Episode 148: Rev. Andrew Hofer on Patristic Preaching

Andrew Hofer’s new study The Power of Patristic Preaching (Catholic University Press, 2023) surveys several key early Christian theologians and preachers. We talk through Origen, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great, three figures we haven’t discussed much on this podcast. 

Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider subscribing to our Patreon, which helps make this possible: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT

Timestamps:

2:10- Deification

16:00- Origen’s Influence

22:22- Almsgiving

29:35- Leo the Great and Gregory the Great

Episode Transcript:

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello, and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. This week I'll be talking with Andrew Hofer, who has written the power of patristic preaching with Catholic University Press. And this book basically goes through lots of different patristic peak preachers, including Augustine, Origen, Gregory Nazianzen. There lots of different figures in the work John Chrysostom. And I decided to talk with Dr. Hofer about some of the people that we have spent less time in this podcast so we won't discuss Augustine very much as many of you know, I talk about Augustine quite a bit. So we talk a lot about origin and a little about from the Syrian, but talk about some other preachers from the ancient world that we've spent less time on. And so I appreciate Catholic University Press with supplying me a copy of that book. Also, please do check out our Patreon. That's patreon.com/A H O CT. We will be releasing some stuff there some other teaching that I've done some conversation with Tom and Trevor, and other things. So please do support us on Patreon. So, we also will have regular guests on the podcast. I'll be interviewing Jacob right on why the Bible began as well as time and row who wrote a book called A wrote a book on Agustin with Catholic you. And so we'll be discussing that as well. But without further ado, here's my conversation with Andrew Hofer. And thank you for listening. All right, so this morning on a history of Christian theology, I have father Andrew father, Andrew Hofer, and Father Hofer has written or father, Andrew, excuse me, has written the power of patristic, preaching the Word in our flesh. And that is with Catholic University Press. And we appreciate them sending me a copy so I can have a look at this. Great work. So thank you for, for coming on. Father, Andrew.

Andrew Hofer 2:10

Thank you very much, Chad. It's an honor to be with you.

Charles Kim 2:14

And so as the title implies, this book is a study of several patristic authors. And they're kind of in father Hofer goes through and talks a little bit about some one specific kind of virtue or idea that each one of these theologians sort of brings to the table in their preaching. But you also try to frame it around these ideas of incarnation, deification and proclamation. So maybe you could just give us a quick kind of thesis. What is the main main idea that you were main argument that you're trying to get across in this book? Thank

Andrew Hofer 2:58

you. So the title again, is the power of patristic preaching, and the subtitle is the word in our flesh. And what I want to get across is that these holy preachers from the early church experienced the mystery of the Trinity of God. And the Father sent his own son who is the eternal Word, and that Word was made flesh. And Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary is our Savior, He suffered, died and rose for us. He is unique. And in his uniqueness, he calls us to be in him, and by His Holy Spirit, we are to be in Him and He in us, and so that these holy preachers of the early church show for something in the mystery of the Trinity for our salvation. And I thought be handy to have these three words of incarnation, deification and proclamation to to have a sort of a stream that runs through the whole book.

Charles Kim 3:59

Yeah, yeah. And that's such an important emphasis I you know, it's interesting, we often think about the Word made flesh or the word become flesh, but you have the word in our flesh. So you really hammering home this, our union, right, our mystical connection to God, which, which I thought was a very important emphasis that maybe I hadn't, you know, took me a minute and our flesh, okay, what why is he trying to say our flesh, but I really enjoyed that that element of, of your argument. Thank

Andrew Hofer 4:31

you. St. Augustine makes the distinction, that there is the one word made flesh, and that the prophets and the holy ones have the word in their flesh. And this isn't unique to Augustine, many Fathers of the Church would differentiate Jesus from the saints, by that principle that the word comes to us, but only that one who is Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh and then for For us to see, oh, okay, that we're to have God within us we are to be his temple. And it's precisely in that mystical union that we are to be Christ's own body here upon the earth.

