The Warrior Priest Podcast

The truth is, modern man — "scientific man,” as he likes to call himself — has disarmed himself. He traded his old strength, his old faith, his old stories, for a spreadsheet and a dopamine hit. He threw out the saints and the warriors and enthroned the technocrats. In doing so, he cast off not just God, but his own courage, his own soul.He fashioned himself into a cold machine, a calculator with shoes. And now he wonders why he no longer knows how to love with fire or stand with honor. He’s forgotten what it means to weep for the right things, to feel the blood rise in his chest when the truth is mocked or the innocent are crushed.Instead, he grazes like a herd animal, restless, obedient, anxious.And in this vacuum, the managers come.With policies. With dashboards. With endless “solutions” that strip the soul bare while telling you they’ve come to make your life easier.

A Thiarna, i mo thuirse, ná tréig mé. (O Lord, in my weariness, do not forsake me.)Tuirse is not only the sag of limbs at the end of a long day. It is deeper than that. It is the hush that gathers behind the eyes when hope has gone too far ahead and no longer waits for you. It is the weight in the chest, like a stone settling, when the sea gives no reply to your longing, and the hills echo back only the sound of your name, and nothing more.Tuirse does not arrive only at nightfall. It can come in the middle of conversation, slipping in silently when your words falter and ache behind the teeth. It lingers in the silence of letters never sent, in the stillness of roads you meant to walk but did not. It waits in the hunger for a face you can no longer name, though your heart still knows the shape of it.And yet, even in tuirse, there is something more.There is a stirring, quiet but sure. A breath that does not come from you, but for you. Not sorrow, but grace. Not heaviness, but a settling—gentle, steady, and given.Pronunciation: TUR-shuh / Uh HEER-nuh, ih muh HUR-shuh, naw trayg may

In the modern West, the hearth has gone cold. The fires that once knit family and village together have been replaced with a different flame—the flickering blue light of the screen. John Michell warned of this in his strange, luminous writings. He saw how the displacement of the hearth led to the displacement of meaning. No longer do we gather around a living fire, telling the old stories, hearing the wisdom passed down in hushed voices. No—we huddle instead around the electric glow of mass-produced stories, sold to us by the same companies who profit from our outrage, our fear, our endless hunger for novelty.Michell said it plainly: once the hearth was the link between heaven and earth. Now, that chain has rusted. The fire we stare into now is cold, sterile, dead.The folk tales are gone. The folk songs are gone. Replaced by noise.And it matters. God help us, it matters. Because without the old songs, without the old myths, without the fire that once drew our gazes upward and outward toward wonder, we become small. Smaller than we were meant to be. Easily led. Easily frightened. Easily bought. It is a short step from forgetting your own songs to singing the songs of your conquerors.And so here we are: divided, outraged, distracted. The paradise of the rich, Victor Hugo said, is built out of the hell of the poor. And our masters know it. They fuel it. They love it. They need it.And we go on, applauding them, fighting each other, shouting ourselves hoarse over scraps.We have forgotten who we are. Forgotten the hearth. Forgotten the brotherhood. Forgotten the great chain that links heaven to earth, earth to hearth, hearth to heart.And unless we remember, unless we kneel, as T.S. Eliot said—not kneel before flags or corporations or the endless cult of Self, but kneel before the living God—unless we kneel, we will continue to slouch. To spectate. To slip away into silence...

But the truth is quieter than that. It moves without slogans. It walks without a flag.It looks like this: a deaf and blind man named Tim, finding his way onto a flight in Boston, one hand stretched out into the dark. And a stranger gives up his seat, and flight attendants allow their faces to be touched so he can know they are there, so he can feel the kindness in the lines of their cheeks. It looks like a fifteen-year-old girl named Clara, spelling words into the palm of a man she’s just met—letter by letter, patience and grace made flesh.This is the revolution the world forgets. The kind that takes no pictures. The kind that doesn’t tweet. The kind that doesn’t need a camera crew to know it mattered.

...when we say, “I am depressed,” we start to believe the sorrow is the whole of us. That it's etched into the skin, like a birthmark. That it's our name now. But when we say, “The sorrow is on me,” we leave room. Room for the truth that this thing might lift. That it might pass. That we are more than what presses us down.There’s a similar pattern in Scots Gaelic, in older English, in Hiberno-English still found in country places. You’ll hear it in the way people used to talk:“The fear came over me.”“A sadness was upon her.”Those turns of phrase weren’t just poetic, they reflected a whole way of understanding the soul. That feelings are visitations. Weather fronts. Shadows that fall, and then pass. Spirits, maybe, fleeting, but strong.In that old world, the self was not an island but a wide field, open to the wind and the Word. And so, what came upon a person—sorrow, joy, fear—was not owned, but witnessed. Not claimed, but endured.

