissue, and it’s always left ventricle, it’s always type AB. Now they have the DNA blood where they have the roots to this woman whose Middle Eastern descent, but they can’t quite figure out dad. It’s the Annunciation, and you as a priest can stand there and can draw that line like nobody else can. That connection with the Annunciation and what Eucharistic Miracles say about bread into heart tissue and the left ventricle. You can’t figure out dad is a huge clue, because if you could figure out dad, we just lost, it all goes away.

Father Michael: What is fascinating Trapper Jack is my nephew, he’s in fourth grade. He was asking about these Eucharistic Miracles. Somehow, he’d heard about it. Saint Carlo Acutis made a web page basically of all these miracles. So, I started showing Aiden these different miracles that were happening. He’s asking all these questions. “Well do they know the blood type? Do they have the DNA?” It was just so cool his fascination with that. 

I’ve actually gotten to see some of those miracles where the Body of Christ had turned into flesh and once a year it actually bleeds. These miracles of the Eucharist are still happening.

Trapper Jack: There’s one, I think it was some place in Mexico. It’s one of my favorites. For six years this host, the blood was being pumped from the middle of the host outward. Type AB, the whole thing. Everything was all there. It’s stunning.

One day I was talking to an 88-year-old Eucharistic Minister who delivers to nursing homes and he had actually a Eucharistic Miracle happen with him where a host came out of nowhere (kind of its own story) but the key what struck me as I was talking to him about what he experienced. I just brought up all the other times bread turns into heart tissue and the blood, and I was just telling him a few stories, but he wasn’t saying anything. I said, “Have you heard these stories before?” And he goes, “Never.” He’s 88. I just think there are a lot of people who don’t know the stories.

From that, I started reading about Our Lady of Guadalupe. By the way, this is not a criticism, this is just my experience. It’s completely mine that at my age I still have never heard a homily that I was in attendance at the Mass about Eucharistic miracles; about everything about Our Lady of Guadalupe; about the Shroud; about the incredible miracles of the rosary. Look what just happened to Jordan Peterson’s wife who became a Catholic over Easter because she prayed the rosary, and she was healed of an impossible disease that kills everybody and that woke her up.

I think we just have to repeat what God is saying. There’s huge power in that. I’ve got non-Catholics now praying the Rosary on the podcast. My podcast isn’t technically Catholic, although I do talk Catholic things but, I love to hear from non-Catholics and their stories too. We’re all getting these miracles. We’re all getting these encounter stories so it’s a safe place for everybody.

Father Michael: As we celebrate the Ascension this Sunday we will hear in the Gospel, “In my name you will drive out demons; in my name you will heal the sick.”

As I reflect on that, if you ever ask the average person, “Have you ever experienced a miracle?” I think most people will probably say, “Yes.” Somewhere in their life they probably have. They have a story, but I think those go dormant or we get blind again to them.

Like something amazing happens in our life and there might be a conversion and then we start to forget about that. So, it is so important that we share the stories that happen. I love what you’re saying about the now. Miracles are still happening.

Trapper Jack: We need to acknowledge what God is saying.

I’m trying to picture you are God and through a priest’s hands the only way you can get a Eucharistic Miracle ultimately is through a priest’s hands because first there has to be Consecration. I love it when priests talk about these kinds of things. 

As often as we say Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, as often as we say real presence, if we also added as we see in these Eucharistic Miracles. 

I don’t know if you’ve seen the video of the forensic Cardiologist in New York who was involved in the 1996 Buenos Aires Eucharistic Miracle which involves Pope Francis when he was there. They actually were allowed, he allowed this, here comes this team they don’t say what they are going to show him. They say, “We know you’re an expert in the heart. We know you’re a forensic expert. We know that you’ve looked at a bazillion hearts. We want to show you something and we want you to tell us what it is.” They have under the microscope the 1996 Buenos Ares Eucharistic Miracle. He looks and it takes him two seconds . . . oh heart tissue, left ventricle. He doesn’t know it’s type AB. He says, “White blood cells so, was this taken from the person when they were still alive because white blood cells don’t stay?” He’s going through this whole thing and, “Wow, this person really took a beating. He either was beaten up or was in a car accident.” When they say, “It’s a Communion Host,” his face is priceless. “What?” I think that there are a lot of Catholics that need that ‘What?’ moment just to kind of want to read more.

