00:00:00:00 – 00:00:39:00

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Thank you, Professor Neff, for that great introduction. I would like to begin with a passage from Scripture, namely Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter two, verses six through 11. The specific passage is the centerpiece of Paul’s entire letter to the Philippians. Some scripture scholars call this passage the Christ poem, in which Paul’s concept of Christ is clearly outlined.

00:00:39:02 – 00:01:09:15

Fr. Jonathan Torres

It also provides us with the archetype of the hero’s journey. So again, this is Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter two, verses six through 11. And I quote, “though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance.

00:01:09:16 – 00:01:36:21

Fr. Jonathan Torres

He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

00:01:36:23 – 00:01:59:04

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Now to say that this passage provides us with the archetype of the hero’s journey is to say that the pattern of every good story can be mapped onto the story of Christ, as laid out by Saint Paul. So, for clarification, the hero’s journey can be thought of as a cycle that begins and ends in the hero’s ordinary world.

00:01:59:06 – 00:02:29:04

Fr. Jonathan Torres

But the quest, the actual journey, passes through a dark, unfamiliar world and ends back in the hero’s homeland. Going back to Saint Paul’s Christ Home, we have at the beginning Jesus described as being in the form of God, existing in the heavens, as it were, the realm of the known, the realm of safety. Who then makes the journey out into the realm of the unknown, the realm of chaos and death.

00:02:29:06 – 00:02:57:22

Fr. Jonathan Torres

He empties himself, taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness. The immortal God who cannot be harmed, becomes a mortal man who is destined to suffer and die. Every hero begins his story in a place of safety, typically his family’s home. Think of Bilbo Baggins in the Shire or Luke Skywalker on the planet Tatooine, of course.

00:02:58:00 – 00:03:31:06

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And these places of safety are symbolic. The pilgrim poet Dante, for example, begins his journey lost in a dark wood, for he wandered from the straight path of virtue. However, this dark wood typifies Dante’s life of sin, which in a certain sense is all that he has ever known until something, or more accurately, some one, awoke in him, the hero he was called to be, to embark on an adventure towards Paradise.

00:03:31:08 – 00:03:57:01

Fr. Jonathan Torres

The dangers of the dark wood for Dante are the same dangers Bilbo Baggins and Luke Skywalker faced at home. That is the danger of complacency, of not actualizing their potential. In other words, a kind of comfort zone that threatens to destroy the potential of heroism. While Jesus, in the form of God, did not need to actualize his potential.

00:03:57:02 – 00:04:14:00

Fr. Jonathan Torres

It was fitting that he provided us with an example of proper living by becoming man, by descending to the realm of death. He sanctified the life of a hero in order to provide a way back home.

00:04:14:02 – 00:04:47:02

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Yet, before the hero can return home, he has to face what lies hidden within the shadows. For the hero. The only way up is down. Bilbo must face the dragon smog. Frodo must enter the fires of Mount Doom. Luke Skywalker must infiltrate the Death Star and confront the evil and his father. Dante must descend to hell. This common pattern within the pattern of the Hero’s Journey is known as the descent into the underworld.

00:04:47:04 – 00:05:24:08

Fr. Jonathan Torres

In Paul’s Christ poem, we see this pattern on full display. Pay attention to the symbolic language again. He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. As if death wasn’t enough. Paul emphasizes just how far Christ had to descend. Death on a cross to understand the depth of death on a cross. You have to think historically, the cross as a symbol was not created to evoke feelings of hope as it does for our modern world today.

00:05:24:10 – 00:05:58:10

Fr. Jonathan Torres

In the first century, the cross was a cruel, humiliating instrument of torture and death. It was the equivalent of an electric chair or guillotine, except far more shameful. Often used for Rome’s worst political enemies. In fact, the word excruciating is taken from the word cross, the Latin being excruciating that our English word for agonizing pain finds its roots in the word cross helps illustrate just how horrible the death of Christ actually was.

00:05:58:12 – 00:06:37:20

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Thus, for Saint Paul to remind his readers that this is what Christ had to suffer is to show the full extent of the perils of the hero’s journey. Again, the only way up is down. Or to use more religious language, there is no ascension without a dissension. On the feast of the Ascension, 40 days after Easter Sunday, we hear Paul echo this idea in his letter to the Ephesians, saying, quote, “what does he ascended mean except that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth?

