Father Augustine Wetta, O.S.B.—Benedictine monk, teacher, surfer, and former professional juggler—joins the show to talk about Georges Bernanos's classic novel Diary of a Country Priest and the new unabridged translation that restores it to its full power. Along the way he traces his own half-hearted, failure-strewn "yes" to God: riding waves at the beach that inspired Jaws, blessing a Los Angeles street gang at two in the morning, and praying the rosary beside the very protesters he came to disagree with. What We Talk About: How Father Wetta describes his own "yes" to God as a half-hearted, tentative string of failures—and why that puts him in the good company of saints like Moses the Black and John the BaptistWhat surfing and juggling taught him about patience, silence, and learning to laugh at yourself, and how both became unlikely preparation for monastic lifeWhy Diary of a Country Priest reads like the opposite of an action movie, delivering small, quiet bursts of grace instead of explosionsWhat the new unabridged translation restores: the more Catholic passages cut from the English edition readers have had since 1937How the novel speaks to loneliness, distraction, and despair by recovering silence, boredom, and true leisureResources Mentioned: Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos, translated by Michael R. TobinStory of a Soul by St. Thérèse of LisieuxLeisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef PieperPaloma&FigChapters: 00:00: Welcome and Monk Camp Chaos01:28: A Half-Hearted Yes to the Lord03:51: Surfing, Sharks, and the Contemplative Life of Failure09:37: The Flying Fettuccine Brothers and Learning to Laugh at Yourself13:21: Shut Up, Keep Your Head Down, and Listen16:37: Praying the Rosary at a Black Lives Matter Protest22:10: Fourth of July and Blessing a Gang in LA28:13: Diary of a Country Priest: Quiet Bursts of Grace36:10: The Restored Translation and the Passages You've Never Read39:43: Silence, Boredom, and Leisure in a Distracted Age44:19: Failure, the Atheist, and a Faith Deeper Than Argument55:05: Grumbling, Priesthood, and the Joy of the EucharistProduced by Saint Kolbe Studios Send us Fan Mail Support the show Follow Paloma & Fig on Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn. Learn more at www.palomaandfig.com. Join in the conversation by joining our Facebook group, A Resounding Yes!