Charles Kim 5:13

And so you try to bring forth that main idea through incarnation, which is probably a more fairly familiar term to a lot of my listeners, but that is Christ coming to us. But maybe you could speak a little bit about deification. I you know, I have talked about that a little on the podcast that we did have father McCone on quite a ways back, talking a little bit about deification and Agustin but that's not often understood or recognize the deification is an idea that's in the Latin West, as well as kind of the Greek east. So maybe, could you give us a little bit of background and I think actually, we were on a panel at naps on deification itself, so but yeah, can you give us a little bit about how that kind of works for for you in this in this book, and as well for the the church fathers.

Andrew Hofer 6:04

Great, thank you. So the word deification goes back to a Latin word difficult CO and the ending of it means that it's being made. Okay, so that we are made to be and then you have the day so to be made to be like God, God with a little g, like to be made partakers of the divine nature to go back to second Peter one, verse four. There are all sorts of ways of doing this. In John chapter 10. Jesus cites Psalm 82. So Psalm 8182, I say you are God's. And he says that scripture cannot be set aside. And he makes an a fortiori argument where it says if this if this is true, how much more is it true that he is the Son of God? And and that's where that repeatedly in early Christianity in all sorts of ways. You have kinds of theologies of deification, and these kinds of theologies of deification go through different developments through the centuries. So one volume that I highly recommend is the Oxford Handbook of deification. Paul Gavrilo, Matthew levering and I were the CO editors, and it's now in press. So it will have 44 chapters, the deification in its sources, in principle moments within the history of Christian theology, and then also within systematic connections, and, and you have all sorts of people contributing to it. So Catholic orthodox Protestants, and I think whatever perspective you have, you will be challenged by the volume because you have 44 chapters arguing about deification in particular ways, and you'd be very fascinating, I think for lots of readers.

Charles Kim 8:03

Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Did you say that is impressed? I haven't seen I haven't seen, okay.

Andrew Hofer 8:09

As it's, it's now we've delivered everything over to Oxford University Press. So it'll be a while before it actually comes out. But it is a short that to be published. And it's now with them. So also, so yes, it will happen. And it's just really exciting. My own chapter is on Cyril of Alexandria. Okay, so I did not choose Cyril to be one of the chapters in this book. But I did the essay on Cyril there for the Oxford Handbook of deification. Okay.

Charles Kim 8:41

Well, and that's very, very helpful. There's a you know, it's kind of interesting, that has become a much more widely discussed topic, deification. So I'm sure that'll be quite useful. And there's some good names in there, as you say, some from historical like yourself, and then maybe more systematic. So I'll be looking out for that. Well, and you mentioned, you did not choose Cyril, for your book here on the power of patristic. Preaching. And so how did you go about deciding which fingers you thought were going to be the most helpful for for this volume?

Andrew Hofer 9:18

It was a difficult decision in some ways, that, that I needed to have a book that would have some fathers featured, but I can't, nobody has a complete list of Fathers of the Church. And, and I had done some studies on Origin, particularly his homilies on Leviticus, and St. Ephrem, the Syrian and then I did some other studies on I did a book on Gregory of Nazianzus. Christ in the life and teachings of Gregory of Nazianzus. And then I did studies on Leo the great and Gregory the Great. And I had done a study on John Chrysostom. And, and so anyway, I was just thinking about the studies I had done, and how I love all these early preachers. And then I thought, well, what if I put these together? And then and then am I missing people? Okay, so in my introduction to the book, I apologize that I don't have chapters dedicated to Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. So those two capitation brothers, and I don't have chapters dedicated to Ambrose and Milan and Peter, Chris autologous. So those preachers of Italy, because those four would really be important for patristic preaching and our studies, but you just can't do everything. Right. And so, so I chose the seven I did based upon my own interests, and then also that I thought that they that they came together well.

Charles Kim 10:56

Excellent, excellent. And so you said that many of these that you've done before, and I would well, and just real quick, I would encourage listeners, I think I've had scholars come on to talk about many of these guys. So we're not going to be able to spend time with every single one of these figures is on nearly a 400 page book. So there's quite a bit to cover. But we you know, we've talked with Jeff wicks about Ephrem. The Syrian we've talked with who last name is Miller. And now I just blanked out our first name. She wrote a book on John Chrysostom with IV press. So you know, a lot of Agustin so a lot of these guys that we've we've talked about before. So we're going to kind of narrow in on a few of the other theologians that and patristic sources that, that we haven't really covered as much in the in this podcast. But it was there any. Are there any one of these church fathers that you find to be kind of the best of the best all of them? Do you if you had to pick one? Could you pick one of them as your as the one like if anybody if someone was going to go out to read a sermon? From one of the people in your book, you'd say you got to start you got to do this one first? Well,

