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What’s the weekly mettle maker?
Training tips and educational info in support of our free programs, that’s what! What’s mettle? Mettle is, “The ability to meet a challenge or persevere under demanding circumstances; determination or resolve.”
What’s new?
Our program is now called HERITAGE ROUGH ‘N’ TUMBLE. To understand why we’ve made this change, read this post .
Skin in the game is now required. The program is still free if you can’t afford a donation of $1/month — but you have to at least hang out with the crew each week or volunteer to be a social media promoter, blogger, researcher, newsletter editor, fundraiser, mentor, artist, or even come up with your own idea.
Mettle maker #419: Fight Ready
The average self-defense situation last seconds or a few short minutes. You need to be able to put out maximum effort right out of the gate, and capable of sustaining it long enough to get free. If you are doing sport martial arts, or just sparring with your friends, and you need to overcome a power, age, size, or strength differential, the same is true. You need to be prepared to go harder and faster than the other guy if you’re going to come out on top.
Try this simple fight-ready training protocol. Using your watch, adjustable round timer, or a cell phone app (I prefer Tabata Timer). set up 10 rounds of :30/:15 (that’s 30 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest) for a total of 7.5 minutes. Start the timer and work your heavy bag with maximum power — no pacing — maximum power. When those 10 rounds are done, take a short break — just long enough to get out your floor bag — and restart the timer. Put in 10 more rounds wrestling your floor bag.
If it this was easy, shorten the breaks by a second or two next time you train. If you needed more or longer breaks than the 15 second rests allotted, lengthen them by a second or two next time you train. Train twice or three times a week until the breaks or as short as you can get them. If you get to zero breaks, you are a beast, and far more fight ready than yours truly. I’ve done this on and off over the years, but I’ve never quite been able to get there.
Fight Ready — for the truth
Truth is under assault — by A.I., by social media algorithms, advertising-based media, widespread corruption, and the millions of people who’ve been misled by the lies of the devil — and it requires our calm defense. Most importantly, we must be willing to speak the truth to ourselves, to confront the comfortable lies we tell ourselves when we point our fingers at others.
We must speak the truth in a loving way, with patient and caring honesty. Do not miss an opportunity to do this. Here is an exchange I had with one of the many naysayers on our YouTube channel. I hope I wasn’t harsh — that wasn’t my intention. Perhaps it was a bot. Does that matter? Others can see it — the truth must be defended. The truth matters, in and of itself, for its own sake.
Defending the truth takes practice. It takes determination. It isn’t easy. Perhaps studying martial arts could give you the strength, stoicism, and patience to do so. Does a totally free program that incorporates self-defense, fitness, outdoor skills, and spiritual development sound like your cup of tea? Sign up for our free Rough ‘n’ Tumble Distance Learning Program!
Holy Eucharist is LIVE on YouTube every Sunday at 10 am EASTERn. Click HERE to watch live. To view and print a copy of the program for holy Eucharist, CLICK HERE.
Homily for the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, 8/18/24 – Father Mitch
Readings: Prv 9:1-6, Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, Eph 5:15-20, Jn 6:51-58
John 6:51-58 World English Bible
Jesus said to the crowds:
“I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews therefore contended with one another, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves. 54 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will also live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven—not as our fathers ate the manna and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
How are we to understand this incredible teaching? Arguments have been fought over it, people have come to blows over it, schisms are traced back to it. What are its implications? What is the mysterious and seemingly impenetrable meaning of Jesus words: “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever”?
Isn’t it true that Jesus didn’t literally come down from heaven, that he was born of his mother Mary? Isn’t it true that everyone will still die and be buried whether they partake of the eucharistic bread and wine or not? Aren’t Jesus’ words preposterous in the literal sense? Can we blame the Jews for saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
With striking audacity, Jesus answers them by dialing up the absurdity of his claim. He says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” What is he saying? If we don’t immediately practice cannibalism, we’ll drop dead? Jesus knows this is how we think on impulse. Our instinct, at every turn, is to boil everything down to the literal, the material, and the expedient.
Jesus knows we want a yes-or-no answer as to whether he’s speaking literally or metaphorically. But he has no desire to make it easy for us by providing a simple two-plus-two-equals-four answer. He has something far more radical in store for us: a truth that is at once very practical, real, and literal, but also of an entirely higher and irreducible kind. Is his teaching literal or metaphorical?
It is both and neither.
Jesus says that if we physically gather with our brothers and sisters in the eucharistic meal and, commemorating his birth, life and teaching, his death, resurrection, and ascension, the bread and wine will become his literal Body and Blood. This rite will not change the appearance of the eucharistic elements of bread and wine, nor will it change our appearance when we eat of it. Everything will look just the same as it was before. And yet his Body and Blood will change our existence and state of being – it will transform our lives!
When our lives change through Christ, will it show up on a heartbeat monitor or an EEG? No, the most important things in life are not visible to the eye and have nothing to do with the material and the measurable. Like the transformation of the bread and wine, love, duty, friendship, companionship, joy, union, sharing, beauty, awe, and all of that are invisible.
Eternal life is not more life. It’s not more hours, minutes, and seconds. When Jesus says, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” he doesn’t mean we’re going to die young if we don’t. When he says, “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” he isn’t saying that he's going to give us more of the same-old-same-old, day-to-day rat race.
He is offering to transform the entire experience and character of our lives – something that will be very hard to detect at a glance. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Eucharist, opens a gateway to a new and more fulfilling way of living our lives right now. And also, a share in the life to come – a kind of life that is so far beyond anything we have ever experienced that it defies even our imagination.