Jack Beers:
One of the things you start out with the book on, which I think touches on this is, you also clarify the difference between something that's a problem and something that's not actually a problem or what you call a human malfunction. It's instead something else. This really grabbed me when I was reading it, which is, you said that you may find yourself thinking or saying something is missing, there's more to life, I have so much more to offer, and these are sacred truths. When you get into the challenges we face, and Holy Moments as a potential solution to those challenges, I thought it was great that you sort of drew the line between, well, hold on, let's clarify what's a problem and what's not a problem. You call it the sacred truths that are in people. Why do you call it sacred truths, and why did you think it was so important to start off by drawing that distinction between what is a problem and what isn't, and what's a human malfunction and what's a sacred truth?”
Matthew Kelly:
“That's a beautiful question. If I say, listen to your heart, most people have some sort of cliche defense against that. They're like, oh well, that's cliche. But that concept, the concept of listening to your heart, exists in every culture, in all the major religious beliefs, in every place and in every time. That's why it's a cliche. The problem with cliches is that we dismiss them because we consider ourselves above them. And in dismissing them, we inoculate ourselves against the wisdom that made them cliches to begin with. The truth is, maybe the hardest thing in this world is to listen to your heart and to follow your heart. Because when you feel lost and confused, your heart still knows the way. You may not know where you're going, but your dreams know where they're going. They will take you there if you, if you listen to them and if you follow them.
But in a world full of experts, we have learned to doubt ourselves and trust the experts. That has led us astray, and that has led us into a misery and a desperation of really industrial scale in our society. When we have the sense that something is wrong or that something is missing, or there must be more to life, we think, oh, there's something wrong. And what I'm trying to say is, there's something very, very, right. You, as a whole human being, are functioning at maximum capacity when you're able to recognize that, when you're able to hear that, when you're able to respond to that. I do believe there are sacred truths. I do believe they are sacred truths. I do believe they are placed in you, and in me, at particular times, by God, to summon us to the path that we were created for the fullness of life that Jesus so often speaks of in the gospels and that we tinker with, but don't really surrender ourselves to.”
Jack Beers:
“And so by treating them as, if I'm hearing you right, by treating them as malfunctions, we're actually missing our moment and invitation to pursue what we were made to pursue, and pursue our dreams. That if we seek relief from the sense that something is missing, we're actually preventing ourselves from going out and experiencing the fullness of what we were made to be and become and do. Is that what I'm hearing you say?”
Matthew Kelly:
“Absolutely. But that's the best case scenario. That's a bad scenario, but that's the best case scenario. The more likely scenario is that we do, or try to do with ourselves, what we tend to do with things that malfunction in our lives and in our society. And that is, throw them away and get a new one. Of course you can't throw yourself away and get a new one, and so that creates perhaps the ultimate existential dilemma for the human person living in 2022 in one world.
Matthew Kelly
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