In fact, when I was at Holy Angels, this was last June, a listener to the podcast, Karen, dragged her daughter as she called herself a classic Millennial, twenty-nine years old. Kind of a CEO, Christmas Easter only, you know the type for Mass. She came to the talk. A couple of days later I got an email from Sarah, and she said, “You had me up until 2:00 a.m. that night and 2:00 a.m. the next night researching everything you talked about. I went pretty expansive in the miracle stuff, and she said, “I had no idea our church was a living, breathing thing.” She said, “To me it was all historic.” It was. That’s where I came from too. She ended up on the podcast because she realized she had a Touch by Heaven story about an angel. She never made the connection until she heard me and how it’s all connected. Now she’s going to Mass every Sunday.

When I spoke at St. Rita’s back when Father Burchell, he’s since passed away, wrote me a beautiful note after my talk and said, “I just want to let you know a gentleman walked up to me that night and said if everything that man said is true, I’m coming back.”

Again, it’s not the miracle. The miracle just gets your attention. It’s not that, it’s who Jesus is and what He says but that helps you hear Him better and who is better than Jesus at this balance of getting your attention and then saying something that just floored you with the amount of love that filled that man. It’s supposed to fill us all.

Father Michael: It is very encouraging because so many are away from the faith, parents are in agony, grandparents are in agony because their children have stopped practicing. I often tell them that hearing your story, and I often tell them that Mary has her ways, the Father has His ways. He can work through everything to reach them.

Trapper Jack: God is not worried. Whenever I go through my little dissertation, “Is God worried?” No, God is not worried. He could drop in on Our Lady of Guadalupe image on us at any time. The first time He did it, nine million converted like that because those Aztec pagans looked at it and went, “Oh, that woman she’s the Queen of Heaven, she’s a virgin but pregnant with God.” Literally in a handful of years, nine million 

Father Michael: Was it really? I didn’t realize that.

Trapper Jack: Nine million wanted to be baptized, came into the church, received Eucharist and then 400 years later is when we got all the science when they looked into the eyes. By the way, this Tilma should have lasted years and here it is 500 years out, that’s miraculous in itself, there are all kinds of miracles to it. But when they looked into the eyes, basically where the retinas are, in both eyes down there microscopically it was hidden, for 400 years, you see Juan Diego, the Bishop, the cloak, the flowers, and 12 people who were in the room looking on in both eyes. So, when people say there is no science in God, gosh, it’s everywhere. 

Just five words, google Our Lady of Guadalupe and it’s there and Eucharistic Miracles. Like I say, that’s not my favorite part anymore but it’s the part that woke me up.

Father Michael: What is your favorite part?

Trapper Jack: My favorite part is just spending time with Jesus. I love Eucharistic Adoration. If we actually knew what happened during Adoration, that place would be packed. Instead of the one or two people that are there.

There’s kind of a recent revelation to me. I’ve been hearing and I know God put this in front of me. Stained-glass windows. Do you have stained-glass windows here?

Father Michael: We do.

Trapper Jack: The analogy that when you’re outside the church and looking at those windows, they look dull and drab but, when you’re inside the church, see where I’m going? When you’re inside the church all of a sudden it comes to life. You see the angel, you see Mary, you see Jesus whatever the image, whatever the story is.

I think someone put my stained-glass windows in backwards. 

Father Michael: Now you’re seeing inside out.

Trapper Jack: I was inside where it’s dull and drab then I went outside, although it took a lot of years. It’s like the light of God came down into the church and then just burst through the windows. I was looking at the church actually outside because I’m reading about Eucharistic Miracles outside; Our Lady of Guadalupe outside and all of the things I was getting outside on YouTube and by reading because I wasn’t getting it in the church. It just charged me so much that I wanted to go back into the church. I encourage the church now to take those stories and bring them into the church as well because there is value there. It’s what brought me back. I don’t think I’m alone; I don’t think Sarah’s alone; I don’t think that man at St. Rita’s is alone. I think there are a lot of us that just need a little shaking and then it’s, “OK.”

You’re actually very good at that. From your St. Gabriel days, from those days and The Prodigal Father. You have a way of connecting with people that is so rare. There is a kindness to you and sweetness to you. My Parochial Vicar, Father Joe Menkhaus over at Saint  Bernadette, I told you that we were coming here to do this talk with you, he said, “Be sure to remind him that he’s the reason I’m a priest.” Because he came to you at an early age and wasn’t in the Seminary yet, to Confession with you, did his Confession and you said, “Have you ever thought about being a priest because that was a priest Confession.” And it just spun his head. It had been kind of in the back of the mind. You made it happen so you had a huge role in a terrific young priest to being a priest.

