Ep49 Getting Sunday Right w/ Dr. Michael Naughton

"Through Sunday rest, daily concerns and tasks can find their proper perspective: the material things about which we worry give way to spiritual values..."
~ St. John Paul II

Sunday, the Lord's day, has a very particular purpose and call. But our world has diminished Sunday to look like any other day. How can Christians reclaim this part of their inheritance with reverence and rest on Sunday?

Dr. Michael Naughton joins this episode of This Whole Life to explore the significance of reclaiming Sunday as a day of rest, celebration, and fulfillment of the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy. Dr. Naughton emphasizes the deep human need for rest and receptivity on the Lord's day, reflecting on the consequences of neglecting the Lord's day in his own family and work experiences. The conversation delves into the complexities involved in reframing and reclaiming Sundays. In a fallen world this is a messy project, but it's one that holds deep value for our wellbeing and for the health of our families. Join us as we explore the transformative power of honoring the Lord's day and unlocking the gifts that God desires to give us every Sunday.

Dr. Michael Naughton is the director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN where he holds the Koch Chair in Catholic Studies and is a full professor in the department of Catholic Studies. He also taught in the College of Business for over 20 years. Author, co-author and co-editor of 12 books and monographs and over 60 articles, his most recent book is What We Hold in Trust: Rediscovering the Purpose of Catholic Higher Education (2021). He serves on multiple boards including as board chair for Reell Precision Manufacturing, which has plants and offices in the US, Europe and Asia and the board of trustees at the University of Mary and Catholic Eldercare.

Episode 49 Show Notes

Chapters:
0:00: Introduction and Highs & Hards
8:08: Why Sunday matters
21:05: What happens if we get Sunday wrong? What happens when we get it right?
33:28: Making the worthwhile sacrifices to reclaim Sunday
42:57: A well-ordered life starts on Sunday
55:48: Challenge By Choice

Questions for Reflection & Discussion:

1. What is one specific thing that stuck with you from this conversation?
2. How do your Sundays look right now?
3. What are the ways that you currently honor the Lord's day? How are you feeling convicted to be more faithful to the Lord's day?
4. What would being a "technosabbatarian" look like for you? How can Sunday be a day of distance from screens and social media?
5. What sacrifices would you need to make in order to reclaim Sundays? How do you envision the graces from those sacrifices spilling over into your week?
6. What is one way that you can better keep holy the Sabbath this coming Sunday?

Thank you for listening! Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com, and send us an email with your thoughts, questions, or ideas.

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Highs & Hards
• 8:08 Why Sunday matters
• 21:05 What happens if we get Sunday wrong? What happens when we get it right?
• 33:28 The worthwhile sacrifices to reclaim Sunday
• 42:57 A well-ordered life starts on Sunday
• 55:48 Challenge By Choice

Transcript

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:00:00]:
My wife has this wonderful thing that the the blessings of Sunday move out into our week. They'll move out into my work.

Pat Millea [00:00:15]:
Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us seeking sanity and sanctity, and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician, and leader, and I'm happy to bring you this podcast along with my bride, Kenna, a licensed marriage and family therapist. This is the stuff she and I talk about all the time, doing dishes, in the car, on a date. We're excited to bring you this podcast for educational purposes. It's not therapy or a substitute for mental health care. So come on in, have a seat at our dining room table, and join the conversation with us. We are so glad you're here. Welcome back to This Whole Life friends.

Pat Millea [00:01:11]:
We are seeking sanity and sanctity one wonderful day at a time. And we have one very particular day in mind for this episode. And I'm excited to have you with us today. I'm also very excited, very honored to have Dr. Michael Naughton with us as our guest for this episode. Doctor Naughton is a professor at the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Just down the road here, he's been there for over 20 years for a long time in the College of Business and now with the Catholic Studies department, which he helped to create, and he's now the director of the Center For Catholic Studies at St. Thomas. He's written a dozen books.

Pat Millea [00:01:49]:
He's a great thinker on Catholic social thought, meaningful work and leisure, and he lives here in Saint Paul, Minnesota. And, also, as I understand it, is an Irish citizen with dual citizenship?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:02:00]:
That is correct. How did you know that?

Pat Millea [00:02:01]:
Welcome aboard, Dr. Naughton. Oh, I have ways and means, I suppose. Hi. Hi. There you go.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:02:07]:
I'll break into Irish brogue here soon.

Pat Millea [00:02:10]:
I am also very Irish, so I appreciate the dual citizenship.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:02:13]:
Oh, nice.

Pat Millea [00:02:13]:
I am not a citizen of the home country. There you go. But I act as if I did probably. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate your

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:02:21]:
It's my pleasure. Real joy.

Pat Millea [00:02:23]:
Thank you. Well, as as you know, here at This Whole Life, we like to get a little bit of human interest, connect with our audience here with our highs and hards. Do you have a high and hard lately to share with our folks?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:02:34]:
Yeah. The big high recently, we've had, 3 grandchildren born this year, and we just found out we have a 4th one coming. So we'll have 4 grandchildren in a year, and we're just delighted my daughter Mary and her husband Matt are having a baby in October, and so that's a great high. And to watch this is their first, and to watch this young family start up is a beautiful thing. So Beautiful. The hard, we just had some hard news last week at Saint Thomas. We had 26 people laid off and then we had 30 positions not filled. And higher education is going through some tough adjustments, and, I know a lot of people in business and law and medicine and church everywhere.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:03:14]:
When you don't have the resources, it you gotta make some tough decisions. So Mhmm. That's been hard. And, but yet even in the hardness, right, the fruit always grows in the valleys. And so you gotta kinda realize that the Lord is here even in the hardness and the cross and then seeing what fruits can come from that.

Pat Millea [00:03:32]:
Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Definitely difficult. But Yeah. Like you said, certainly, opportunity is buried in there somewhere.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:03:37]:
That's right.

Pat Millea [00:03:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Appreciate it. Yeah. I think, I was thinking about this yesterday. My hard has been, kind of a a wave of nostalgia and gratitude lately. We had some friends over for dinner last weekend and, we Kenna and I were explaining to them kind of our initial dating story that we've told a whole bunch of times.

Pat Millea [00:03:59]:
But there was a new kind of details that I had either forgotten about or never knew. I'm not really sure. But one of them that I definitely knew is there was one conversation when we were dating where Kenna, because of a lot of things in her past, in her kind of coming of age times, told me that she did not want to have children. And I, for whatever reason, immature 25 year old me said, Well, that's kind of a deal breaker. Sorry. That's a no go then. And in retrospect, she says that her perspective was like, well, well, hold on now. Let's just talk about this for a second, you know? And it was gratitude in 2 ways.