00:06:37:22 – 00:07:09:06

Fr. Jonathan Torres

The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above the heavens, that he might fill all things” end quote. And so in Paul’s Christ poem, after Paul expresses just how far down Christ has descended, we get the imagery of Ascension. The hero is completing the quest. He is fulfilling the cycle once more. He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

00:07:09:08 – 00:07:39:10

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. So to recap so far, the hero leaves the comfort of his home, embarks on an adventure that takes him to the doorstep of evil, defeats evil, and then returns to his home as Savior. As the hero King. Now, once the hero completes his quest and returns home, he is naturally recognized as a hero.

00:07:39:12 – 00:08:12:00

Fr. Jonathan Torres

The typical image here is of the hero bringing home the gold from his adventure, and everyone partaking in the fruits of his victory. Usually the hero gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after. These details at the end of the journey are not arbitrary. Romance and living happily ever after are symbols of unity, of people coming together in a way that was thought to be impossible without the hero setting the world right.

00:08:12:02 – 00:08:40:09

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Unity is what is at the heart of the hero’s quest. While the villain typically works for disunity, war, and death versus the hero’s value of peace and life. Because this is the pattern for every story worth telling. That is to say, it is universal across different ages and cultures. Everyone recognizes it and in a symbolic sense bows to it.

00:08:40:11 – 00:09:11:15

Fr. Jonathan Torres

To tamper with this pattern is to tamper with the foundations of reality. And Saint Paul says as much at the end of his poem at the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, to the glory of God the Father, the father, the one from whom we get all patterns.

00:09:11:17 – 00:09:46:21

Fr. Jonathan Torres

It’s not a coincidence that the word father comes from the Latin root porter, which is etymologically similar to the word pattern. All the instances of meaning in the world extend from and point to the origin of all meaning, which is the divine logos. Logos meaning the word, which is a title of Christ himself. And the reason we call Christ the word, the logos, is because words reveal the mind of the one who has spoken.

00:09:46:23 – 00:10:27:19

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Again, words reveal the mind of the one who has spoken. Christ reveals the mind of the father to us. He reveals the patterns that exist in everything. He has fulfilled the quest, the pattern of the hero, giving us a perfect example of how to live well. This is exactly why the entire idea of the hero’s journey as it relates to Christ is not a random ornament, and Paul’s letter, Christ leaving the heart of his father to descend to the realm of death, suffer, die, and rise again.

00:10:27:20 – 00:11:00:20

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Matters to us because this is exactly what we are all called to do. We all have a journey to undertake. All of us are called to be heroes. So pay attention here. The best way to understand life is as a story. The best way to understand life is as a story without a narrative. Life is meaningless, and human action is reduced to random data points on a timeline.

00:11:00:22 – 00:11:29:14

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Concepts like good and evil can only exist within the framework of a story. And so if life is a story and that implies we all have to embark on an adventure. I want to read a quote by Doctor Daniel McInerney, professor of philosophy at Christendom College. This is from his book Beauty and Imitation. And I quote “every human action.

00:11:29:14 – 00:11:58:22

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Aristotle tells us at the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics aims at some good something perceived to be perfective of the person to win the heart of the beloved. It is good to boldly go where no man has gone before, it is good to catch a murderer, it is good to save the world, it is a good in everything we do, from flossing our teeth to reading philosophy.

00:11:59:00 – 00:12:32:09

Fr. Jonathan Torres

We humans are on the hunt for something that we at least perceive to be good as perfective of our natures. Therefore, the first rough and ready definition of the good Aristotle submits, is that at which all of our actions aim, from which we can posit a first rough and ready definition of story. A story pictures the human pursuit of some good” end quote.

00:12:32:10 – 00:13:02:16

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Chesterton once said, an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered as romantic as it may sound. Every obstacle you face every day is a call to adventure. The question is, how will you respond? For example, if you spill your coffee over your pants, what character will you choose to be a patient and stoic character?

00:13:02:18 – 00:13:34:13

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Overcoming the obstacles with grace and virtue? Or will you choose to be an impatient and childish character, and thus fail to live up to the call of the hero? One thing that is characteristic about the end of the hero’s journey is that the hero, while he returns home to complete the cycle, does not return the same. His adventure, the wrongly considered inconvenience, has shaped him into someone he was not before.