Father Michael: He is amazing.

Trapper Jack: Credit to you Father, you have that in you. Like I said, I have been a fan for a longtime, longtime listener, a first-time caller, here I am.

Father Michael: One of the things that I do love for myself, and teaching is Eucharistic Adoration just to go before the Blessed Sacrament. You don’t even have to know what you are doing. Just go to the church, go there at night.

Some of my favorite memories growing up as a child, my mother would go late at night in the summertime and just ask if any of us wanted to go and I loved going. Probably most of the profound moments I’ve had as a priest are before Eucharistic Adoration.

Trapper Jack: Isn’t that cool? I was in there and I did something that does happen periodically, I fell asleep. Normally I’m there with my wife and normally I would be awakened by her elbow, and she would say, “You’re snoring.” And I’d say that I’m praying through my nose. But this particular day she was over at the office so it’s just me here comes another dream. I fell asleep and I had a short little dream. Again, I’ve been given a gift, call it Holy Spirit gift. When I start thinking and analyzing, they come rather quickly to me.

So here was the very short dream. I was at a then Cleveland Indians game, it’s a night game, I’m down on the field, I’m between home and first base. I’m in foul territory only it’s not Major Leaguers out there it’s Little Leaguers with their white uniforms and they’re playing against, it was hard for me to see the opposition because there were these real shadowy characters, so you’re getting the symbolism of what’s going on here. So, ground ball to second baseman where I used to play in Little League when I could see a little better and I throw home because the bases are loaded. There’s a force out at home. The catcher catches the ball at home plate, has the foot on the base but he’s not wearing any catcher’s gear, and I wake up.

I’m in Eucharistic Adoration and I’m going okay Come Holy Spirit in the Name of Jesus and it’s maybe a minute. What are the Cleveland Indians in that the Catholic Church? The Indians, one of the oldest institutions baseball; Catholic Church, the oldest institution in the world. Who are those little guys out there? Us, children of God. Who are we playing against the powers and principalities what we’re playing? Force out at home that’s great, bases are still loaded against us but what was with the no catcher’s gear? 

When I give a talk and I tell this story I always ask and there’s always one person who knows it. Maybe you know it, maybe Eric over there knows, we’ll find out. Eric, if you know the answer you can win valuable prizes.

The question is, what is the jargon term for catcher gear? Anyone in the room?

Father Michael:  I don’t know.

Trapper Jack: Tools of ignorance. So, what the catcher had done is stripped away his ignorance.

Father Michael: Is it really called that?

Trapper Jack: Tools of ignorance. I had this dream two days before I was going to give a talk about Mary. It was her birthday, September 8th, so this was September 6th when this experience happened. In other words, strip away your ignorance. If you’re going to talk Mary, you’re going to talk about the church, you’re going to about the Eucharist, you’re going to talk about the Rosary, strip away your ignorance.

I immediately started doing a deep dive through form.org. I took some classes through St. Augustine out of Colorado. I just took a deep dive to find out more about everything and continuing Bible in a Year, Catechism in a Year, whatever it is. If I’m going to be standing in churches, I can’t be an ignorant one and the dream strip took away the ignorance in a very nice way, kind way. But just in case, I thought that was pretty powerful.

Father Michael: That is amazing. 

Sometimes people ask me about dreams. Do dreams mean anything? What is a dream? It’s almost discernment of even voices that you may hear or images that may come to you in prayer. All of that God can be working through, Satan can be working through it too, but all you have to do is ask the Holy Spirit to interpret that.

Trapper Jack: Let me tell you a story about that because when I got the nudge to start speaking, it came first in the morning. Do you get stuff twilight? When you wake up do you get stuff?

Father Michael: No. I want to go back to bed.

Trapper Jack: You don’t get it then? Sometimes that is when I get messages. I woke up to “go back to church and proclaim the Word of God.” I heard it. “Go back to church and proclaim the Word of God.” Okay, I guess I’m supposed to go speak.

I started kind of plotting that trying to figure out how to do that and what is involved in that. One of the things that I wanted to do, if I was going to be a speaker, I wanted to be speaker talk better. 