Pat Millea [00:04:37]:
Number 1, what I told our friends was I am I am, like, genuinely surprised that with all of the mistakes I made when I was in my mid twenties that I got that big thing right. And I don't even know honestly that I knew fully the understanding of what marriage is and openness to life. I don't know that it even came from that kind of an angle, but just gratitude for what the Holy Spirit was doing in me against my, you know, choices sometimes, with my will, but definitely grateful. And then also grateful for Kenna responding to that really beautifully. I mean, the Spirit was working in her too. We have 7 kids now, so she got over at a certain point. You know?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:05:16]:
God bless you. And that's fantastic. Yeah. But, you know, isn't it interesting? There's a lot of things in our lives, particularly when we're younger and even when we're older. There's truths stuck in the heart, but they haven't been articulated in mind, particularly because the culture represses it. Yeah. But you knew something. There was a gut reaction there.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:05:32]:
Yeah. And, and she responded because she's like, wait. Why is this guy saying this to me? Yeah. I thought he'd agree. Yeah. Right? Or it's just gonna be 2 people doing their own thing. Mhmm. There's something in this guy.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:05:43]:
And she said, I expect the goodness even though it certainly tough conversations that go on. So Right. No. I think that's right. That's, the faith is in us, and we don't even know sometimes how much is in us.

Pat Millea [00:05:55]:
Right. For sure. Yeah. It was it was a a surprise to look back on that, but a really beautiful one for sure. Yeah. I think a hard lately is that, our our oldest child is 13. The rest are 11, 8, 6, kind of on down the road. And, you know, the the younger ages of childhood come with their own challenges, their own struggles.

Pat Millea [00:06:14]:
A lot of them are just physical struggles, frankly, sleep and carrying kids around and things like that. And they're they're definitely real. But we're just now starting to get glimpses of the way that older childhood and adolescence brings its challenges. And we've been told forever by friends of ours the cliche, little people, little problems, big people, big problems, you know, and our kids are wonderful. There's they've done nothing yet that is like some morally dangerous or even, you know, kind of questionable realm. But, some things, some conversations have started to come up around them that have just shown us how challenging it's going to be to raise kids in the world today. Yeah. And that's not a surprise.

Pat Millea [00:06:56]:
We knew that We were fully prepared to have to face that, but still the reality of it is starting to be, a little bit daunting. So, nothing that we can't meet but daunting.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:07:05]:
Exactly. That's why the theological virtues are so critical. You know? And you gotta you have to do this on your knees. And, and yet there's a lot of work to be done. Mhmm. But there's something about you gotta receive something in order to begin to respond to things.

Pat Millea [00:07:19]:
So Right. Right. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing a bit of your life with us. I appreciate it. We'll keep you in prayer and the thank you for your work of education and really grateful for that. I'm I'm very grateful, like I was telling you before, about your work in Catholic Studies. I I know of dozens of people who have been successful graduates of the Catholic Studies department, both undergraduate and graduate studies, who have gone on to do amazing things in work and ministry and family life and have just been really fed by the work that you've done.

Pat Millea [00:07:47]:
So thank you for that.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:07:48]:
Well, it's been a great joy. And, we had a great founder, a man named Don Briel, but lots of great faculty. We have beautiful staff. And our students, to be quite frank, brings so much to the project. Mhmm. So it's not like we're just doing things for them. They come ready, and they and they grow.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:08:01]:
And they've been a great delight and great joy to have. Good.

Pat Millea [00:08:04]:
It's always the way good relationships work. That's great. Absolutely. Well, I'm really excited to get into our topic for today, because, you know I I was reflecting and thinking back you know any of us over maybe a certain age can pretty readily call to mind the ways that Sundays have changed over the years. You know, I I just turned 42 recently and even I remember very clearly on Sundays growing up that stores were not open by and large, you know, and nowadays almost every store is open except for my dear friend, Chick Fil A.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:08:42]:
And Hobby Lobby, I think.

Pat Millea [00:08:43]:
And Hobby Lobby. That's right. They're the other one. Yes. Hobby Lobby, I don't frequent so much.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:08:47]:
Exactly. No do I. Exactly. Fair enough.

Pat Millea [00:08:50]:
But stores are open more, which which means that people are working at those stores. People are shopping at those stores. We could talk later on about the the world of youth and professional sports and the ways that they have kind of overtaken Sunday and turned Sunday sometimes into one of the busiest days of the week for folks. You know as as statistically as fewer and fewer Americans make worship a priority on Sundays, the scope of the day has kind of shifted over the decades. So, you know, that's kind of a global cultural understanding. For you personally, what why did you first become intentional about the way that we do Sundays?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:09:31]:
Yeah. So obviously, your point about the more kind of larger cultural dimension is that we're living in a culture that doesn't make the Lord's day, the Sabbath, easily kind of, lived. So there's there's that that's going on. I will say I did not have I have 5 kids. We had 5 kids under 10. When I came to Saint Thomas, I made a very well, before going to Saint Thomas, I made a very bad financial decision. I married my wife, and we doubled our debt. And so so we had we had a lot of debt.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:10:02]:
We bought this dilapidated house that needed a lot of fixing. I started at Saint Thomas. I needed to get tenure, and we started Catholic studies. I was traveling a lot. And so it was a tremendous amount of work to be done. And you're trying to squeeze out all that work in one particular way. And so, I was doing work in the house. And so often Sundays, I would get up before the kids, get some work done from my academic work.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:10:28]:
We'd go to Mass. And then the afternoon, I was doing housework, or my wife was doing things. And so Mhmm. After 10 years of that, it, it the grind, it wears you out. And things start to start to occur. You know, how you deal, you you don't have any time for the real conversations with your wife. I thought I was a very, easygoing kind of guy, and I've noticed that I'm getting a little bit more angry. Actually, a lot more angry.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:10:57]:
And it's like, woah. What's going on there? And then, so something was not things were starting to go in a in a wrong direction. And then I had a massive anxiety attack. I was actually on sabbatical, still doing all the work that I was doing. And I had to give a talk in San Francisco, and my will shut down. You know, you think, okay. Because I'd get over it. You can do it.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:11:19]:
But I couldn't, and that was a real shocker. And for the first time in my life, I couldn't will something. Mhmm. It was the worst talk I gave in my life. I was losing my breath. All those types of things. And it was time for a reconsideration about what's going on. And what can be very clear to me, I need Sunday.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:11:41]:
I need the Lord's day. Mhmm. I need the Sabbath rest. It's not an obligation. It's a deep need. And that was the realization. And my wife was also doing this was in 1999 in the jubilee year coming in. For those who would know, the jubilee is the Sabbath of all Sabbaths.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:12:00]:
Mhmm. 7 times 7 plus 1. Every 50 years is the jubilee year. And we started reading things about the Sabbath and about the Lord's day. And my wife and I said, we gotta do something different. And I remember the first Sunday we just decided to take it seriously. Honest to goodness, it was like Christmas. Because I I wasn't at work.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:12:21]:
You know? This is the day we're gonna go in and live that day. And it was an extraordinary day. Now I wish I wish every Sunday I wake up, I feel like Christmas. Right? And it doesn't. I mean, it wears out and things of that sort. But it became clear to my wife we had to re we had to, reorient and relive, this great commandment. Mhmm. You know, I often say if I lived if I was living adultery like I was living the Sabbath you know, sorry, honey.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:12:49]:
It didn't work this week. I'll I'll try it next week. Right? You would know. Right? It would be a disaster. Mhmm. And yet sometime, we're just a little flippant on the question of Lord's day. He wants not an hour. He wants a day.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:13:01]:
And as Catholics, we have to get that one in our head. We're often really good on the hour, but, no, he wants a whole day for us.

