I'm personally drawn to that mentality or that philosophy of stoicism because there's something

that's helpful for me as a human being, but also something helpful for me as a Christian.

If you want to sum up stoicism, it might be something like this, indifference. There might be a lot

like acceptance. I'm my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Essentially Presents. So remember

reading a book years ago by a man named Father Romano Gordini. And when in it,

he talks about, and I've talked about it here on this channel, he talks about the gift,

the virtue of acceptance. And stoicism has a lot of that, that acceptance, that recognition

that my circumstances might not be the circumstances I want. My situation might not be the

situation I want. The relationships I have might not be the relationships that I want. I might not even be the person I want to be. In the midst of that, my first movement has to be

acceptance. I have to accept, okay, this is, this might not be the circumstance or situation

or relationship, whatever, that I want it to be, but this is the one it is. This is the circumstance

I'm in. And so if I'm going to do anything with it, I have to first accept the fact that, okay, this is reality.

It's such a realistic view of the world.

It's such a realistic philosophy that just says, okay, I might not like it, but this is how it is.

So this crossover between stoicism and Christianity, where as Christians, we have to, of course, accept reality.

I might not like the ways my heart is broken, but I have to accept that these are the ways my

heart is broken if I'm going to ask the Lord into my heart as it is.

That makes sense?

Another connection point is indifference.

So not the I don't care indifference, not the indifference, not the indifference, but what Christians would call holy

indifference, St. Ignatius of Lovloilo, who founded the Jesuits, he had that great prayer

that's, God, I don't ask for either health or sickness. I don't ask for wealth or poverty. I don't

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