I went on YouTube and I’m just looking for good Catholic speakers. I kept coming across the same talk by Scott Hahn. It was the same talk, and he is a wonderful speaker, right, great conversion story. I kept seeing the same, it could be different venues, but it’s still the same talk. 

The talk was that he was talking about the time, Old Testament, Moses has just died. Joshuah is taking the Israelites into the Promised Land and he’s got the Ark of the Covenant, and all these people start coming in. Of course, it’s occupied, the Canaanites are over there and the Hittites are over there and they’re all coming in. The first thing God says is Walls of Jericho, right? That is the first place He sends them to Jericho and He is going to show that whole area the Promised Land. Everybody there that I am your God, you are my people. 

This is going to be huge statement from God and for six days, as you know, they walk the Ark of the Covenant around the box that has all the goodies in it of God. The Mana and the Rod of Aaron and of course the Ten Commandments. Every day for six days they go around once, and they don’t say anything but on the seventh day they go around seven times, and they blow their horns, and they shout Praise to God and the walls of Jericho come crumbling down. The next thing God wants is kill every man, woman, child, animal. Kill every man, woman, child, animal except one household. One household there’s a woman there who was helping them and her family, so they pull those people out. Otherwise kill every man, woman, child, animal and set fire to everything. Don’t touch anything.

I keep seeing this talk and I’m going, “Why do You keep sending me this talk?” Again, to your point, Holy Spirit in The Name of Jesus, you’re guiding me to something here and then the light bulb goes on. Something Mary led me to, I don’t know, a year or two before. Everything we read in the Bible is still happening, including that story.

In 1941 a Christian nation was attacked at Pearl Harbor, a day that will live on in infamy. The very next day was December 8th. Sometimes dates mean things, right? You have the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, we declare war. The war goes to 1945, and on August 15th, dates mean things, the Assumption, Emperor Hirohito announces “We’re giving up.

My story with these two dates is what else is going on here? Why did the war end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What happens when a nuclear bomb goes off? There are thousands of degrees of temperature; there are hundreds of miles an hour of wind.

I read this article by a Catholic author, Craig Turner. He said that he was looking at the first square mile of Hiroshima and the devastation how every man, woman, child, and animal was dead. How everything was on fire except for one household, eight blocks away, at the Church of the Assumption. Our Lady of the Assumption Church is gone but next door in the house where the priests live, depending on what you read it’s either four priests or eight priests all lived. They all survived, had just finished Mass. One priest had just stuck his spoon in the grapefruit and there was the blast. Scientists said as close as they were heads should have collapsed, limbs blown off, the fire should have been inhaled. These guys should be dead. Every single one of them lived long lives. The last one died in 2011.

Father Michael: I never even knew that.

Trapper Jack: It’s one of those stories again. When they asked them, “How are you guys still alive?” They all pulled out their rosaries. “We’re just following what she said in Fatima, ‘Pray this every day.’” 

If you look at that story, again, December 8th, August 15th, Ark of the Covenant again. Mary is the Ark of the Covenant. She was there protecting that one family at Our Lady of the Assumption.

You start connecting these dots how everything is still happening. The Touch by Heaven Podcast basically you take this spot out now and just draw right into the Bible.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the same thing. Here’s Jesus, He is doing a copy/paste; He is doing Revelation chapter 12, there she is, the Queen and she is pregnant with God and paste it onto Juan Diego’s Tilma in 1531. It is the same image Our Lady of Guadalupe and He just keeps doing that. 

You could even say that God would never do something with an atomic bomb. Does it not seem a God statement, “You are my people, I am your God, you were attacked.” I see it. It is pretty hard not to see a statement being made in there. That can’t all be coincidence.

Pretty cool, isn’t it? 

Father Michael: Yeah. And you’ve inspired me, I don’t know that I have given a Eucharistic Miracle homily. I usually speak about real presence, going before the blessed sacrament, but I think you’ve inspired me to dig further into that.   

Trapper Jack: Well, you inspire me, so…do a little book. I just think that because we don’t hear about it, when we do hear about it from the pulpit, it’s so powerful. And they can’t figure out dad. I love that. because if they could, you just shot down the Eucharist. And it just points out everything that’s in there. Plus, all the trauma, as that forensic cardiologist said, the trauma that Jesus went through, you know, on the cross with everything. So, it combines the crucifixion with everything. 