00:13:34:15 – 00:14:08:01

Fr. Jonathan Torres

So too with us, our characters become chiseled and perfected under the suffering of adventure, and so we must see our lives as a story. It’s not an option. Further, our quest for the good must be patterned off of the hero’s journey. However, the central problem that prevents us from nobly embarking on adventure is that we humans are creatures of forgetfulness.

00:14:08:03 – 00:14:39:23

Fr. Jonathan Torres

We need a constant reminder of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. And this is exactly why every Sunday, Catholics are obligated to go to mass. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the symbolically evil number 666. That number six represents imperfection. If falling short of the number seven, which represents perfection. Think back to Genesis.

00:14:40:00 – 00:15:05:05

Fr. Jonathan Torres

On the seventh day, God rested. It is a day that is associated with worship, where all of our work is stopped in order to bring the fruit of our labor to the father. However, if we do not bring our work to the father, we are stuck in the sixth day, the day of evil. The seventh day is a day of God.

00:15:05:07 – 00:15:33:21

Fr. Jonathan Torres

The sixth day is the day of man. Even the number six is fashioned as a broken circle. That is a circle that is not complete, that turns in on itself. So how does this relate to the hero’s journey? We Catholics go to mass every seven days to enter into the pattern of remembrance. Think of how the mass is structured.

00:15:33:22 – 00:16:00:17

Fr. Jonathan Torres

We kneel at the most important part of the ritual, the prayer of consecration. And what are we remembering at that moment? We are remembering the hero’s descent into the underworld, where he faced death and became the victor over evil. I want to read a passage from one of the Eucharistic prayers that the priest recites at mass. The prayer that makes this part of the mass the most sacred.

00:16:00:19 – 00:16:32:18

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And pay attention to the narrative structure and the journey of the hero, which finds its climax at the Last Supper, which is intricately tied to Christ’s death on the cross. And I quote, “we give you praise, father, most holy for your great, and you have fashioned all your works in wisdom and in love. You formed man in your own image and entrusted the whole world to his care, so that in serving you alone, the creator, he might have dominion over all creatures.

00:16:32:20 – 00:17:00:00

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And when through disobedience, he had lost your friendship, you did not abandon him to the domain of death.” Notice what storytellers call the inciting incident, the event that sets the story in motion, that is here the fall of creation, which leads to the incarnation, which leads to the cross. So back to the Eucharistic Prayer. And so you loved and you so loved the world, father, most Holy.

00:17:00:03 – 00:17:20:07

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And in the fullness of time, you sent your only son to be our Savior, made incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He shared our human nature in all things but sin. To accomplish your plan, he gave himself up to death and rising from the dead. He has this. He has destroyed death and restored life.

00:17:20:09 – 00:18:02:16

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And he sent the Holy Spirit from you, father, as the first fruits for those who believe, so that bringing to perfection his work in the world, he might sanctify creation to the full. At this point we have a basic outline of salvation history, the story of the Christian worldview in full. This is now where it gets fascinating. So continuing the Eucharistic Prayer, therefore, O Lord, we pray, may this same Holy Spirit, the one who was just mentioned in his story of salvation, may this same Holy Spirit graciously sanctify these offerings, that they may become the body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

00:18:02:18 – 00:18:33:16

Fr. Jonathan Torres

This Holy Spirit that we recalled in scriptures narrative, is now called down from Heaven by the priest to make real the climactic moment of good triumphing over evil in the mass. This moment when the priest calls down the Holy Spirit is called the epic thesis. And this word epic releases is the same Greek word used by literary critics of epic poetry.

00:18:33:18 – 00:19:05:23

Fr. Jonathan Torres

It translates to invocation. In epic poetry such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. The poet at the beginning of the poem would invoke the muses in order to be filled with the spirit that would allow him to sing a song worthy of the hero. What happens at mass when the priest invokes the spirit is the same thing.

00:19:06:01 – 00:19:40:19

Fr. Jonathan Torres

The priest, using sacred words, recounts the adventure of the hero. This is my body given up for you. This is the chalice of my blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Again, all this is done as a great act of remembering. Just as the priest says immediately after consecration. And I quote therefore, O Lord, as we now celebrate the memorial of our redemption, we remember Christ’s death and his descent to the realm of the dead.

00:19:40:21 – 00:20:07:19

Fr. Jonathan Torres

We proclaim his resurrection and his ascension to your right hand. It’s the same pattern we heard in Saint Paul’s Christ from Made It Real on the altar. And then, in order to integrate that pattern of the hero’s quest into our own lives, we consume him. And then we are dismissed. Back into the world. Dismissed. That’s what the word mass means.