Andrew Hofer 12:11

with that part of the question, I would go to what the person is most interested in? So many Westerners are much more interested in Augustine of Hippo than Gregor Nazeem zOS. From my own perspective, I love to pair the two of them. So so that's where I, I have a special love and preference for Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine of Hippo. Okay,

Charles Kim 12:36

and why do you think they pair so well together? Just their time for time in history is roughly similar? Is there something about the like, the way that they work together that you think sort of matches? Well?

Andrew Hofer 12:49

Well, both of them are tops in their respective influences in east and west. So in the West, we are very familiar with Augustine of Hippo, so he has just been extraordinarily influential on the west. If you hadn't name one father in the east of comparable authority, at least in the Byzantine area era, that'd be great Britain as the answer. So Gregory is the theologian, he was the most frequently cited ecclesiastical authority after the Bible throughout Byzantine history, okay. And then how both of them are or tours, okay, so both of them were trained in the rhetorical arts. They were extremely intelligent, with very learned philosophical background and use. They're very engaging. They're also very odd, what we call today, autobiographical, so of all the lessons works, I think the confessions would be the most popular and, and people can identify themselves with Agustin in his own praying to God through the confessions. Well, Gregory Nazianzus wrote lots of poetry. And 99 poems were classified as on himself. And he says in one of his orations, I'm the kind of person who, who relates everything to himself. And he did. So it's interesting that that Gregory of Nazianzus and Agustin who are such great theologians are the ones who talk most about themselves, so that they, they show us something about talking about one's own life, in the presence of God. And then something about the mystery of God Himself.

Charles Kim 14:36

Yeah. Yeah. And whenever I teach confessions, you know, at least once a year, probably to an intro to theology class. And then it's definitely the one of the reasons that I use it is because if you have that personal narrative, there's something about it, that's just easier to connect to. If you if you're, you know, like I said, I usually do it for intro students. So students who maybe don't don't have quite the familiarity with all of these figures and their respective teaching and that sort of thing. There is something about a personal story, that that really makes it a lot easier to connect. Yes. So, before we kind of take a turn through some of these patristic authors, I did want to ask this kind of shifting gears question something a little bit different. So I asked most of my guests, what is one thing that you once thought was true, and now think is false, or vice versa. And I usually open it up for the, for the guest, to say something either that they learned during the research for the book, or it can be something just more broadly about their own kind of spiritual and, and theological journey

Andrew Hofer 15:52

is a difficult question. One thing I think of is origins exegesis. So for lots of people, they've heard something about origin, in his reading of the Bible, and that he is so allegorical, it's arbitrary, it's crazy. And the more I read origin, the more I love him. And the more I see that he knows the Bible better than just about anybody, that he really knows the Bible back and forth. And he makes connections that I think, wow, I'd never make that connection. And then he continues, and it's like, oh, I think it's true. And then how he is completely dependent upon the Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit is removing the veil, and is allowing us then to see something of the word himself present in Sacred Scripture, and that this is saving for us. So I would say that, in my study is one thing where I was influenced by people who would ridicule origin. And then the more I read him more and more and more reading him, I just think, yes, well, he, he actually has something, and it's beautiful. And, and that I developed a very great respect for him. Yeah.

Charles Kim 17:31

Well, and that was the the next question was gonna go right to origin. So you talked a little bit about Gregory Nazianzus. Gregory the Theologian, as the most cited figure in sort of Byzantine or Greek theology. So But oftentimes, you know, there's been a revival of interest in Origen. And sometimes he seems to lurk beneath the surface for for a lot of theologians, and even. And even in his reception in the West, you know, Augustine is a little tepid, and his response to origin doesn't always agree with him. So could you say something just a little bit about how Christians should receive the teachings of this kind of complicated figure? He is, you know, one, one of the guys the only one in here who's not called a saint, but