Father Michael: I know our Diocese has that Eucharistic Miracles display that they are taking to different parishes. Have you seen it? I have not seen it. 

Trapper Jack: I did! In fact, I saw it just before I gave the talk at Saint Joseph’s in Amherst, and I tell you, that changes parishes. 

Father Michael: Really?

Trapper Jack: That was an electric night. When Doug George talked about it being an electric night, I’m telling you, that added to it. I’m telling you that there is something and Blessed Carlo Acutis, he said to his mom, after he died, “When I become a Saint, you are going to see the greatest conversion of young people ever.” And he’s bringing them through science, there’s something in the science, there’s something in waking people up through science. Because people don’t believe there is any science in faith. So, when you throw it in front of people, that’s huge.

Father Michael: Yeah, and we are a church of faith and reason, science has been advanced most by Catholics. I did get to interview a man who got to take high-definition images of the Shroud and he reconstructed the entire Shroud of how it would look based on where all the light was and all the angles and he is the one who helped make the model of Jesus in terms of what he would have looked like just by how the Shroud, he’s a 3D model imagery person, so he’s able to take those images and create. The first time I saw the Shroud, I saw a replica of the Shroud in Jerusalem. The real Shroud is off-limits, you can’t get to see it because they want to preserve it. I’ve seen pictures of it and I don’t see anything in the pictures, but when you see it.

Trapper Jack: You see the negative.

Father Michael: It’s the negative, it’s the reverse light, but when you see it huge, you can see His face, you can see his face, you can see the palms of His hands, you can see the blood, type AB when they did the modeling of that.

Trapper Jack: And all the wounds are correct, with a crown of thorns, like a helmet of thorns, you got the spear wound, it’s all there. Did you ever hear Father Spitzer talk about, from EWTN? Blind guy right? A blind priest, he does a lot of stuff for EWTN, this guy is so brilliant in the science. I saw him on a podcast and he was talking about how whatever it is, that moment, that image that is on the shroud, that event that happened, that’s in there that they can’t recreate, is the equivalent of eight billion watts of energy being shot into the shroud for one fortieth of a billionth of a second. Hello? If it was any more than that the whole tomb would have blown, it was like this small nuclear explosion going on during the resurrection he said, or you can look on it like the equivalent of 500,000 search lights all turned on at once for one fortieth of a billionth of a second. And it’s like you can’t re-create that.  

Father Michael: That’s what they have discovered about the shroud, actually it’s not something that can be created, it wasn’t done by human hands, it wasn’t painted, or it’s that reverse explosion of light image.

Trapper Jack: I’ll tell you a miracle you probably don’t know and if you do, you’ll be in the minority of priests.

Father Michael: Alright!

Trapper Jack: Are you ready?

Father Michael: I’m ready for the challenge.

Trapper Jack: This was May 8th as we were recording this. Do you know what happened last Saturday at the tomb of Christ? 

Father Michael: No, I didn’t hear of this.

Trapper Jack: There was a miracle. And the same miracle has happened every year since the church began. Fire came out of the tomb where Jesus was laid. Fire came out of rock. Fire came out of stone. Would you care to hear the story?

Father Michael: Yeah!

Trapper Jack: This happens every year. Remember when the church was all one, but we got a divorce in 1054? This used to be our miracle. But we have Rome and the Greek Orthodox have Jerusalem. So, here’s what happened: This has been going on every year since the church began. Last Saturday, as always, the Greek patriarch walks over to the tomb, and of course, there’s a thousand people inside the church, thousands more are outside because they know what’s going to happen, it happens every year. Israeli authorities pat him down to make sure he has nothing on him that can start a fire, or be ignited. The tomb has already been checked out, same reason, to make sure there is nothing in there that can be ignited or start a fire. He goes in; he’s got 33 candles in each hand. He goes in, he kneels there before the slab where Jesus was laid, prays certain prayers, and fire comes out of rock. And God lights his candles.  

Father Michael: They’re not lit when he goes in.

Trapper Jack: He comes out, he has them all lit and he starts the Easter Vigil Mass. Guess whose idea this was? This is why you do this Father, when you come with the Easter only God to make sure everyone knows it is a miracle. The fire doesn’t burn for the first 30 minutes. It’s warm but you’ll see videos of people doing this and this and all that. It’s warm but it won’t burn. They’re passing this fire around and sometimes has a personality of its own. It kind of shoots across and lights that guy’s candle over there.