00:20:07:21 – 00:20:34:15

Fr. Jonathan Torres

We bring everything to mass, remembering the pattern of the hero and consuming him to become him. And then we went out from mass. To refuse to partake of this pattern of worship is to live in the sixth day, the day of man, the day of forgetfulness, forgetting who we are, and to thus live the twisted pattern of six, six, six.

00:20:34:17 – 00:21:03:05

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And notice the triple repetition and mockery of the Triune God. So this is my plea for all of you. Recognize the pattern of the hero’s journey in your own personal lives, and resist the tendency to forget by partaking in the great act of remembrance. Worship at the altar. When our Lord said to his disciples, take up your cross and follow me.

00:21:03:07 – 00:21:28:17

Fr. Jonathan Torres

He was inviting all of us to become heroes. His command is a call to adventure. Yes, there will be pain and suffering along the way. But what’s the alternative? To live in safety? Neither actualizing your potential. Become who you were born to be. Take up your crosses and follow in the footsteps of the hero of all heroes…

00:21:28:19 – 00:21:39:18

Fr. Jonathan Torres

…who is Christ himself. Thank you.

00:21:39:19 – 00:22:05:03

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Okay, so I think at this point we have a few minutes for questions. So if anyone has a question to start us off. Yes. So you can fill out that. Sure. Yeah. So the question is, acting as a hero, you oftentimes we think of heroic action as, just that action. Right. But then how does that relate to periods of waiting?

00:22:05:05 – 00:22:28:22

Fr. Jonathan Torres

I think many of you students can probably relate to this. You know, you’re not in your permanent vocations yet, right? And so there is a sense of waiting. I think the best way to wait is by prayer. Patience. Living in hope. Realizing that you’re waiting is not, to an indefinite end. There will be times to act.

00:22:29:00 – 00:22:49:07

Fr. Jonathan Torres

There will be times to wait. You know, there’s going to be moments of peace. There’s going to be moments of strife and war. And the true hero is one who’s going to be patient in those times. You know, think about, you know, all those heroes who start off in that place of safety. While a lot of them have their characters.

00:22:49:09 – 00:23:06:16

Fr. Jonathan Torres

The characters that still need to be chiseled. They are, in a sense, in a place of restlessness. Right. You know, you know, I mentioned Luke Skywalker. You know, he kind of wanted to go off and become the hero already, right? But he didn’t really know what he was asking for either. Right? Once he was set on his path.

00:23:06:18 – 00:23:25:11

Fr. Jonathan Torres

He got a lot more than he bargained for, right? And so to realize that there is a purpose to your waiting, there is a sense of, of your maturity. That has to be, that has to take place. Now, I’m reminded also, of course, of our Lord who spent the first 30 years at home in Nazareth.

00:23:25:11 – 00:23:52:08

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Right. And the Scripture says that he grew in age in wisdom. So to be patient, you know, your times will come. And when that time comes, hopefully what you’ve built up in your character beforehand will allow you to undertake that adventure that you’re called to undertake. So yes, question in the back. So the question is, what is the best way to nurture the sense of heroism and courage in our own lives?

00:23:52:10 – 00:24:12:01

Fr. Jonathan Torres

I think the best way is to recognize that while you might be in a period of waiting, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be confronted with any kind of adventure. You know that example that I gave in my talk? You know, if you spill your coffee over your pants, to recognize that as an adventure.

00:24:12:03 – 00:24:32:22

Fr. Jonathan Torres

So recognize that even the little things in your life can chisel your character. The day to day grind that you guys go through is not arbitrary. You know, I think it’s a real mistake if you’re just looking forward to the future so much that you miss the grace that is present in your everyday lives. And so nurturing heroism and courage.

00:24:33:00 – 00:25:01:11

Fr. Jonathan Torres

You know, those moments, they’re not always going to look like taking out a sword and killing a dragon. You know, they’re going to look like, you know, if someone bumps you on the side of the road and doesn’t apologize. How do you respond to that? Right. Those small moments of patience. Those are great acts of courage. And to recognize all those little like, as Chesterton Chesterton said, all those little inconveniences as a rightly considered adventure.