Pat Millea [00:13:09]:
I love that that reflection that you needed Sunday that you came to that realization, because I think it's a reframe of the way that that we sometimes can look at the 10 commandments, any of them, and I certainly did up to a certain age as these imposing oppressive dictates to limit my freedom, to constrain me to things that I don't wanna do or to force me to do things to stop me from doing the things I want to do. But that that kind of a reframe looking at those commandments, which there is a moral dimension to keeping holy the Sabbath because it's one of the commandments, but just this great opportunity that that the Lord gave us this gift because it's good for us, not good for him.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:13:49]:
Yeah. Right. No. Augustine has it in the first page of the confessions when he says, our hearts are restless until they rest in you, oh, Lord. Right? There's something we have deep within us, this deep need for rest. And we have a deep need in that rest of celebration. These are the 2 major things about the Lord's day. To have deep rest, the rest from our, you know, own self importance, the rest from our work, the rest from our anxiety, the rest you know? One of the things I would often say, if I had to do it all over again and you you have 7 young children.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:14:23]:
Here's what I'd throw at you. If I had to do it all again, I would rest from nagging on Sunday. Really cut out the nagging. Right? Because your kids, right, I don't know, they're they're little brutes. I mean, you get them get them around the dinner table and, you know, chaos takes place. And I'm always correcting him. I'm always telling him, give it a rest. You know, live it in a really different kind of way.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:14:47]:
The Lord is saying, live this day in a different kind of way than the rest of the 6. Now not nagging, but, you know, we have to discipline our children. We have to correct our children, all those types of things. But Sunday has to be a different kind of day. And, so, yeah, I think that would be kind of, one way of thinking about it.

Pat Millea [00:15:05]:
It's like you have a hidden camera at our dining room table and have watched me deal with the normal behavior of a 4 year old before.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:15:14]:
Exactly. Right? You know? And and, of course, you can't probably do it fully, but it's it's like, let's make it a different kind of and let the kids feel that it's a different kind of day. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:15:25]:
I'm curious more about this idea of rest. You know, when when you use the word rest, my guess, my my, presumption is that maybe you're talking about a specific type of rest that maybe is different from the way that the world around us thinks of rest.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:15:41]:
Right. Absolutely. So, for example, when we think of rest, you know, from a worldly perspective, we think of amusement. Mhmm. You know, we think of escape. You know? And so, Billy Joel's great line, you know, they know it's been me they've been coming to see to forget about life for a while. Right. Rest is escaping reality.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:16:01]:
And that type of rest it's interesting the word amusement, the etymologies. Muse. Muse is a Greek word for the for the gods of the liberal arts, the goddesses of the liberal arts. And when you and they were meant to, the liberal arts were meant to free us to see further a reality. And you put the a in front of it, it negates it. Mhmm. And it's very interesting in Wiktionary. There's one of the definitions, amusement to stare stupidly at something.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:16:32]:
Right? This is my wife's description of me watching television. Right? This is what's going on. And so that's not what we mean by rest. The rest is found in the deep created reality that's found in Genesis. So it's very interesting. Why does Genesis have not one creation story but 2? Right. And the first one is a very dynamic creation story. This is this is Adam the maker.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:16:58]:
You know, Adam because who is Adam? Adam is told to have dominion and to subdue the earth. Adam is made in the image of God. Who is God? God is a creator God. This is the act of Adam, and we are meant to be active. Mhmm. By the way, let's be very clear. This is none of this is to be anti work. Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:17:14]:
Work is really and we can get into the work question a little bit later. But then the second creation story is very interesting. What happens? God takes the dust and he blows into it. He blows into the nostrils and he and he brings life. Mhmm. And he takes Adam and he puts him in the garden. He tells him to till and take care of it. And then he puts Adam to sleep and he takes the rib out of them.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:17:37]:
All these things are being done to Adam. Mhmm. And so within us, we have Adam, the creator, and Adam, the receiver. Mhmm. And they're in us. And we live it in in in in the modern world that we live in, we have elevated the first Adam, and we've demeaned the second Adam. Because what do we say? You know, we wanna know what have you done? What's your accomplishment? You know, what's your achievements? And we've lost sight of the important reality of receptivity. And so this rest is a form of receiving our deep created order to receive the sacrament, to receive the scripture, to receive forgiveness, to receive criticism, right, to receive the to receive a conversation.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:18:27]:
And if we're always doing, we will be very bad receivers. Mhmm. And that that idea of Joseph Pieper wrote a book called Leisure As the Basis of Culture. It's it is an excellent book. And he says leisure is the attitude of the mind, the condition of the soul to receive the reality of the world. To receive God's love. To receive that God has given you everything. I have created nothing.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:18:54]:
Everything I have is gift. And now he's saying, with that good gift I've given you, now you are to go. But to give in the way that you received, Not to go you know, we live in a we live in a post modern culture. This is you create whoever you wanna be. Right. You know, there's a whole theory in postmodern theory they talk about social construction. Mhmm. You know, it's self creation.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:19:21]:
It's deadly. It's I think it leads to depression because you it's empty. But when I'm discovering what God's given me through the scriptures, through the Eucharist, through the sacraments, through listening to to others who are also sharing the same thing, then the substance starts to occur. Then it gives me the great capacity to go and give that I'm supposed to be doing.

Pat Millea [00:19:47]:
We've talked in many episodes of the podcast here about the the problems associated with trying to Kenna uses the phrase oftentimes trying to hustle for my worth, trying to create my worth, that that my efforts will result in my goodness because I'm going to achieve my dignity, I'm going to achieve my value. And, of course, no matter we could achieve more than all of humanity put together and we will never create our own value because it's not for us to create that we can only receive the dignity that we were created with. And then crucially, like you were saying, respond by being coactive. Right?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:20:27]:
Exactly. Exactly. We become, unfortunately and my wife has criticized me for this. We become resume people. Mhmm. You know, let me tell you about my resume. You know? Let me tell you about what I've been able to achieve. Let me tell you about, you know, my position.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:20:40]:
Let me tell you about and it's and that attitude, first of all, doesn't create real relationships. Mhmm. And we have to get over ourselves. And the only way you get over yourself is to realize that God has given you great abundance, and you have to take time for that receptivity. Mhmm. And I think that's the key thing about entering into the Lord's day in this receptive orientation.