Father Michael: How did I never hear of this?

Trapper Jack: You are not alone. You’re not alone.

Father Michael: I’ve been to the tomb but not on that day.

Trapper Jack: Go on Orthodox Easter. Their Easter was just this past Sunday. Saturday was Holy Saturday. It happens every Holy Saturday and you can watch it on YouTube every year.

I include this in my talk because nobody knows this. I always say, “By applause how many people have never heard this before?” Two people who are Greek Orthodox are clapping. They know.

Then they fly this flame, by permission, all around the world so the next day in the church when you go in and the candles that are lit were actually lit by God at the tomb. Is that not the coolest thing?

Isn’t this exciting? This confirms the Resurrection, does it not just like the Shroud? Aren’t we all supposed to be on the same team? Aren’t we supposed to be working for the conversion, so everybody knows it’s Jesus? This is science.

Once I sent an email to a Catholic College. It was a wonderful priest who read my email. He acknowledged the fire. He knew about it and then he started talking about why we have Easter on different days because of the calendar and the moon and all that stuff but he kind of jumped over. I called up and said, “Wait, he didn’t answer my question.” I guess that is the answer and I said, “OK.”

I don’t think we should have an agenda when it comes to what God says. I don’t think the Protestants should deny what happens in a Eucharistic miracle. I don’t think any of us should deny the fire in the Tomb. I don’t think any of us should deny the Shroud or the power of the Rosary. We should all be on the same team and be humble enough to go, “Wow, God is so good for all of us.” The whole world needs to be awakened to this Jesus. 

Father Michael: Become like children that we can have that sense of wonder and awe.

Trapper Jack: Father, this is what got my gas going. Just the fuel of making this all about bringing me back and wanting to share these kinds of stories. Like I say, these aren’t the ones now that excite me, what excites me now is sitting in adoration quietly and hearing that soft quiet voice. 

He plays music in my head. He takes the radio guy and all of a sudden, a song will start playing in my head and it won’t let go. If it doesn’t let go, I know something’s up and I have to look up the lyrics. 

One of the first songs I got when I was going back into churches was Phil Collins, Against All Odds. It’s the man singing to the girl he lost:  turn around see me cry…take a look at me now, well, there’s just an empty space, And, you coming back to me is against all odds.”  I’m going to sit and wait for you. When you spiritualize the lyrics, who’s singing? Jesus. Who is He singing to? The church, where’d everybody go?

Turn around see where you used to be but Against All Odds, I’m going to sit and wait for you.

That was my message as I started going into churches; it felt my job was if you’re sitting in here listening to me, I’m going to tell you stories that maybe you don’t know so that maybe you won’t walk out thinking this is a boring God. Because that’s the God I left, I left the boring God. 

Father Michael: I never wanted to be a priest as a child because I thought God was boring, Mass was boring, priests were boring. 

Trapper Jack: And it’s not. Why do we make Him so boring? Any theories on that? I’m not saying that is true everywhere. Your Masses are not boring, Father, I’m telling you that your Masses are not boring. You enlighten me. 

I told Bishop Roger Gries recently, “Every Mass I ever saw you do; you lift the room.”

Father Michael: He is doing my installation. I’m so delighted. I’ve known Bishop Roger since I was a child. He used to help out at Holy Family, in Parma, when he was a monk, and my Pastor was Father Costello. When Father Roger became Abbott Roger, he came back to Holy Family, and they concelebrated a Mass. The person announcing the priests said, “Our celebrants today will be Abbott and Costello.” 

He became a Bishop the year that I went into the Seminary. I would watch him do Confirmations and sometimes the kids would come up and looked like they either were terrified, or they didn’t want to be there. They didn’t look happy and its Confirmation. He would give every single kid this bear hug and say something to them. I kid you not, every one of them walked away beaming. They knew that they were loved. He also did my Diaconate Ordination, and I was so happy when I asked him if he could install me and he said yes. I’ve always hoped to have that joy and that passion and that love.

Trapper Jack: God is good all the time; all the time God is good. 

No matter where he goes people just give it back to him. I gave him a Christmas present this past year and he left me a voicemail saying, “Hey Trapper, I just want to wish you and your wife Elizabeth a Merry Christmas, and I just want to let you know I support you in everything you’re doing out there and the talks.” I’m listening to this and thinking, I’m saving this. I immediately called him. He said, “I just love what you’re doing and I’m supporting you.” I was blown away. That was my favorite Christmas gift.