00:25:01:13 – 00:25:31:22

Fr. Jonathan Torres

All those instances, while they may seem small in the grand picture, are not small, and they form who you are. So yeah, it’s a good question. Any other questions? Yeah. Yeah, it’s a fun question. What are the stories that inspired me? Growing up, I loved more pop entertainment. It wasn’t really until I came to Belmont Abbey that I started studying more classical stories, like Dante and Homer.

00:25:32:00 – 00:25:55:06

Fr. Jonathan Torres

But growing up, I loved Star Wars. I love playing games like The Legend of Zelda. And N64, and then Lord of the rings. The movies. The movies actually urged me to read the books then, which I fell in love with. But through it all, I saw this. This pattern of beauty. It was really a beautiful life that was presented in the story of these heroes.

00:25:55:08 – 00:26:19:08

Fr. Jonathan Torres

That’s what made it so attractive. I didn’t know it yet, and I. And I didn’t yet have the knowledge or wisdom to read all these stories together. It wasn’t until I came to Belmont Abbey and started reading Dante’s Divine Comedy, where I recognized that all these things that I found attractive and all these stories growing up can find their fulfillment in God himself.

00:26:19:10 – 00:26:50:10

Fr. Jonathan Torres

You know, as Daniel McInerney, the professor, at Christendom said, we are all questing for something. We’re all questing for some perceived good, and that good is answered in God himself. Right. And so, you know, I think one criticism that Christianity gets is that the Christ story is just one story among many. Right. There are lots of pagan myths that have the hero being born during the winter solstice, or a virgin birth, or the hero rising from the dead.

00:26:50:12 – 00:27:16:19

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Right? These are patterns that are found before Christ was born. And so again, the criticism is like this is just one story among many. But what makes the Christian story unique is that it was historical too. In the Gospels, you find a new genre. It’s not just epic poetry, it’s not just myth, it’s history and myth. And that and that blend of those two genres coming together is utterly unique.

00:27:16:21 – 00:27:41:08

Fr. Jonathan Torres

To say that God descended from this, from the realm of the heavens and became man in our history is utterly profound. And to say that he rose from the dead not symbolically, but historically changes everything. And thus we can see that all these stories that came before Christ, were prefigured in a sense that was fulfilled ultimately in Christ.

00:27:41:10 – 00:28:12:11

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And so rather those, those, those stories contradicting or, you know, being incarnate flipped with the story of Christ. I see those stories as actually bolstering the, the validity of the Christian story, because it’s as if all of our human imaginings throughout all of history, all of our philosophical musings, all of our ideas about virtue, all, you know, all these, these philosophers lounging around, talking about what is justice, you know, the poets songs, they all find their culmination and fulfillment in Christ.

00:28:12:13 – 00:28:42:15

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Christ, who is the fulfillment of every man’s heart. And so that’s what I was discovering when I came to Belmont Abbey. And I see that was in Dante, particularly because the way that Dante begins his journey is by way of beauty. Right. If if I don’t know how many of you have gotten through the Divine Comedy yet, but Dante is lost in the dark wood, and he’s met by Virgil, and Virgil is telling him, hey, you have to climb up the mountain so that you can get closer to God, the ultimate good.

00:28:42:17 – 00:29:03:16

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And he’s reluctant. And Virgil says, I came here on behalf of one whom you love. I came here on behalf of Beatrice, right? The muse for Dante. And it was that remembering of her, of her beauty, that Dante was then impelled to go forward on his journey. And he connected womanly beauty with the beauty of God himself.

00:29:03:18 – 00:29:24:07

Fr. Jonathan Torres

God, who is the source of all truth, goodness and beauty. Right? So any beauty that we perceive, any impulse in our hearts that, you know, we are attracted to, finds his ultimate fulfillment in God Himself. And so that brings me a little bit towards my book that my fantasy series that I’ve been working on.

00:29:24:09 – 00:29:47:06

Fr. Jonathan Torres

I actually started working on it when I was at Belmont Abbey. When I was inspired by all these ideas, I got this idea to write a fantasy story where the transcendental, the truth, goodness and beauty are manifested as different provinces in a fantasy world. And so there’s three main provinces in my story: one of truth, one of goodness, and one of beauty.

00:29:47:08 – 00:30:10:06

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And the main conflict there is that they are dismembered from each other. They’re scattered because ultimately, this is a philosophical concept. Truth, goodness and beauty as transcendentals. These are one. They’re convertible with each other. Right? Whatever is true is also good and beautiful. Whatever is beautiful is also true and good, so forth. But because they’re dismembered from each other, they’re in versions of themselves.