Andrew Hofer 18:25

does and then for his chapter I feature holiness. Right. So. So, as a Catholic, I am particularly devoted to Thomas Aquinas as a saint, and the Catholic Church calls Thomas Aquinas the common doctor. So if you ask me a theological question, I think, oh, okay, so does the St. Thomas say something about this, and then I'm a Dominican friar. So I belong to the same order. It's called the Order of Preachers within the Catholic churches, Thomas Aquinas. And then if you go back to Thomas's writings in the 13th century, one thing that you'll find is origins presence, Thomas sites origin, by far more than any other scholastic in the 13th century. Origins name appears about 1090 times in Thomas Aquinas, his writings, and that there are various things done by origin that were translated into Latin for Thomas to be able to read, but that we don't have any other evidence for for centuries. So Thomas must have asked somebody to translate or that he had access to origin in some Latin texts that nobody else did. And it wasn't until say, after the Italian Renaissance, classics movement, that then you had more origin present in Latin. So it was refine us and Jerome, around the 400 that preserves so much origin because The Greek tradition actually rejected a lot of origin. And you find different origins as to controversy. So I'd like to go back to Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century and say, Don't ignore origin. And for Thomas origin has some very critical errors, so that there are certain things about the son subordination to the Father, or some things about the universal restoration of all things. Or some things about the body. There are various things about the devil that Thomas rejects, and, and that they need to be identified. But repeatedly, Thomas relies upon origins, exegesis, and that he, that he sees that origin has insight into the Bible, that should not be ignored. So that's where to be to see that origin does have some errors, okay. But he really tried and on his on first principles, he articulates at the beginning the rule of faith about what all Christians need to agree upon. And he says that there are some certain open questions, and he really wants to be faithful to the church. So he's trying hard. And he was persecuted, that we don't know exactly when he died, either 253 or 254. But he had written an excitation of martyrdom, and apparently his persecutors knew that he wanted to be martyred. And so they were told that those that were actually torturing him, we're told, make sure you don't kill him. So, so they didn't kill him. But they basically, very much hurt him. And then he died some time after from those wounds of persecution. So origin is just a remarkable, remarkable figure who was so devoted to God, to God's Holy Word. And I wanted and because of his influence, that because of who he is, and his great influence, I thought he needs to have the first chapter. Yeah,

Charles Kim 22:21

well, and as you say, you know, aside from some of the things that, that Thomas and others have pointed out, there's so much that's good. And even, it's sort of surprising, in a way, the first preacher, preacher, the book that you work through his Leviticus, and, you know, might not be the go to book for most modern Christians, like, oh, what's going to be the most spiritually nourishing book, you know, many of like, Augustine is reading Paul and Romans when he converts, and a lot of us, you know, like to read the New Testament but but you helpfully show how origins causes to holiness in a book like Leviticus even in a book that might be pretty difficult and obscure, but he's able to find some deep and rich truths within that

Andrew Hofer 23:12

this work because origin has this understanding that the Word of God is nourishing, and that you need to pay attention to what your audience is capable of. So that structure of nourishment through milk, vegetables and strong meat, you don't get strong meat to babies. And Leviticus is strong meat. And Leviticus his whole message is holiness. So that's where that the end is the same. And that origin is preaching this to his people. The those sermons are preserved in translation from refine us, so made around your 400 in Latin, and, and I thought that it'd be good for us to begin there. And then the second half of that chapter is devoted to the recently discovered Greek homilies on the Psalms. So in Munich, some years ago, there was a manuscript discovered, where people knew that origin had preached on the songs and we had certain Latin translations. But this showed that we have much more of origins, preachings on the song on the Psalms, and that this was delivered shortly before his death. Okay, so this may very well be the last work by origin. And it's the most exciting patristic discovery of the 21st century.

Charles Kim 24:36

Yeah, and I think those is was at Heini. Who is the chair trig, trig trig, the translation

Andrew Hofer 24:45

of the the critical addition that was led up by Lorenzo Peroni. Uh huh.