Pat Millea [00:21:03]:
That's beautiful. I I I wonder what you would say is at stake if we don't get Sunday right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:21:13]:
Yeah. The breakdown of civilization.

Pat Millea [00:21:17]:
Oh, is that all?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:21:17]:
That's it. That's it. That's all it is. But the Lord I mean, that that's the reason why the Lord put it there. Mhmm. This is great line. You often think the Jews kept the Sabbath. None of the Sabbath has kept the Jews.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:21:30]:
Same thing. The Lord's yeah. We keep the Lord's day. No. The Lord's day keeps us. It's a way for the protection of civilization that's necessary that's out there. And so I do think things start to break down when we break the law of God. We don't break in one sense, we do break God's law.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:21:48]:
But in one sense, a better way of putting it, we don't break the law, the law breaks us. Sure. And so when we break this, it's not like God's a nasty, you know, and say, no. I'm gonna get you. No. We've broken something deep within us because we think we can make it up somewhere else as you say in our in our affirmations, in our work, in our achievements, in our whatever it might be. But we can't make it up anywhere. There's only one way to get it.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:22:14]:
Mhmm. So I do think that's one of the biggest one of the challenges, And it starts to break down. It breaks down society. Mhmm. And I think these are some of the things we're kinda wrestling with right now as a culture. There's a certain kind of breakdown that's occurring, and I think much of it has to do with this inability for deep rest and an inability to truly live the Lord's day Mhmm. And to live a kind of Sabbath rest. Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:22:43]:
So then, reformed positively with with an intentionality, with the right focus, what do we stand to gain from getting Sunday right?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:22:55]:
Well, relationships is the key thing. Mhmm. Right? And so key is gonna be our own relationship around families. But there will be a, the good is never content never simply contains within itself. Mhmm. It over overflows. My wife has this wonderful thing that the the blessings of Sunday move out into our week. They'll move out into my work.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:23:22]:
And so when I take seriously the Lord's day and really live that day, and then I go to work throughout the week, and we have all sorts of disappointments at the university, they don't eat me up. I mean, they they they bother me.

Pat Millea [00:23:39]:
Sure.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:23:40]:
And I do get angry and I get this and that. But it's like, okay, Lord. It's in your hands. Mhmm. And there's a sense of of a certain detachment. Now it doesn't mean detachment doesn't mean uncaring. Right. But in many many times in my life, the problems eat me up.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:23:57]:
They cause anxiety. They cause anger. They cause frustrations. And then what happens is that starts going out on the kids. Mhmm. And so that idea of trying to live that Lord's day rightly will have great blessings in terms of your family, in terms of the relationships I have with the kids, in terms of the relationship I have with my wife, and in terms of its relationship moving out to all my colleagues.

Pat Millea [00:24:23]:
Think of the CS Lewis passage about talking about the way that God has made the human machine to work, and we've been made to work on him alone, like a car runs on gasoline alone. And you can try to put whatever other convenient thing you want into the gas tank and it might work for a minute but it's not gonna work for long and it's gonna break down eventually and I I get the sense that the way that we have started to, like, reimagine sundaes on our own terms is trying to make the human machine work in ways it was never created to work.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:24:54]:
Exactly. That's a great analogy because what also happens is that most people do have this deep sense that something's deeply wrong. Mhmm. But they're gonna find other things to throw in there besides God. Mhmm. You know, hunting, exotic vacations, you know, you know, meditation or yoga or exercise, all of which are not bad things. Right? But they're not enough. They're not big enough to fill that reality, because God we've been made by God, and we're made for God.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:25:30]:
And it is exactly in that place where we're able then to live the ways that God has designed us.

Pat Millea [00:25:39]:
With that kind of, perspective in mind then, I was thinking earlier this week at this weeding up to our conversation. It's kinda like when you buy a new car and you see other people driving that car everywhere you go just because it's on the front of your mind now. I could not stop seeing the the, reference to Sunday all around my life, including just randomly on a country music playlist that I listened to. There's this song by Craig Morgan came up, that's what I love about Sundays. And I'll put it in the show notes for those who are listening. That's great.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:26:11]:
I love I love to I love to hear it.