You may have heard the story. I guess you have to submit the possible names you will take as Bishop or priest. 

Father Michael: When you become a monk you take a new name. 

Trapper Jack: Did he tell you the story that he wanted to be Roger?

He wanted Roger, that is the only name he wanted.

Father Michael: You submit a few names, and they pick one of them. He was a little bit clever.

Trapper Jack: He submitted Valentine thinking that they aren’t going to pick that one and Axel because who would want a Father Axel Gries? That is Bishop Roger, I absolutely love him.

Good for you. Congratulations. I’ve been to a few Confirmations with him too. You know and I know that is such a difficult age to your point about the face. I think the spirit is probably the coolest in that time frame, seventh, eighth and ninth graders. The talks I have given to seventh eighth and ninth graders is where are you? I know you’re in there somewhere. 

That is a tough crowd because as a lot of people say, “Confirmation is Catholic graduation for many.” Within five years they’re gone. Within five years the percentages are overwhelming. They’re not even going to say they’re Christian. Fifty/Fifty say they’re even Christians.

Father Michael: Or even believe that Jesus was actually a real person on this Earth. That is the new thing I’m learning, that people don’t even believe that He was real. He’s fictitious. It is amazing.

Trapper Jack: We’ll believe anything I guess if you tell people often enough.

Father Michael: What have been some of the conversions that you’ve seen just from the talks that you’ve given?

Trapper Jack: The interesting ones are through the talks, generally speaking you are kind of speaking to the choir. Occasionally someone has been dragged there and you’ll hear about it afterwards or I never knew that before. Why don’t I know these kinds of things?

They’re not necessarily already believers but they just kind of spark something. God is still speaking to you, me, the Church and the world. Most conversations seem to be flying by us.

When Covid happened, which country was hit the hardest outside of China? Which country was hit first the hardest? Do you remember? Italy. The church had closed. Is that God speak? I don’t know. I just thought, ‘Is that a statement? Non-essential?’

I’m not His interpreter but I look for those kinds of things and maybe you do too. I look for what a dream can mean. I’m trying to think of maybe a recent example of just within the Podcast itself. People will talk about, “I didn’t get this. I now see it.” 

Now people, when they hear the Podcast and as Doug George said, “You start going back to the hundreds and hundreds of stories. Then all of a sudden you realize what was that when such and such happened?” What was that when I was about to get into an accident? I wasn’t turning the wheel. Somebody turned the wheel. I get those kinds of stories. That wasn’t me kind of things because angels are doing stuff. Divine interventions, they’re happening out there. Nothing has changed.

Yesterday’s reading where there was the earthquake and all the jail cell doors opened up and Paul said, “We’re still in here.” It happened with Peter where the angels just opened up all the jail cells. I don’t know about jail cells but I get stories all the time where impossible physical things happen. Even cars going through cars which sounds crazy.

I had one guy say to me, “Trap, I was listening, I was fine with you until this car through cars thing. That just sounds paranormal; that’s nonsense; that’s ghost; that’s not Christian. I said, “Do you remember the story where they’re about to stone Jesus. They’re about to throw Him off a cliff and it says that Jesus turned and walked through the crowd. To me, that’s the same thing. How did the guy that was going to be stoned suddenly do this? The Chosen did that episode. Do you watch The Chosen?

Father Michael: I haven’t gotten into it. I tried to watch. I think because of my Ignatian Meditation and Prayer, it’s so alive in me that it’s hard to watch it for me.

Trapper Jack: I get that. It took me a couple of episodes. My wife was all in right away. It doesn’t have audio descriptive for the blind guy, so there is a lot of silent parts in this show. My wife has to be my audio descriptive giving me a little narration along the way.

Father Michael: I might have to give it another try.

How can people, if they want to hear more of this, if they want to listen to your Podcast or if they want to see you in person, access your work? I’d love to have you here and I hope you come. What is the best way for them to learn more about you?

Trapper Jack: Everything we do is on trapperjackspeaks.com. You’ll find the Touch by Heaven Podcast. We do a YouTube video every now and then called Men’s Morning Light. I was even seeing God in the recent eclipse, which is another Mary connection. Trapper Jack Speaks will get you to everything we do.