What happened to you is not your identity. The wound you carry, the abuse you suffered, doesn’t get to have the final word. It’s part of your story, yes. It has shaped you, but it cannot define you, because Someone greater has stepped into your pain and claimed you as His own. Jesus knows exactly how it feels to be betrayed, violated, and wounded—He knows it in His flesh and blood. He knows it on a cross. He knows it in the scars He carries still. And what He says to you, right now, is that you belong to Him. And because you belong to Him, that means your wounds belong to Him, too. Your pain is held, seen, and loved—deeply loved—by the One who carries scars of His own. And here’s what makes all the difference: His wounds can heal yours. - D.

We live in an age of collapse. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, even physically, we are coming undone. The signs are everywhere. The old symbols no longer hold meaning. The words spoken in sacred places ring hollow. Our stories, once full of weight, have been traded for distractions that pass like dust in the air. We were given something rich, something rooted, something deep—and we have spent the last century peeling it away, layer by layer, as if we believed we could stand without the thing that held us up.And now we feel it—the weightlessness, the drift, the growing sense that something is missing, though few can name what it is. -D.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the old way of seeing, the deep sense that a pattern lies beneath all things. Scientific materialists insist we’re nothing more than arrangements of dirt, that our griefs and joys are sparks in a gray swirl of neurons. The Gnostics preach the world is a wicked trap, that matter is a cage for the spirit. But both stray from the bedrock truth. When God spoke the world into being, He called it good. Not flawed, not worthless—good. Yet, wandering in the world we see now—hard ground, hungry eyes, a planet bristling with harm—we wonder what went astray.