Pat Millea [00:26:13]:
It's a really sweet song. In some ways, it's a funny song because it you know, Craig Morgan, I don't know, he's maybe my age or a little bit older, but he's painting a verbal picture of basically the 1940s. We're like you're walking to church, the kids are playing barefoot on the dirt road, they're playing, eating fried chicken and playing football in the backyard, you know. But it really struck me there's something really beautiful there and the very first verse of that song is all about going to church and a funny neighbor Bertha singing off key behind you in the pew and the preacher's going on. Like, so that that made me wonder, I guess, when you describe, not prescriptive, but maybe opportunities for folks, What might Sunday look like in a way that's healthy and feeds the rest of our week, the rest of our life?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:27:02]:
Well, I really like what you said. It's not prescriptive because you got 7 young kids. Mhmm. I got 5 kids. The old the youngest is 23. They're out of the house. The way we're gonna live 7 is gonna be or Lord says it's gonna be a little different than yours. Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:27:16]:
But I do think there's a way of as you enter into a cathedral, there's a kind of there's a hushed reality to it. And how we enter into the Lord's day now if you got crying babies waking you up and things of that sort, but if there's ways that you can enter into it in silence. So one thing my wife and I will do is I spend a good chunk of my time in the morning in silence, in this in in in really, in one sense, just a Jesus prayer. Jesus. And just just sit and not try to think about it, not try to achieve anything, not to get big thoughts, and just sit and rest in the Lord. And then we will look to the scripture. And in many respects, you're almost ready now to hear the scripture. Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:28:08]:
Because what you wanna do is settle there's you know, all of us have this, you know I don't know what you're saying. I got all these tapes going on in my head. Right? If I often say, I am the unappreciated genius at Saint Thomas. You know? They would just listen to me. And even on Sunday, all those tapes are still going. I gotta settle those tapes down because those tapes prevent me from hearing God's word. They prevent me from hearing what God has to hear. So this is trying to just let go of that.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:28:36]:
If you can and again, you know, my wife and I will often listen to Bishop Barron's homily. I mean, it's usually has just great words and things of that sort. But it's also time to let go of the devices. And when somebody once told me about becoming a Technosabbatarian. Right? A Technosabbatarian. That is turn off the device. Because that device, even when you go to listen to Bishop Baron, there's 10 things waiting for you and the distraction. And then it gets your attention, and then you're off.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:29:08]:
Mhmm. And that's the thing about these devices. They're designed to get your attention. Mhmm. And if you don't shut it off, if you don't put it away, it will get your attention. Mhmm. And that attention has now been diverted and and what's happened is God often gets displaced by it. Even when though it started off right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:29:26]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. So you gotta sometimes you gotta let go of those devices. And so that would be certainly it's 2 things and then try and do that with your kids. Mhmm. Guys, we're gonna put away devices and they will they will fight you. But if you don't get them to let go of those devices, there's really bad news for these children. Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:29:45]:
And the data is so clear right now on these devices. We got to get them off our kids. There's a national national movement right now. It's trying to get phone free schools. Right? Right. Let's do phone free Sundays or at least part of the day. You need to figure it out. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:30:03]:
So that that would be 2 things. I would say having a prayer. My wife and I have, wrote a a Lord's my wife my wife wrote it. I did a little tinkering and I didn't get it. But she was the one who really kind of created that. And we and she adapted it from, you know, interesting of a couple of movements that have been very influential to us is Christ the Redeemer Community. They take seriously the Lord's Day. People of Praise have taken it seriously.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:30:27]:
There's a lot of these movements have taken serious the Lord's day that that were very helpful to us. Mhmm. But ritualize Sunday. So one of the things we do is we put my wife puts in, a runner down the table, and we have a oil candle. Mhmm. And we put a cross. And we light the candle. We keep the candle lit all day.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:30:46]:
Mhmm. And when the kids were growing up, they knew it was Sunday. Mhmm. Because that was the only day we had that candle lit, and it was lit all day. And we would have our Lord's day prayer, and that was something. And, obviously, the brunch well, obviously, the key thing is Mass. Right. And taking time.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:31:02]:
And that's the other thing too. Don't rush in and rush out of Mass. Mhmm. You know? We weren't always good getting there on we usually got there on time, but usually just in time Yep. Because we were getting 5 kids ready and things like that. We should have started earlier. You know? But get over to church and then linger. Let let church be part of that time and time.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:31:21]:
And then, you know, having a a nice brunch. Here's where we I've spent 6 semesters in Italy. My our family sent 6 semesters. The Italians know how to dine. Mhmm. Mhmm. One course at a time. It's a 2 hour affair.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:31:36]:
Whereas we Americans, we just feed. We throw all the food on the table. I mean, they think we're somewhat barbarians in Italy. You know? And we mix it all up and we eat it and we're done in 20 minutes. Take time at the table. Now this is where the hard part is. Right? You were talking about your children. I have the same problem.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:31:54]:
They're spilling. They're they're they're poking each other. They're theirs to that. It's like, get me out of here. Right? But the table, it's it's it's that domestic Lord's table. And that's where the conversations can come out and have fun. And then instead of watch sports, play sports. We used to we had a actually, a good friend of mine, for ours, Ian Punnett, he was a radio announcer.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:32:18]:
He had some boys, and we would get several families together with the dads, and we play football. The girls and guys, everybody, you know, we and then we, you know, we spent a couple of hours on the fields. Yeah. Sabbath or Lord's day needs to be fun. My wife has a whole closet full of games. Mhmm. Play. You know? This is not a dour time.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:32:38]:
This should be a lot of fun.

Pat Millea [00:32:40]:
Not every Lord's Day isn't necessarily it's not gonna look like Good Friday, although there are similar elements sometimes of silence, worship, reflection things like that but every Lord's day is Easter it it should be a celebration it should be

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:32:56]:
Amen. Exactly. And the kids need to feel it. Mhmm. They need to look forward to it rather than having it be in some of a dour day. And that's where special things, you know, go out and and keep getting out to nature. Yeah. My wife one of the key things sometimes, like, we said, like, we're leaving, and we go for a walk.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:33:13]:
Yeah. And we've had some of the greatest talks on that walk. Mhmm. And, of course, we come back and it's chaotic because all the kids, they are beast and they are do things and they shouldn't be doing things. But even sometimes as a couple, you need to get out a little bit. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:33:27]:
I think just in terms of some of the practical elements of returning to what was intended with the Lord's Day, I think it's too easy for me and for a lot of folks to maybe think of what I'm giving up if I take out some of the things from my Sunday, you know? If I if I get rid of my phone, I'm giving up entertainment all of a sudden. And if I give up work, I'm giving up productivity and if I'm taking phones from my kids then I'm giving up comfort because there's gonna be a battle that ensues if I take away the phone from my kids and if I tell the coach of my kids' soccer team, you know what? He's not going to that game on Sunday because it's Sunday. I'm gonna give up a really difficult conversation with the kid maybe who won't be able to play in the next game. The list goes on and on. Exactly.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:34:14]:
And it's called opportunity cost.

Pat Millea [00:34:16]:
Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I I was thinking, a few days ago as well about how how difficult it is to give up a small comfort now for the sake of a greater thing later. And it it it's just so difficult and I I feel the pain of that. I feel the weight of that. But, when you replace some of those sacrifices with some of the great joys of the Lord's day like you're talking about when you replace it with Mass being not just a thing to check off the list but a great event to communicate with the Lord and with these friends at church. And when brunch is not just a speed kind of drive through fast food experience, but I really get to enjoy the food, enjoy the people.

Pat Millea [00:34:58]:
And when we play games and we're not just sitting around looking at each other for 4 hours, but we're celebrating, we're playing, it it feels like there's a great opportunity to fill the Lord's Day with so much goodness that it might even become irresistible

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:35:12]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:35:12]:
To the most resistant of us.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:35:14]:
That was great. You know, Lewis, CS Lewis has a great line. First things first, second things second. Yeah. You know, we all know what second is. I mean, oh my goodness. I remember one one point. My my youngest daughter was really good at softball.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:35:26]:
She got kinda recruited, and we kinda fell into the trap. My wife was very resistant to it. If anything, I was not as resistant as she I because I love softball. But spending a whole weekend in a softball tournament, oh my goodness. All day Saturday, all day Sunday. It's a lot. It just and and and you know that something was lost. Again, softball is great.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:35:48]:
Having girls involved in sports is great. Mhmm. But it's a secondary reality. It's not the primary reality. I I will tell you just from a, so our kids were resistant because we started in 1999. So our daughter our one daughter was 11 when we started to really take this seriously. Okay. And then it was kind of the resistance that goes along with it.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:36:08]:
But I remember once we got it going and expectation, and we said, no homework until 3 o'clock. We're gonna just leave homework. We're not going off to our friends. It's gonna be a family day. I mean, sometimes if friends wanna come over, that's great, you know, but Sure. It's a family. It's a family. So let the whole their families come over.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:36:25]:
Right. And we'll experience those sorts of things. But one time, my son, Eamon, I remember we were sitting in the front porch, and he just kinda sat down the swing. He goes, oh, just yeah. This is great. I don't have to call a friend. I don't have to do homework. I know I can't do any of that, and this is great.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:36:44]:
You know? And he just he just was able to say all those burdens, you know, all those things that could he knew they were we're gonna put that out, and he was able to just rest in it. Mhmm. And he enjoyed it. Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:36:56]:
Right? Did it take time for him to get to that place?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:37:00]:
Oh my goodness. You know? Again, they would they thought, what what if our parents What are they drinking? You know? Why are they doing this to us? We're the only family.

