📵 Put Down the Phone! You Can't "Mail In" Your Faith (Fr. Mark Beard)

Father Mark Beard delivers a fierce and urgent challenge to the faithful, emphasizing that true spiritual life requires physical presence and intentional commitment, not passive consumption or prioritizing distractions. He links our dependence on technology to spiritual disorder and warns about the fallacy of "Once Saved, Always Saved."

The Call to Be Present:
Christ Showed Up in Person (0:12): Father Beard reminds the audience that Christ was incarnational: He was baptized in person, anointed the sick in person, attended the Last Supper in person, and was crucified in person. Therefore, "You and I got to show up in person. You can't mail it in."

The Physical Presence of God (0:33): While God is omnipresent, He is physically present in the Tabernacle (the Eucharist). This reality demands our physical presence and reverence to receive Him and allow Him to be "in us and we are in Him" (0:41).

Spiritual Disorder (1:26): He directly confronts the modern habit of prioritizing distractions: "You spend more time on your phone than you do talking to Him, reading scripture, going to adoration..." He calls this state of misplaced priority "disordered."

The Final Warning:
Once Saved is Untruthful (1:42): Father Beard reiterates his theological challenge, asserting that the doctrine of "Once Saved, Always Saved" is untruthful because salvation requires continuous acts of grace and commitment (works).

Discerning the Act (1:39): He explains that he isn't judging the person, but simply discerning the act—if you prioritize the phone over the Sacraments, you are making a choice that puts your salvation at risk.

Stop mailing it in! Show up in person for Christ and receive the strength you need to live in a chaotic world.