Matt and Dan close out the season by steaming up a conversation on nostalgia.

They start with food (of course) and how something as simple as a bowl of congee or a forgotten jar of Lao Gan Ma can open the floodgates of memory. But nostalgia isn’t just about taste - it’s about longing for a home, a church, a culture that might never have existed the way we remember it.

From there, they stir-fry their way through questions of identity: Why do so many of us romanticize worlds we’ve never actually known - including “golden age” Catholicism filtered through incense and Instagram filters? They also tackle the Catholic nostalgia industrial complex—that sense that the Church was somehow “more real” when everyone spoke Latin and the incense was thicker than hotpot steam. Matt and Dan ask what happens when we crave spiritual authenticity the way our aunties crave imported soy sauce: maybe we start worshiping the memory instead of the mystery.

Drawing inspiration from a fourth-century monastic text, the Asians explore how nostalgia can paralyse the soul. When we misremember the past, we risk rejecting God’s presence in the messy, beautiful now. Because maybe holiness isn’t in chasing the lost imperial banquet – it’s in finding grace in the leftover dumplings we have today.

Evagrius of Pontus: Eight Logismoi

In this episode, Matt and Dan do what good Catholics do: overthink their vocations. But this time, they’re not just being Catholic laymen but being Chinese Catholic laymen (yes, it matters, and yes, we’ll unpack that).

Matt goes off about the Church’s unspoken two-track economy - one clerical and another lay, while Dan wonders aloud if theology has a built-in side-eye for the laity as “the non-ordained”.

Then the two wander into the papal magisterium (because we contain multitudes) and discover not just a grudging nod toward the idea of a theologically trained laity, but an actual theology of the laity. Wild. So why, they ask, do we still act like being lay is a consolation prize and not an actual calling?

Finally, in a rare moment of optimism, they look back at moments in Church history when it was precisely the laity who held things together - the unsung, unpaid, unordained backbone of Catholic life – and they ask what that history might mean for how the laity live out the Church’s mission today. Come for the ecclesiology, stay for the low-key identity crisis.

Resources:

John Paul II: Christafidelis Laici

Lumen Gentium Ch. IV: The Laity

Matt and Dan (yes, the Asians) go full Catholic and talk about Mary, “the tigerest of tiger mums”. The one who said “yes” to God with the kind of fierce loyalty that only an Asian mum could pull off. They dive into how Mary's fiat isn't just a theological yes, it’s the ultimate immigrant mum move: sacrificial, strategic, and quietly revolutionary.

From knockoff Marian statues in Chinatown shrines to Our Lady rocking hanfu, we unpack how Mary becomes a cultural chameleon, enfleshing the Gospel in a thousand tongues and ten thousand images.

They also chop through some of the bad theology out there: no, Mary isn't the fourth person of the Trinity. Yes, she matters deeply in salvation history. And yes, Protestant friends, you can talk about her without spontaneously combusting.

In the end, we find that Mary is the kind of figure who doesn't just belong in Catholic kitsch or incense-soaked altars - she offers Good News to all Christians. With tiger stripes and tenderness, Mary mothers us into mystery.

Resources

Dicastry for Promoting Christian Unity: Mary - Grace and Hope in Christ