Pat Millea [00:37:11]:
Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:37:11]:
You know, all those things. You know? And and but after a while, just settle into it. And I will say it has been crucial. It's been crucial. You know, it's made our marriage better, and and it's made our family. Now we are not a perfect family. We all have dysfunctions. We all have our own quirks, you know, and there's certain issues here and there.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:37:31]:
But I think it has I know that if we didn't do it, we would not be the family we are today. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I would also say from my own personal perspective, when I look back about all the things that I've done in life, the most important reality is that I that I sit with the Lord. I know that. And yet, even today, I still have challenges because of all the things I have to do. But I know that has been the most important part of my life because it's where I've been able to get the deep foundations, the deep roots, and the deep orientations that I need to live my life.

Pat Millea [00:38:06]:
And it seems like that that kind of a space, that kind of a a a time of resting with the Lord and being truly present to him and and receiving from him, like you were saying, that that's a place where we're able to to set aside all of the fears that plague us as humans, you know. And as you were talking about your son kind of slowly coming around to Sunday, one of those kind of innate fears I'm sure for a lot of teens and young adults and adults too is, well, what am I missing if I'm not on my phone, if I'm not with my friends? All the fun stuff is happening out there and I'm stuck in this house where there's no fun allowed, you know. But that that's true for us adults as well, but the fear of my competitor getting ahead in business if I'm not working all day Sunday. Exactly. Fear of not getting enough accomplished around the house if I don't check off my to do list. It's so easy to be motivated by fear. Exactly. And just stepping away from that and resting in him feels like just the exact right move.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:39:08]:
So my colleague, John Boyle, who's, a wonderful wonderful colleague, learned so much from him, He talks about we need to go from FOMO to JOMO. Right? FOMO, fear of missing out, to JOMO, joy of missing out. Mhmm. Right? Now with that said, it's a wonderful little phrase, and I think he's absolutely right. And yet, I was giving a talk in Nebraska in Omaha, and we got into this conversation about the Lord's Day, and and this CEO raises his hand so much sheepishly. He says, yeah. I I know what you guys are saying, but I gotta tell you, after brunch on after mass, after brunch, I gotta get back to work. And and he says and it was the opportunity cost problem because my competitors are and this is always this is the whole this is the huge problem with social media.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:39:55]:
Mhmm. Right? Because the kids are also feeling that, woah. Woah. Woah. Everyone's on Snapchat. Everyone's over on Twitter. Everyone's doing and I'm not on it. Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:40:03]:
There's a and that that that reality has really kind of it it eats up people, and it's on multiple levels. But it's a dead end street. And but there's a risk. And so here's the thing, the Lord is not saying it's all gonna be there is a risk. Mhmm. And sometimes there can be CEOs have to compete. And by doing this, there is a bit of a risk. Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:40:38]:
But there is also a deep promise. So

Pat Millea [00:40:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. That that kind of risk feels like the same risk that any Christian should understand when they hear the phrase, unless you die to yourself, you will not rise again. That that there's there's always a risk that I face when I confront the parts of me that are resistant to God's call, and part of me has to die. And that is terrifying. Yep.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:41:07]:
And, you know, and it'd be great if everything worked out such as Chick Fil A. I mean, it's wonderful. I mean, one of the things I do always try to do is I try to get home before Sunday. But last weekend, I I was a I couldn't get back. I had to give a talk at a conference, like, because there's a connecting flight. So I couldn't so I left at 6 o'clock in the morning on Sunday. Mhmm. But it's amazing walking through the airport and seeing the Chick Fil A closed.

Pat Millea [00:41:31]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:41:32]:
What what a witness. And Chick Fil A is the most profitable rest fast food restaurant that's out there. Yeah. Even if it's 6 days a week. Right. God has been good to Chick Fil A. Now, you know, will every restaurant have that experience? You know, who knows? You know? Right. But they've been able to do it.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:41:51]:
It's been a beautiful thing, and they've been a powerful witness as a business of all places.

Pat Millea [00:41:59]:
My favorite visual of that is that Chick Fil A is based in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah. And they are, you know, they they have a lot of business ties to the Atlanta Falcons, the NFL team in Atlanta. So in the Falcons home stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, there are all these different concession stands, restaurants, bars, the whole thing. There is a Chick Fil A in I believe it's Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and that means almost every single Falcons home game with thousands of people in the building, they are intentionally closed and dark.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:42:30]:
Ain't that fantastic?

Pat Millea [00:42:31]:
It's amazing. I mean, you know, they still play on Thursday and Monday occasionally, but every Sunday game, you cannot get Chick Fil A in the stadium. And it just it, you know, you don't do that because it helps your business, I presume. But but think of the how memorable that is

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:42:48]:
Right.

Pat Millea [00:42:48]:
In the midst of all the noise, all the to do Right. Seeing a dark silent restaurant in the middle of a Sunday. It says something. It communicates something.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:42:56]:
Because here's I mean, it doesn't always work this way. We wanna be always really careful. The moral order and the economic order, the spiritual order, and economic order, many times does cohere Yeah. Because we are made to rest and we are made to work. And when we rest, we will work better. Now it doesn't say that you will maximize your wealth because of that, but there is a sense of that order as well. And then there are times when you do have to sacrifice, but they're often they're they're secondary sacrifices. Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:43:27]:
You will usually, things will still work out. And sometimes they work out really great. Sometimes there's gonna be some sacrifices along the way.