00:30:10:08 – 00:30:41:01

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And so this province of truth is very scientific and very, rationalistic, divorced from goodness and beauty. The world of goodness is very legalistic, without having any empathy whatsoever. And the world of beauty is very esthetic, divorced from what is true and good. And so as characters begin to, as different conflicts happen within these different provinces, they begin to come in contact with each other for the first time in hundreds of years.

00:30:41:03 – 00:31:09:08

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And that’s basically the gist of how the story manifested over ten years ago. And so, yeah, preorder my book. There you go. There’s my plug. Okay. I rambled on with that question a little bit too long and any other questions? Yes, that’s a very good question. How do we resist the urge to over mythologize our life like Don Quixote?

00:31:09:10 – 00:31:37:06

Fr. Jonathan Torres

I think you have to recognize the pattern of the hero’s story in the way that Christ did. Right? He was the ultimate hero. We get that, a perfect example of the hero’s journey. But he still was attached to practical reality, right? When he encountered people, he wasn’t, you know, dismissive of them and, you know, aloof, saying, I need to go on my hero’s quest.

00:31:37:06 – 00:32:06:10

Fr. Jonathan Torres

But he saw every encounter, every real encounter as part of his quest. And so, you know, to see, you know, to see your lives as a myth. Yes, but to also recognize that it’s within the reality around you. That’s that that’s the vessel of the myth. So you can’t, divorce it as if, you know, we’re we’re duelists and saying, oh, like, my, my story is up here, but that doesn’t pertain to my reality down here.

00:32:06:12 – 00:32:27:09

Fr. Jonathan Torres

If you’re ignoring your everyday trials, if you’re ignoring the practical and think that you’re really failing as a hero in that sense, and so you have to find that balance of looking at the practical. Yes. And confronting it. You know, maybe a typical example is, you know, a father who has to go to work and sit behind his desk, you know, 8 to 5 every day.

00:32:27:11 – 00:32:46:00

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Right? He could be saying, well, I just want to, you know, be a hero. And I, you know, I want to fight the dragon. Well, you know, metaphorically, the dragon is in front of him. It’s the work that he has to do. Right? And if he loses sight of that, he divorces himself from his vocation. And I think, again, that’s a failure of being a hero on his part.

00:32:46:00 – 00:33:12:23

Fr. Jonathan Torres

So it’s a good question. Yes. The first book is called Blinding Dawn. I think Professor Neville sent an email out, with my link there. So. Okay. Yeah, I mentioned briefly the descent into the underworld. That’s a pattern in most hero journeys. You know, you see that in epic poetry, right?

00:33:13:01 – 00:33:40:21

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Virgil saves his father and cases in the underworld. Dante descending to hell. But, you know, even Luke Skywalker, when he confronts evil, he has to save his father. And so oftentimes, this trope of the descent into the underworld that the hero undertakes is accompanied by rescuing his father in the underworld. Now, as that relates to Christ, you know, what does it mean for a crisis to save his father from the underworld, right?

00:33:40:21 – 00:34:15:05

Fr. Jonathan Torres

If God the Father is good, there’s really no need to rescue God the Father, right? The way that’s been interpreted, some different critics that I follow, have mentioned this idea of Christ ascending in the, to the underworld, to the realm of Hades, to rescue his father, Adam. In fact, in Greek, in iconography, in eastern iconography, there’s images of Christ when he descends into hell, bridging the gap between earth and hell with the cross.

00:34:15:07 – 00:34:41:18

Fr. Jonathan Torres

And as he’s walking over the cross, he’s pulling out people from the pit. And those people that he’s pulling out are the Old Testament prophets Moses, Abraham and even Adam himself. And so I believe, you know, that trope really fits well. That trope of rescuing your father from the underworld works well with our Lord, who has redeemed the efforts of his fathers in the Old Testament.

00:34:41:20 – 00:35:06:15

Fr. Jonathan Torres

He has rescued his father Adam, his earthly father, Adam, and undid their sin. Right? He’s the new Adam, right? This is why we call Christ the new Adam. Redeeming what came before, what the first Adam could not do. In that sense, he metaphorically rescued his father from the underworld. So, yeah.

00:35:06:17 – 00:35:21:19

Fr. Jonathan Torres

Thank you.

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