In this episode of The Rhythms of Faith Podcast, Dr. Jay Martin, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, traces his intellectual journey from computer science and graphic design through philosophy to theology. He discusses his work at the intersection of Catholic systematic theology and continental philosophy—particularly Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of subjectivity, which he uses to enrich sacramental theology and explain how the faithful are constituted by and cooperate with sacramental grace. Martin applies these ideas to the contemporary American church, arguing that people are passively accepting imposed identities rather than negotiating their subjectivity, and he explores the intersubjective and recursive nature of repeated practices like confession and the Liturgy of the Hours. He also describes his popular undergraduate course on death—taught without eschatological assumptions—and shares his wide-ranging musical tastes from underground hip-hop to opera, drawing a parallel between hip-hop sampling and his own theological method. The episode closes with reflections on what makes a good liturgy and the playful question of which animal he'd be (an owl, for its omen-of-death energy).