Pat Millea [00:43:37]:
Sure. Sure. But the great gains of better relationship with God, better relationship with my spouse, with my kids Exactly. More rightly ordered approach to the world in general, better approach to work. To me, it feels like a risk worth taking.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:43:53]:
Exactly. And, you know, everyone will talk about this. Right? David Brooks has this nice thing between resume virtues versus eulogy virtues. Mhmm. Right? And so most of us are living with these kind of resume virtues, and we're telling people, well, hey. Did you know I I wrote another article in a really prestigious journal? Or, you know, I'm the vice president of x or I'm on the board of this. Right? Mhmm. Achievement's all good and things of that sort.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:44:19]:
Right? But we we start feeding that and we start getting fixated on it. And we know that the end of our life, you know, who cares about I mean, I say who cares. But, you know, one more article is not gonna do it. Sure. But was I there for my daughter? Mhmm. Was I there for my wife? Did I take the time for that? And and those relationships are enduring. Mhmm. The titles are not enduring.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:44:46]:
Mhmm. And yet the titles are the means that often will achieve that. So I don't wanna I don't wanna dismiss those things. Sure. Sure. But we have to put them in their their secondary, not primary. So here's the key thing. If we don't get leisure right, we're not gonna get work right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:45:00]:
If we don't get Sunday right, we're not gonna get Monday right. And it's the whole idea what the Lord's day is always how it's ordering our world rightly. Mhmm. Because we're living in a world of disorder. And I think most of us realize the challenge of that. And this is a time to reorder it and to take that examination of conscience. And by the way, that examination never goes away. Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:45:24]:
My wife and I are constantly we slip. We fall into bad habits. Right? You know, and it's okay. We gotta reorder. We're in a different we're in a different state of life now. We've gotten away from a few things. What can we do about that? Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:45:37]:
I love that kind of idea of cooperating with the order of creation as well. I mean, the reason that we have a Lord's day is because the Lord took a day at the end of creation after ordering things rightly, and he declared this as his day. So we're just cooperating in the organization that he's created around us.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:45:58]:
And we have to realize that we're living in a culture that is dismissed and rejected the created order. Mhmm. They said, no. We order ourselves. We're we're we're we're behind our own order. It's a self order. But it is an order. And in that order, this is this is salvation history.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:46:15]:
There is a deep pattern of God's of God's activity here. It's in everything where the pattern is everywhere, and we have to participate in it and yet we sin. Mhmm. We dis we disorder it, and then we need redemption. And this is the role of the church, to participate in the redeeming the redeeming of Christ of the violations that we have that we, that we have participated in.

Pat Millea [00:46:44]:
On another practical note, I've heard you say other places that one of the temptations, one of the maybe bad habits that we've gotten into at the weekend is that we've we've started to treat Saturday like Sunday Yeah. And Sunday like Saturday.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:46:56]:
Yeah. Sure.

Pat Millea [00:46:56]:
What do you mean by that?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:46:57]:
Sure. So, for a lot of us, you know, we take Saturday off, You know? And, you know, who knows? College football, you kinda go out and do this or, you know, whatever it might be. And some of it's really good stuff and things of that sort.

Pat Millea [00:47:09]:
Sure.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:47:10]:
And then we find out that now if you can take Saturday and Sunday off, great. But what happens is, we say, oh gosh. You know, I didn't cut the lawn. You know? Or gosh. I didn't wash the car. Or gosh. I didn't do the laundry. Or or gosh.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:47:23]:
You know? I got all this stuff due on Monday. And what we've done is then we've we've flipped, and that's where the pressures often feel. And, you know, again, if we go work 5 days I can't work 5 days a week. I gotta work 6. I wish I could do work 5. Mhmm. But I I I work on sun on Saturdays, and I try to get the things that I need to get done. And then if there's house projects, I try to do that on Saturday as well.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:47:52]:
Mhmm. And then I just try to let give that Sunday. And then also sometimes the way we spend Saturday nights, whether it's heavy drinking, late night flicks, you know, and so we wake up late, we wake up drowgy. Do I really have to go to mass? Blah blah blah. We haven't prepared ourselves for Sunday. Mhmm. And then we find ourselves, oh gosh. I I'm too busy.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:48:17]:
You know? Or gosh. This is too you know? And so we have to realize that Sunday, the Jews did this. They prepared for Sunday. They why shouldn't they? They prepared for Saturday. They prepared for the Sabbath. And as Catholic, we have a lot to learn from the Jews. Mhmm. The Jews have protected this the Sabbath.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:48:35]:
We have not always been very good at protecting Sunday. Mhmm. Even even the Jews and even the Muslims will often tell people about religious reasons about why they can't do work. As Catholics, we're very, you know, oh, gosh. You know, I can't really say that.

Pat Millea [00:48:49]:
Sure.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:48:50]:
You know? But if you're a nurse saying I really would not like I really don't wanna work on Sundays. Right. So I'll work a double shift or I'll work for you or things of that sort. Mhmm. We don't even say that. And so we get scheduled for these things. Right. Now again, police officers, nurses, firefighters will have to work on Sunday.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:49:06]:
Right. We realize that. But sometimes you need to say, this is really important to me. How can I how can I decrease that? Mhmm. So all of it's kind of preparing it, taking it seriously. Mhmm. And how do I prepare for it, and how do I protect it? Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:49:21]:
A lot of it comes down to this idea of agency that we've we've talked about in multiple different episodes as well. And I think a lot of us just feel like we have, through lots of different means and causes, been caught up in this river that is out of our control and we are being swept along in the current and there's nothing we can do about it. So if I have a job that I get scheduled on Sunday, maybe my first inclination is, oh, well, I guess that's the way it has to be. Or if my kid has practice on Sunday afternoon, oh, well, I signed him up for the team. It's the way it has to be. And losing that sense of agency is this really insidious part of kind of the busyness culture that we've created that I've given up my own, will, my own participation in my own life sometimes. Absolutely. Reclaiming that feels like a great gift.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:50:11]:
That's a great point, Pat. And by the way, this is why when you can, it is always great to live this with another person. Yeah. Because I have too often fallen into giving up the agency. It was my wife. I said, what are you doing? I said, oh, oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:50:28]:
Yeah. You know, don't fall into the softball traps. Right? You know, I because I really like softball, and I like watching my daughter play softball. And having 2 people do that together, so it was often that experience that I had initially of that panic attack, the anxiety attack that I had. And then my wife who really kind of she shored up a lot of the things that we were doing. And I support her, but she has given me this this ability to realize we have to do this together. Mhmm. And as you say, it's agency.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:51:01]:
We can resist, you know, the sports. We can resist the culture. We can do this, but we're now doing it together. And boy, when a married couple can do that together. I mean, she's been the greatest blessing in my life, and she has been key. And she actually she did her Masters in Catholic studies, and she did it on the Lord's day, her thesis on the Lord's day.

Pat Millea [00:51:20]:
Oh, no kidding.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:51:21]:
And that was also the thing that kinda supercharged us, you know, that really got us going in the right way. It was one of those things another thing that really help us Mhmm. And to read. And she's always given me things to read and say, read this and read that. And and it's been huge because we have to we have to inform ourselves. It's which is another part of that agency.

Pat Millea [00:51:40]:
Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:51:40]:
Because we think this thing stuff is gonna come naturally. It's not gonna come naturally.

Pat Millea [00:51:43]:
Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:51:43]:
We're living in a culture that's dismissing the Lord's day. We're gonna have to form ourselves on this. And this is why the church needs to do it, and we need to do it as as a married couple.