The Weight of Gold, the Lightness of GracePoverty of spirit—what a strange, thin phrase it’s become, brittle in the mouths of modern men who’ve never walked barefoot on cold earth, never felt the raw ache of want, not just in the belly but in the soul. To be poor in spirit isn’t a matter of meek nods and saintly sighs. It’s not weakness, not a bowed head for show. It’s an emptiness carved out deep enough for something greater to fill. Like the hollow in the earth where the seed falls, dark and unseen, but ready. The ache isn’t the end; it’s the beginning—the ache is where grace rushes in.But we’ve grown used to surfaces, to sheen and shimmer. We’re magpies, dazzled by the glitter of things that promise fullness but offer only echoes. The clink of coins, the soft glow of screens, each flickering to distract from the hollow. Gold glitters because it reflects light, but it holds none of its own. Stack it high, let it spill from chests and accounts, yet it’s cold in the hand, colder in the heart. A man can die rich and still be empty, his soul an unfurnished room.The old ones knew better—the story-tellers and seers with their feet thick in mud, their nostrils seasoned by turf smoke, and their minds lit with stars. They spoke of virtues and vices not as moral checklists, but as living forces. Not metaphors, but beings, spirits woven into the warp and weft of the world. Thomas Aquinas saw this, called them agents of divine power, streaks of grace running like veins of silver through the rock of creation. They’re not just habits to be picked up like good manners; they’re channels, conduits for the breath of God Himself, working miracles, steadying the natural order, ensuring that His will isn’t just spoken but walked in, not just whispered but stitched into the very cloth of reality.Take humility. Today it’s mistaken for softness, for a kind of cowardice dressed up as politeness. But real humility is a weight—a gravity that pulls you down to the ground, roots you where you stand. It’s not the sag of a broken man but the stance of one who knows where he comes from and where he’s going. The proud man floats, puffed up, untethered, carried by every whim. But the humble man knows he’s small, and that knowing makes him strong—an anchor in the seabed, steady while the waters swirl round. Humility isn’t self-loathing; it’s the lifeline which keeps our soul from being cast adrift.And virginity—what a word to drop into the middle of this age of excess. Not just bodies untouched, but hearts undivided. The modern mind scoffs, as if restraint were a relic, as if to keep something sacred were a kind of fear. But ancient peoples saw it differently. They saw it as power—not absence, but presence. The unploughed field holds the richest soil. The sky, when it’s clear of clouds, reveals the deepest stars. Virginity isn’t a gap; it’s a vessel uncracked, ready to brim over with something holy.Modesty, too, has been gutted, turned into a checklist about hems and sleeves, rules for what should be covered rather than a wisdom about what should be treasured. But modesty isn’t about hiding; it’s about holding. The art of mystery is knowing that not every treasure should be laid bare. The pearl keeps its beauty because it stays hidden in the shell. The fire burns hottest when it’s banked, not scattered to every wind. Modesty is the virtue that keeps the sacred, sacred—it shields the flame from the careless gust.Prudence—now there’s a word that’s lost its place at the table. It’s been misunderstood as timidity, as fence-sitting, when really it’s the sharpest of knives. Prudence is clear sight, not the squint of fear but the wide-eyed gaze that sees things as they are and as they can be. It’s the captain reading the winds, knowing when to hoist the sail and when to reef it. The prudent man doesn’t avoid storms; he studies the sky, knows the waters, feels the shift in the air. Prudence isn’t caution—it’s mastery over impulse, the wisdom to see that not every current or causeway leads to home.Sobriety—often mistaken for dullness, as if the sober man is the one missing out while the world spins in bright colors around him. But sobriety isn’t the absence of joy; it’s the presence of depth. It’s laughter that doesn’t need to be loud to be true, delight that isn’t chased but dwells quietly. The sober heart isn’t parched—it’s steady. It drinks from a deeper well, one that doesn’t run dry when the party’s over.And wisdom—that old, thorny vine, twisting through time, often ignored but always there, like roots beneath the frost line. Wisdom isn’t just knowing things; it’s understanding the weight of them. It’s the difference between holding a golden cup and knowing the cup’s story—where it’s been, what it’s weathered, what it means. Wisdom carries the scent of the earth, the hush of old woods, the ache of truths learned the hard way. It doesn’t shout. It waits.Truth, too, has been twisted, turned into a weapon or a fashion. But truth isn’t a sword to be brandished; it’s a mirror to be faced. Truth, ultimately, is the God-man Himself: Jesus. Not an idea, but a person. Not a theory, but a face. You meet Him first in the quiet of your own heart before you ever hold Him up to others. He doesn’t argue. He is. Immutable as a mountain, tender as bread broken in trembling hands.And now… let’s stand in the bright, flickering carnival of social media—our modern marketplace of vanity and outrage. Here, virtues are relics, dusty and irrelevant, wingless. Who speaks with modesty when the whole platform is designed to scream, “Look at me”? Who practices prudence in a world that rewards the quickest take, the loudest voice? Who seeks wisdom when attention spans are measured in seconds and outrage pays better than understanding?But maybe that’s the point. Maybe in a world addicted to spectacle, the quiet, steady reliance on the virtues is the true rebellion. Maybe faith, humility, chastity—words that sound antiquated and out of place—are exactly what the modern soul is starving for. Virtues aren’t quaint. They’re radical. They’re not soft—they’re seismic. They shake the foundations of a world built on fleeting applause.The second Reformation, if it’s coming—and I feel it rumbling beneath our feet—won’t be born from cleverness or novelty. It’ll rise from the old truths we’ve buried but never killed. It won’t be a revolution of new ideas but of rediscovery, of remembering the deep roots we thought we’d outgrown. It’ll come when we’re not paying attention, a seed cracking open in the dark, roots first, reaching down before it reaches up.Because the nature of things doesn’t change. The soul still hungers for meaning, no matter how much noise we feed it. The heart still aches for beauty, even when we drown it in distraction. The spirit still longs for God, even when we pretend we’ve moved beyond such things.Virtues aren’t artifacts. They’re anchors. They hold us fast when the tides of culture shift and swirl. They’re not rules to follow but companions on the road, agents of grace, walking with us, strong as old growth trees, steady as the northern star. They’re the breath of God in the bones of the world, the heartbeat beneath the noise.The rich, the powerful, the influencers with their curated lives and glossy feeds—they rise, wave-like, dramatic and loud, catching the light for a moment. But waves fall. Always. The sea remains.So in the quiet, when the screens go dark, when the noise fades, ask yourself: What remains? What endures when the applause dies, when the spotlight moves on?The answer has always been the same. It’s not found in what you’ve gathered, but in what you’ve been given by God. Not in how brightly you’ve shone, but in how deeply you’ve rooted yourself in His Christ. Not in the fleeting, but in the faithful kindness of your Maker.In the end, it’s not that the world has changed so much. It’s that we’ve forgotten how to see it. The virtues were never lost. We just stopped looking. —D.