Charles Kim 24:51

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's excellent. So to bring those together to bring those out in an analysis is very helpful. Um, well, so I'm gonna fast forward a little bit in time. So origin, as you say, third century, he's, you know, living through persecution, his father was murdered, they, you know, has this really difficult life that he leads. And now I kind of want to jump forward in time to Leo the great, just as again, as I say, we're not gonna be able to cover everyone for this podcast. But maybe tell us a little bit about Leo the great. And one of the surprising things that are that people might find surprising about Patricia preaching is just the centrality of almsgiving. And that is, you know, giving to the poor. When we think about preaching today. I you know, I guess I don't, probably depends on what context you're in. But I don't hear very many sermons about giving to the poor. But that was really important to Leo, but it was and of course, to many others, because we've mentioned basil and Agustin and others also preached about this, but it was very significant for for Leo. That's

Andrew Hofer 26:07

right. And perhaps Leo was best known today with his crystal logical doctrine. So he was Pope in Rome, at the same time as the Council of calcium. So the council calcium in the fourth Ecumenical Council was in Year 451. And Leo was very concerned, especially about defending the Catholic faith in Jesus against utopianism. So he has a two nature Christology so the Jesus Christ is one person, but yeah, that one person has two natures human and divine. And so people who study Leo often go back to his tone to Flavien. So Flavien was the Bishop of Constantinople that Leo wanted to support, because you the keys there in Constantinople was revolting against Flavien. And, and so of all things, perhaps people study his epistle 28 to Flavien, which was read out of the council calcium, but if you go back to Leo's 97, sermons, what and then perhaps the second most influential thing, or a second thing that people study Leo for is the liturgy. So the various liturgical feasts and the sacramental theology there. But within all of that, Leo has a great emphasis on almsgiving. So it is popular among the fathers John Chrysostom, is particularly outstanding in his preaching on almsgiving. But I wanted to show how Leo is this, and Bernard Greene's book on Leo really says that, per sermon, Leo has the most on almsgiving. And Richard fens work on almsgiving, and the late Roman Empire brings this out. And various studies have done this. So I wanted really to focus on this and within the structure of the book, there's a sort of movement of the virtues. So. So after origin, on holiness and Ephrem, on humility, I go to Gregor Nazeem, lenses on purification and faith. So and then John Chrysostom, on the hope of salvation, Augustine of Hippo on love within Leo, the great love of the poor and the weak love of the poor and the weak. And one of my favorite lines from Augustine, from Leo is preaching is, no one should look down upon the nature that the Creator Himself has assumed. And so he wants to say that, that every body, every human being, has this inestimable dignity, because not only because we're made to the image of God, but that the eternal Son of God has taken upon Himself our nature. And so every human being has that nature okay? That we have this bond with the Word of God because the word of God has taken upon Himself our human nature. So Leo then says how we are to shiver with those who are called to, to it that we are to be identified, because God has identified himself with the lowliest with the weakest. And so that is how we can find our salvation to be with the lowly in the weak.

Charles Kim 29:35

Yeah, well, and I liked how you framed the you know, sort of a lot of people will talk about being made in the image of God and sort of talk about dignity with that, but But really, this assuming our weakness as Christ as soon as the word assumed our weakness, that sort of even more kind of exemplifies that the dignity of our nature and for every single one of us, right so for those was the you know, so I think one of the tricky things that you tried to deal with was in the book is how, you know how he encourages ALMS giving, but he he wants to as much as as part of that ALMS giving, is that in a way we're giving to Christ through the poor, but you also want to hold up the dignity even if the poor Yes, that's

Andrew Hofer 30:19

right. Yeah, there's one influential scholar who asks, if, if the poor really are persons for Leo? And she replies No. And so then I, I, I quote her and she sent so much good work on Leo, in other respects, that I want to be restricted respectful to our argument. But I have to say, in my conclusion, as I go through the chapter, is that precisely and seeing Leo, considering Christ's presence in the poor, that that's not dehumanizing to the poor, it doesn't depersonalized them. He's not a social manava site where there's exactly this, where the poor are so much Jesus, that they have no personal identity, that that Leo just he loves to talk about, about important persons in their identification, okay, so, so like he himself will, will consider himself in some way as Peter, the apostle Peter, because he's Bishop of Rome. Or he gives the example of how Mary Magdalene represents the church. Well, the poor, especially give us the person of Christ. And and so then, for us to see that we can we can draw close to Christ by being with his poor.