Pat Millea [00:51:54]:
Sounds like you and I are both the beneficiaries of fantastic brides, and Kenna has really been leading the way in our family and a lot of our Lord's Day kind of resets over the past few years as well of being really intentional about setting up Saturday so that we can rest on Sunday. So Saturday unfortunately what it means is that Saturday is a day that our kids don't always look forward to and it's fine. That's I will take that bitter pill. That's fine. We do chores on Sunday. Excuse me. We we do our work, our homework, our our housework on Saturday. But man is Sunday sweet.

Pat Millea [00:52:28]:
And and Kenna has been really great about, you know, getting rid of technology, getting rid of extra activities and appointments of just really simplifying and just embracing more and more silence even on Sundays. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:52:40]:
And and by the way, you know, I I do think if we can become technosabbatarians, it's great. But there's also a sense there might be that one place where you can use the screen. So for example, having movie night or movie afternoon. I remember when I was growing up, we we would watch family classics. I was on channel 9 in Chicago, WGN channel 9. And I just remember the afternoon, dad saying, we're gonna watch a movie this afternoon. And it was family classics. You know, it was Lassie or whatever it might be.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:53:07]:
We we all gathered together. You know, there's that moment. And, yes, okay, a football game. Yeah. It's okay to watch a football game. Just don't watch 6 or 9 hours of it.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:53:18]:
And be quite frank, even 3 hours is a little bit too much. Mhmm. But if you're really that Vikings fan, okay. Fine. But do it together. Mhmm. Right? Now what what happens when the other parts of the family doesn't wanna do it? Well, maybe you might have to sacrifice. Mhmm.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:53:32]:
And maybe they might have to sacrifice. Sure. You know, maybe they they you're gonna watch football game with me. You know? But not every Sunday. Mhmm. You know? And that's where the negotiations and and that's where, as you said, there's no one form.

Pat Millea [00:53:45]:
Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:53:46]:
But there is principles in this form Mhmm. That are crucial. Don't lose the principles. Mhmm. Don't say any format. No. It's not that any form can work.

Pat Millea [00:53:56]:
Right.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:53:57]:
Some forms will work better than others. But depending on your your your state of life, depending where you're at with the kids, with other types of things, and also with your spouse. Some spouses might not be on board. Mhmm. And you're gonna have to negotiate that one.

Pat Millea [00:54:10]:
Right. Right. The the whole idea of reframing, reclaiming Sundays feels like a complex, messy reality, which makes it kind of like everything else. It is no less messy than just coasting along as if Sunday is another Tuesday in our lives, you know. We're gonna have messiness, we're gonna have difficulty, we're gonna have hardship either way. I would personally I've found that I would rather have the complexity and the messiness of negotiating things with people I love than feeling like I am just a passenger in my own life and along for the ride. You know?

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:54:47]:
And one of the things you learn from all that is as you go through that messiness and then you reflect back on I mean, my my wife and I have been married for 36 years. The kids are older. I mean, those patterns, even in the messiness, the messiness kinda dissipates a little bit, and the patterns remain. Mhmm. And the kids will often remember. And, you know, and they're still trying to live it in the you know, I I tease my one daughter, you gotta get rid of that screen. Get rid of that screen. She's a little addicted to that screen.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:55:19]:
You know? But she is trying to live that pattern now with her kids, and it's been beautiful to watch that. And they're dealing with the mess as well. Mhmm. But, reflecting upon it, you start to see something deeper. Whereas you're in it, all you see is a mess. Right. Is this really is this really worth it? Yes. It's worth it.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:55:43]:
It will be worth it. Stick with it.

Pat Millea [00:55:45]:
Mhmm. Beautiful gift. Beautiful gift. Well, we'd like to end all of our episodes with what we call a challenge by choice of giving people something actionable, something practical to take. And what I might submit for a challenge by choice for this episode is just to to incorporate maybe one change into Sundays to start moving in the direction that you're describing.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:56:08]:
Yeah. No. That's great. And, and it's also kinda reclaiming for me. You know? I've, coming up to last Sunday was not lived well because I was traveling.

Pat Millea [00:56:16]:
Sure.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:56:17]:
And, I'm looking forward to moving to the next Sunday. And, and yeah. Exactly. It could be, just waking up a little bit earlier. So, you know, for example, we're we think we have the right to sleep late. Right. And, you know, sleep is good. And sometimes sleeping a little bit late.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:56:33]:
But, you know, get up for the Lord Mhmm. And and rest with him. Mhmm. Sit with that cup of coffee. Light the candle, and just sit with them. Mhmm. And be surprised and see what happens.

Pat Millea [00:56:45]:
Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, thank you again, Dr. Naughton, for being with us. Why don't we close in prayer and we can send you off good listener to living out your upcoming Lord's Day better than ever and living out the following week as a grace from that. We thank you. Pray. Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:57:03]:
Amen.

Pat Millea [00:57:04]:
Heavenly Father, we gather in your name as always, and we invite you into this moment, into this sacred time that you've set aside for us. And we invite you more and more in your will to, to listen to your voice, to receive your love, and to return to your vision, to your will for the Lord's day, for your day, that in all of our days that are blessed and anointed by you, that there is this one day in particular that we are called to return to you and to be reminded of who we are and reminded of what we are here for. So I pray for all of us listening here today, Lord, that all of us might have a greater sense of connection to you, a greater desire for you, and a greater motivation to live out your grace on Sunday so that it might overflow into all the responsibilities and duties that you have for us in our lives. Lord, please bless our relationships. Bless our families. Help us to restore the order of love that you've planted in our hearts, and help us to serve you faithfully on Sunday and every other day. We ask all this, Lord, in your name. Amen.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:58:22]:
Amen.

Pat Millea [00:58:22]:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Well, Dr. Naughton, it's been wonderful. Thank you much for joining us. It's been a huge blessing for us.

Dr. Michael Naughton [00:58:31]:
That's been a great gift to be with you. God bless you and all your good work.

Pat Millea [00:58:34]:
Thank you. Thank you. And for all of you good listeners out there, we look forward to hearing about all your great stories of triumph and joy from the upcoming Lord's days and also any stories of hardship and struggle and what's what's challenging about this. You can send us a note on Instagram at this whole life podcast.com. You can, let us know how you feel about this episode or the podcast in general. You can rate and review and subscribe and follow and all those different verbs that are helpful to us as a podcast. And in the meantime, God bless you. Know that we're praying for you.

Pat Millea [00:59:06]:
Have an amazing Lord's day. This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center For Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com. I just yeah. I have, it doesn't keep me up at night because nothing does. But I have a a deep fear of not hitting record on a podcast episode with a very gracious guest and just letting it go away because I don't know that I have the guts to ask him to do it again, you know.