It just jumped out of me. I was watching a lot of things online about is it prophetic, because there was a 2017 Total Eclipse that went this way across the US and this one makes an X in the middle and it’s an X over a place called Little Egypt in Illinois. 

Something hit me and just follow this. Did you hear about the Seven Nineveh’s? There are seven, actually eight if you count Kentucky because they spell theirs a little differently but still Nineveh. In every case where there was a Nineveh, only two Nineveh’s had a total eclipse, but it was the state they alleged to like Texas. Texas had a Nineveh and had a Total Eclipse going through it. Missouri had a Nineveh and Total Eclipse, went through Missouri. Kentucky got a Nineveh Total Eclipse, goes through Indiana which had a Nineveh. Ohio has Nineveh somewhere. It went through Pennsylvania, they have Nineveh. New York has Nineveh. Canada has one Nineveh in Nova Scotia, a Total Eclipse through there. There’s one exception where a state in the US had Nineveh but the Total Eclipse did not happen in the state, partial but not total and it was Virginia. 

Everyone thinks that God failed. God, you missed by one, so close. I’m thinking, ‘Maybe not.’ How did Virginia get its name? I had to look it up. Virginia was named after Queen Elizabeth I, who never married, never had kids and was known as the Virgin Queen. Where have we heard that before, Virgin Queen? 

Virginia has been set apart like our Virgin Queen Mary. Has Virginia been set apart just a little if anybody is looking? Kind of like my World War II thing, if you’re looking it’s there waiting for you to see. Arc of the Covenant is there.

So, you have Virginia set apart as Mary was set apart. Therefore, when I think Virgin Queen, I think about the Annunciation because Angel Gabriel told Mary, “You’re going to have a son. He’s going to sit on the throne of David. That means He’s going to be king.” When Mary hears He’s going to be king what does that make Mary? Queen, because in the Old Testament the king’s wife wasn’t the queen, because he had a bazillion of those, the mom was the queen. So, if Jesus is going to be King that makes Mary the Virgin Queen.

When I think Virgin Queen, I think Our Lady of Guadalupe because it says, “The Aztec Pagan said it, she’s from Heaven; she’s a virgin but she’s the Queen of Heaven and pregnant.” Through all of that I just kept seeing Mary, Mary, Mary.

I’m saying, “OK Mary, I’m a little over the top here, no one else is going to see this. This is just Trapper seeing stuff.” I pray to her, and I said, “I’m kind of a little over the top on this aren’t I Mary?” 

That night Elizabeth and I are going to watch a movie on Netflix. I’m flipping through all the bazillion movies and we haven’t seen Shakespeare and Love in a million years. Shakespeare is writing these plays and falling in love. The queen comes to see the plays repeatedly. Judith Dench and who is she portraying? Queen Elizabeth the First, the Virgin Queen. I thought that was an answer. Thank you, Mary!

I see her everywhere. I see God speak everywhere. I look for it and I find it. I’m not going into contortions to find this; I’m just asking the next question and it’s just there waiting for me. That brings my faith to life.

Father Michael: Thank you, you’ve brought mine and I’m sure all of our viewers. I thought it would be neat if you just said a prayer for everybody watching and we could end with that.

Trapper Jack: By the way, do you know how rare this is a priest asking questions because you’re the answer man. I see this all the time where priests almost don’t know how to ask questions. I don’t know how you do it but you’re always inundated with questions. True?

Everybody wants to know what the church feels about this; how do you feel about this? For you to sit here with me and ask me some questions is just so cool. I just want you to know.

Father Michael: I’m glad.

Trapper Jack: In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Come, Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. Look who you have gathered here today. Look at this amazing priest and this blind radio podcasting guy and look at the good folks who are watching this, listening to this. God and Mary, you have called us all here to hear these stories to be inspired, to be lifted, to be raised. I’m picturing Bishop Gries again because that is the way we should always feel about our faith. We should always feel lifted by the Eucharist. By walking into a church, we should always have our stained-glass windows in correctly so that we see those stories and we walk in. We should just come to life. Thank you, Lord, for allowing life in this conversation to be there. I praise you. We praise you and we thank you. We pray in your name Jesus Christ for more of this. We pray this in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Father Michael: The Lord be with all of you viewers, may Almighty God bless you and Trapper Jack, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to having you here at St. Matthias.

Trapper Jack: Awesome, thank you, Father.