First, credit to Paul Kingsnorth and Mary Harrington for the topic. They are a wellspring of thought-provoking inspiration. Now… The great post-Enlightenment revolution that promised to unshackle the mind from superstition and lead us into an age of reason has, in its end, given us a world gripped by its own decadence. We've spent centuries in a brave, frenetic race to divorce ourselves from a truth deeper than the mind's ability to comprehend, all the while building false towers of science and technology in our bid for ultimate control. The moment of "Enlightenment" became the moment when everything was atomized and reduced to measure, to numbers, to a dull, materialistic existence that only ever seemed to lead to greater alienation. And yet, something is quietly, even powerfully, shifting in the modern psyche— something ancient, something true— quietly rising from beneath the hushed noise of the last few centuries of materialism. This great experiment, built on the Cartesian delusion that we can break the world down to parts, and rule it, has come undone. The fruit is rotten, and we are tasting it. In the places where God’s Spirit once spoke boldly, now we hear only hollow claims of progress, identity politics, and the fractured whims of individual will. It is a decadence wrapped in high-minded idealism, filled with the weight of ideological contradictions, and riddled with deep uncertainty about the value of life itself. What does it mean to be alive, to breathe, to be rooted in the soil of a tradition older than our years? The materialist vision cannot answer this. It can only ask what we measure, what is efficient, what is quantifiable. The invisible world—the reality we once understood through myth, symbol, and holy ritual—is nowhere to be found. So what happens when we become too hollow and thin for the mind to live within? What happens when we’ve spent so long pushing all that cannot be captured and boxed away with our devices that we begin to lose the thread of meaning? We fall back into that original quiet. The grand boast of materialism and its undergirding ideology of reason—that things can be measured, controlled, quantified—has fallen short. We see it on every front: in our politics, in our so-called “progress,” in the increasing unhappiness in even the richest corners of the world. Technology, once hailed as the liberator of mankind, has enslaved us— tricked us into thinking that convenience and speed will fulfill our deepest needs. It hasn’t. The moment we thought we could measure everything is the moment we forgot to measure the things that truly matter: the things which can’t be touched, counted, or digitized. The things which seem absent, yet are alive—beauty, grace, spirit, and the truth that reality is filled with breath and meaning. There is more to the world than the observable, more than the definable. We've become trapped by a glass box, in which we try to describe a world we don’t truly know. We’ve severed the connections to what keeps us bound to the earth, to the sky, and to each other, yet, it is these very connections that once gave meaning and direction to all things. Now, as the material world itself crumbles, we're awakening, though perhaps still blindfolded, to the return of the enchanted, the inspirited. What is spirituality if not this spirit—the anima of the world—that still beckons from the depths of every sacred moment and still cries for our awakening? There is nothing more real than this reality which encircles us but which we cannot measure. Make no mistake, we are entering a second Reformation, one far deeper than the last. This Reformation will not only sweep away the dead husks of a religious world corrupted by doctrine and political authority; it will strip us of the hardened, synthetic shells of meaning we have so skillfully manufactured through modernity’s broken lens. This coming return is not a blind return to the old ways for the sake of nostalgia or tradition but a return to the living essence of the world itself. It is a return to the truth that things do indeed have a nature— a depth beyond appearance, a truth that reaches far beyond the shiny falseness we’ve pursued so recklessly in recent centuries. Yes, nature speaks to us; it speaks without tongue but with thrum. There is a steady whisper carried on the wind, on the waves, in the forest’s hushed prayer— an enchantment buried within the hills and riverbeds, in the old myths of creation and destruction, woven through our ancestors' rituals and belief. It hums through us still, even as we have dismissed it for ages. And in time, just like the land’s reclamation after a long drought, so too will this truth reclaim what it never lost, never relinquished: its vitality. This spiritual truth is no abstraction, but an ancient reality— a reality that calls us back to connection. It stands directly against the fragmented, isolated subjectivity we’ve deluded ourselves with. True liberty lies in participation— not in self-will, but in participating with creation, with the divine, and yes— with the community of beings that stretch from the rooted earth to the high heavens. And at the crossroads where this battle is fought, we, who are bound together under the vast canopy of all-encompassing truth, must hold firm to a belief older than reason itself. A belief in the rootedness of the world’s soul, in its holy consistency even when everything is shaken. For the war between materialism and the spiritual reality of things is a great one— but in the end, it is not we who will make the final blow. Here, beneath the weight of this upheaval, something is beginning to stir in us. Those whose hearts have long been scattered in search of meaning, lost amidst the vain promises of secular ideologies and blind constructions of the world, are awakening. And when the material system finally meets its end— as it surely must— we shall rise, like the returning spring, to breathe once again in a world both real and divine, where nothing is lost to us, and nothing is ever wasted. And as we rise again from the ash of this failed revolution, the chains of the modern world shall fall from us, undone by the very power they tried to dismiss. In this second Reformation, we shall live, with eyes wide open to the light of what we were never meant to forget: That there is something more— much more— than what we see. And in that understanding, we shall begin to measure not by counting or dividing, but by receiving and participating. And so the Age of Enchantment shall return— and this time it will endure. —D.