Charles Kim 31:46

Yeah. Wow. That's, that's very powerful. And I think an important question for, for us and for how, and, you know, you can see how this has a direct application for us today, right, as we think about how do we respect the dignity of the poor, who are still with us, as Christ says in the Gospels? Well, and the last kind of theologian I wanted to ask you to touch on for us, for the podcast is Gregory the Great, so the last one, in this book, you move from kind of the Christ accepting our weakness? Or well, excuse me, I'm sorry, for the almsgiving to talking about how Christ's accepts our weakness in Gregory the Great, so could you? Could you kind of give us a little bit of background about Gregory the Great, as again, he's not one that we've talked about too much on the podcast. And then why is it important that the word comes to our flesh.

Andrew Hofer 32:54

So Gregory, the gray is the first monk to become Pope of Rome. And he, as a deacon in Rome, had been sent to Constantinople. And he was the papal legate in Constantinople, but then came back to his Abbey of St. Andrews there in Rome, and then became Pope in the year 590, after a terrible plague in Rome, a plague that had killed the previous Pope. And Gregory the gray was very conscious of his own weakness, and of just human frailty. So this is a theme that you find throughout his writings, that to be weak, to be human, is to be weak. And so I go from the second to last chapter of Leo the great on loving the poor, love for the poor and the weak to accepting our own weakness. So one of Gregory's most important works is called the Book of Pastor rule, and it's workbooks. And he wrote the soon after becoming Pope in September of 590. And the very last book of the four books is very short, that after the preacher lives and teaches, he should return in prayer and know that he's just a man before the Almighty God, and how, how that no matter how deified the preacher is, that that the preacher is just a man. And in fact, it's because of the Incarnation. Though he was rich, he became poor so that by his poverty, you might become rich. So Second Corinthians, that, that Gregory then had this existential awareness of his own weakness and how God meets us precisely in our weakness. So this is the meaning of the Incarnation. You know, can you accept your own weakness? It's one thing for you to go out and to help the poor and the weak, but then at the end of the day, can you accept that you yourself are very weak that you are very dependent, very dependent upon God. And that you just put everything out to him.

Charles Kim 35:10

Yeah. Well, that and that's, that's very helpful as each one of these theologians are. So I thought we'd end maybe with kind of a, a different question a little bit more kind of almost application or something. But I'm just curious as, as one who's from the Order of Preachers have these have reading and studying these ancient authors? Have they changed your preaching at all?

Andrew Hofer 35:42

That's a great question. So one of the things I tried to emphasize in the book is that the preaching is not just simply a matter of talking, it's a matter of living. So to be a preacher, is to have a life conformed to the word. And that's where it's a great challenge for me to respond to God's graciousness, you know, God is good, and I am not. And so then to see that by being with the fathers, you know, by by asking, you know, by reading them, I hearing their preaching by asking for the intercession, I want to be changed, okay, so I want to be more and more in Christ, I want more and more to receive His grace and have a life transformed. And then to be able to communicate that to others and humility. One thing that I wish preachers would do more of, and sometimes I tried to do it, but I don't do as well as I should, is to ask questions when preaching so rhetorically, what is perhaps the best way to get someone to think, to ask a question? And, and this is where I'm afraid that sometimes we may go to church. And we're really not thinking about what we're praying, what we're reading what we're hearing, and a preacher needs to get people to think. And, and to think in particular ways and to think in ways that are not our ways. You know, God says, My ways are not your waves. And so the preacher is to challenge others to repent, and to believe in the gospel. And, and we can be surprised by how many things that are within our hearts that are really resistant to the truth of the gospel. So this is where, for me to be able to, to converge more and more each day, to receive God's grace, to be more devoted to the sacraments, and then to be able to communicate that from the pulpit, to be able to, to point people to Jesus, His presence, His love.

Charles Kim 38:17

Yeah, well, and that's about as good a place as any to end, right. It's a great challenge from a preacher and from someone who has studied the great preachers of the Church. So I just want to say thank you to Father Andrew, for coming on the podcast, and for providing us with this excellent resource. So the books the power of patristic, preaching the Word in our flesh with Catholic University Press, and, and I'll just reiterate that it is, you know, there's so much richness in the book, way more than we can cover in a short 30 minutes. I hope. This will whet the appetite for the great learning that is within the book. So thank you, Father, Andrew.

Andrew Hofer 39:02

Thank you very much, Chad. You and your listeners have my prayers.

Charles Kim 39:06

Alright. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai