How Christian Anthropology Shapes Catholic Worship (Season 4 Episode 6)

We connect what we believe about the human person made in God’s image to what we do at the altar, from the Bible’s earliest sacrifices to the Eucharist. We push past ritual fights and “do-it-my-way” spirituality to recover worship as a real encounter with Christ that demands love of God and neighbor. 
• Christian anthropology as the foundation for worship and liturgy 
• worship as awe before the Creator and reserved to God alone 
• the human desire for transcendence and the temptation to worship created things 
• sacrifice as the thread from Eden through Cain and Abel to Abraham 
• God’s corrective guidance and progressive “plus one” teaching in salvation history 
• ritualism as ideology and the prophets’ call back to mercy 
• the law as a pedagogue leading to Christ and Christ as fulfillment 
• the Eucharist as participation in Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice 
• joining our lives to the offering and living as a steward through baptismal grace 
• communion as a communal reality that must spill into love of neighbor 
• avoiding legalism on one side and guideline-free worship on the other 
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Transcript

Welcome And Support

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the My Friend the Friar podcast, and thanks for listening. If you like My Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us if you haven't already done so. And if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend the friar, Father Steven Sanchez, Discalced Carmelite Priest. Good morning, Father. Good morning. How much how many cups of coffee have you had?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Um, three at this point. So I think I'm awake now.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

So I'm finishing my second, but I might have a third or I might get a cup of decaf. I don't know. Kind of depends on how jacked up I want to be all the rest of the morning. You got a lot of yard work to do today, so maybe it might help. I had to, man, yesterday after working on it, I was getting um like cramps like my foot and my hands were cramping and stuff like that. I was like, what the heck? So I had to go get some Gatorade and get some electrolytes in me or something. Uh yeah. You're not 19 anymore. I know. Sadly. I don't know. I I think I'm gonna I'm gonna fight against that for as long as I can. Be like 90. No, I'm still 19.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

I can do it. I can do it. Put me in, coach. I can do it. I'm ready, coach.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Okay. Um, goodness, it's been a minute since we've talked. Your computer's working. That's amazing. Good. Yeah, yeah. So you traveled for a little bit, your computer died, had to get fixed.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Get it resurrected and got it back.

Christian Anthropology Meets Worship

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, and it's it's Lent right now, so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Oh, so we're back. We're back, baby. Um, last time we talked, we were talking about Amago Day, right? Yes. Um Christian anthropology. Christian anthropology, the the kind of funny term that we have. Yeah. Yeah. And something that was kind of interesting, and so we wanted to talk about it more, was if there's a connection between our Christian anthropology, it's just funny to say, and how that informs worship. Yeah. And there was definitely some I I to me there was something there worth.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

No, there is, because it is, I mean, considering our whole relationship, our understanding of the human person in terms of divine revelation, and therefore our response to the divine revelation, which is for us then liturgy. It's that's how we respond to divine revelation.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. So we are, I guess, in a in a nutshell from our last uh conversation is we are made in that image and likeness of God, and we are made for relationship with God. Yeah. And so that is the thing that we can kind of hinge this whole conversation on is relationship with God, which for us is worship, right? Yeah. I mean, it's more than it's more than worship, but that's that's the big part, right? That's what we're kind of curious about, is how it affects worship.

SPEAKER_04 3:59

Yeah, and I think for us, um people might have a problem with the word worship, but it's really about the intended relationship that God desires to have or created us for this relationship with Him, right? And so um theologically speaking, we talk about worship, right? So there is this um an aware an awareness of the created being, aware of the creator, and the word that we have for that awe, that wonder is worship. And for us as Catholics, worship is a word that is reserved to that relationship with God. Only God is to be worshipped, nothing else is worthy of that attention or that relationship or that importance.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah, we know from previous conversations prayer is about relationship. Yeah. And not all prayer is worship. Right. Um, but worship is prayer.

Why Humans Seek The Transcendent

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And so one of the things, and we talked about this before too, uh, when we talked about the uh catechism and we talked about relationships. So go and download all of our episodes and listen to them all so you can have a context. So we talked about how in the catechism uh it points out to this natural desire that exists in the human heart to seek uh the transcendent, right? So the the catechism points out how there's this natural impulse, urge, right, in the human heart that seeks that which is transcendent. It could be uh natural awe or wonder that overtakes someone when they're faced with something that is you know tremendous, immense, overwhelming beauty, right? So it'd be like the sun, so then people start worshiping the sun, or the rain, people start worshiping the rain, or the ocean, and people worship the ocean, or you know, nature, and so they have this sort of mountain god or goddess, right? And so all of it points to uh a natural desire of the human heart to transcend itself, and so for us, then going talking about about the this idea of um made in the image and likeness of God in this Christian anthropology, for us, an in in divine revelation in the uh unfolding of salvation history, we are led eventually to consider the primary source, or as Thomist scholastics would talk about the unmoved mover or the first cause, like so, okay, ocean, wonderful, beautiful, but who created the ocean or mountains? Oh, who created the the mountains? Fire. So okay, where does fire come from? So it's sort of going back to these things are reflections um of something greater, right? And so this is where then we have this understanding of looking for that or searching for that first cause, right, or or the unmoved mover, right? The the originator of all this. And that's what we're looking for, that's what the human heart seeks, right? And so this is then where Christian anthropology comes in. It's the placing that desire, that understanding of our creation for transcendence is revealed to us through the unfolding of this divine revelation where God reveals Himself to us in this progressive state, the progressive way of calling, we would say Israel first, you know, calling Israel, choosing Abram and moving us towards that.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah. And in um I guess what what's revealed to us in the in the Bible, especially through the the Old Testament, the way God is like over time, he is um kind of scaffolding, right? He's building on how he's calling his people back to him. Um what seems to be kind of at the heart of worship is sacrifice. And so I guess tell me a little bit about that, because sacrifice is it's not just well, I guess it's about giving back, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:50

It's about um finding some way to express this desire for relationship, this acknowledgement of this um greater being, this ultimate cause, right? It is an acknowledgement of that and our our createdness, our finitude in relationship to the infinite. And that's where some of this starts to happen, right, in terms of how worship develops, right? In terms of responding to what we perceive to be this uh uh revelation of this divinity that starts to enter into our world, into our consciousness, into our awareness as the deity reveals himself to us, right? And so this is part of then um how this worship begins to develop, right? This is how liturgy forms is this sacred action that is um a way of acknowledging that the greatness of that supreme first cause, right? The originator of all yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

So yeah, so maybe take it take us through it a little bit because in I mean, when we were created in the garden, there was no sacrifice, right? Um there it was kind of existence itself was almost prayer, right? Because we just we walked with God, God walked with us, um and then that fractures, and so then I guess very quickly it turns into um I can only remember like Cain and Abel are the ones who are who are offering sacrifice back to God. I don't remember Adam and Eve necessarily didn't know. It was a long time ago.

Sacrifice After Eden And The Fall

SPEAKER_04 10:52

It was a long time ago. Uh yeah. So again, so in sacred history, as we look at the Bible and the way the sacred authors, again, this is God revealing himself to us, and so the authors only have their own history and their own way of understanding of reality to try to teach us or or reveal this truth that has been revealed to them. And so, okay, so in the Old Testament, uh, as we look at Genesis, right? Our our liturgy, the response to God, our liturgy was at first, as you said, walking with God in Eden, right? In the Garden of Eden. Within Eden, there is this garden, and this is where God placed us. And so the liturgy was this friendly uh coexistence. There's this harmony, right? So there's this harmony, and then after the fall, then we have this because of the disobedience, and Adam and Eve had bracketed God, and they believed themselves to be owners of the guard instead of stewards, they're they're cast out, and so we have all the da-da-da-da. We know all that, and then as they start to live out uh in toil, right? Uh no longer in harmony, but in toil with creation, in toil with each other, in toil with God, so all of this, and then we have uh Cain and Abel, and their liturgy, their way of responding to God was through sacrifice, right? So we have then the sacrifice of Cain and the sacrifice of Abel, Abel that gave the best that he had, and Cain, we're not sure exactly what he gave, but obviously it was not acceptable. And so we have this this whole idea of them trying to express that awareness and that thankfulness uh to God, their creator. So, okay, after this, uh and we have the first you know, fractured side, we have Cain murdering Abel, and so all this, we have all this brokenness manifesting itself in all relationships. So then across um this unfolding of our salvation history, then we have the story of uh the Tower of Babel, and then after the Tower of Babel, then we have the story of God, God initiating this relationship. Uh the story of the Tower of Babel is that it was man trying to conquer heaven, trying to conquer God, and God sort of rejects and renounces that prideful uh arrogance, that spiritual arrogance. And then immediately after the Tower of Babel story, we have the biblical story of God calling Abram. So it is God who then is initiating his revelation to us. So then now we have the story of Abram and the commitment that God makes to Abram, and then um it's that follows um many, many re-it reiterations of that promise, of that relationship that God wants to establish and maintain with Abram and his descendants or the people that he has chosen, right? So this is all very part of this, how this sacrifice liturgy begins to come together, the idea of sacrifice and liturgy coming together to be uh essential to each other, right? Uh yeah. And the first sacrifice that we have is with Abram, with the splitting of the animals, if you remember, the splitting of the animals, and then Abram falls into a deep religious trance, and in the darkness he sees this smoking fire pot uh moving around the sacrifice that he had set. So that's part of that whole religious commitment of God to us and us to God. So this is where all of this then starts to develop in terms of our liturgical understanding of worship and sacrifice coming uh together in that.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah, something that seems like like a th a thread, and I don't know if you can maybe help me kind of elucidate it a little bit more, but when it goes from Cain and Abel, Babel, Abraham, uh, because there's the whole thing with Ishmael, and then um, and I always forget um his servant's name, but uh who he had Ishmael with. But anyway, there's there's that, and then the way that even goes into um the Israelites um and and Leviticus and all that, it seems like every time the the common thread is when we try to say this is how we're going to worship or achieve um you know the godliness, God's like, no, that's that's not right. It's I want you to do it like this instead, right? So there seems to be a corrective, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah. So like when we're trying to do it, we're doing it wrong, but instead we are to receive what he is asking of us instead. Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

So it's sort of um acknowledging one, uh we would say the divine initiative, it is God who saves, God who redeems. We don't redeem or shave ourselves, so it is God. We have this whole divine initiative of him choosing, right? And him calling, and him revealing, and him teaching. And as you mentioned earlier, that there is sort of this progressive revelation and teaching of the people of what it means to be in relationship. Um going back to Cain and Abel, where Abel gives the best and sacrifices it to God. And we're not told that Cain gave his best, so that must mean that it was sort of like um, eh, you know. So, yeah, let me get rid of this. Uh the this this corn here is all moldy anyway, so I'll sacrifice that moldy corn and call it a day. So obviously, there's something there that the sacred authors want us to reflect on and learn from. But in terms of, again, this whole idea of worship and sacrifice in our understanding, and again, and this is part of the human nature, uh, going back to the fall, uh, that we believe we know what God wants instead of allowing God to reveal what it is that He desires, right? And so for a while there it gets to the point where it's all about the sacrifice, it's all about the ceremony, it's all about the ritual, right? So it becomes a ritualism. The ritual and the throne ceremony itself becomes an ideology instead of a sign and a symbol. And this is where we have the prophets. The prophets come and they teach, like, no, no, no, no, it's not. If I wanted, if I wanted, you know, the fat of bulls and stuff, you know, am I not the owner of all these things? I want I want mercy, is what I want, right? Learning what it is that all of this is supposed to point to.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

So yeah, there's this in in teaching, there's a and I I think I want to say I probably heard Father Mike talking about it once where it's stuck in my head. But is this true, like uh from being a teacher once upon a time, is is you can't the the concept is plus one, right? So uh I can't teach you calculus right off the bat. I gotta teach you how to count first, right? And from counting, you have to go to addition and subtraction, then you can do multiplication division, right? And so you can always kind of scaffold. And so it seems like that's kind of what God is doing, and and it's the I this is part of why I like the Bible because um it's just this story of how we screw things up so much. Um God's commitment. There's so much to learn in it, right? Yeah, so it's like God goes in in Leviticus, he's like, let me spell it out for you, right? And then, you know, we mess that up too, and then you know, we get the prophets and all that, and and there's always something that echoes forward through time too. Um, like right now, there's so many people um in the church that are caught up about the way the liturgy is is said or celebrated. Um, and it's you know, this one's better and this one's better, and and stuff like that. And there's something there that, like, again, that echoes back to this where you're missing the point if you're so focused on how you know good the singer is, or if the organ or or whatever is in tune, you're kind of missing the point. Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Right, and it becomes it becomes again, it becomes an ism, it becomes an ideology. Obviously, there are guidelines for liturgy, right? This there's a guideline for liturgy, and that that should be followed and all that. But I think it's important that we remind ourselves liturgy is an expression, it's not what gets me, um at times, I don't want to say I'm offended, but yeah, kind of, you know, um, is that it's it becomes an ideology, it's an ism. It's about it is about, it is about the it's sort of like a recipe, and that's what bothers me a lot. This is a recipe. You have to do it this way. There's two teaspoons of this, and there's one half teaspoon of that, and it has the oven has to be preheated and has to be at 346, right? And you're like, this is not a recipe, it is a ritual, and most people don't understand what ritual and right means in terms of the symbol and the whole development of liturgy and the expression of that. What does it express? What is it supposed to be expressing, right? Um, yes, liturgy should be reverential, yes, liturgy should be done well, but again, you know, uh some people get caught up in in um these little things, and either, you know, there's they're either um they become obsessed with these little things, right? And so it becomes a point of contention about um what makes liturgy. And most people don't really understand what liturgy is about, whether it's the root of that uh expression, right? Yeah, liturgical expression.

The Law Leads Us To Christ

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah. And I I think I I've heard that the pre Vatican II, the the the liturgy, I guess. um was very performative almost and because people um did not participate the same way we do now that it was like it was very much like again performative like the priest had to kind of carry it and so you I I think I've heard stories where um I don't know there was just like so much pressure on the the the celebrants to to really like draw the the congregation in emotionally or whatever and it's just like that again you're missing the everyone's missing the point if they're just sitting in the pews praying the rosary while the priest is doing his thing or right or today today in some Catholic churches but not a whole lot mostly in Protestant churches it's about entertainment now it's all about it is very performative it's about it's about the music it's about the light show it's about the coffee bar it's about you know whatever right yeah yeah and this is a good again a good echo back to every time in sacred scripture when we try to say this is how we're going to do it God eventually corrects us. Yeah so um Saint Irenaeus he was he uh I've got a quote from him says the law was our pedagogue leading us to Christ right so again all this scaffolding was to bring us to Jesus so a pedagogue back then again okay a little history history lesson a little history let's do it uh so uh going back to the early church remember we talked about this before juridically it was Roman uh it was a Roman the Roman Empire had imposed itself upon the world but before the Roman Empire had imposed itself upon the world it was a Greek world thank you uh Alexander the Great and there was a lot of Greek culture and so at the time of St.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Irenaeus there was still the understanding of the pedagogue the pedagogue was the slave um the slave that was in charge of teaching the children and so either the pedagogue himself was a teacher or the pedagogue would be um sort of like the I guess we would say like a nanny today uh that would take care of the children and take them to school lead them to school take them to classes or uh their teachers right and so the pedagogue then was this guardian this educative guardian of the minor so you were a minor and so you had your pedagogue so here Saint Irenae is saying the law meaning the Old Testament law the mosaic law the law was our guide our teacher leading us to Christ right so that Christ then is the the teacher the master he is the law for us as as Catholic Christians we understand Jesus to be true God true man.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

So then we as believers in Christ we see Christ as the fulfillment of all the promises uh to the patriarchs of the Old Testament we believe Christ to be the fulfillment of all the figures and and symbols uh prefigurements in the Old Testament in terms of priesthood sacrifice uh temple covenant all that we believe that the Old Testament was a preparation for and a revelation of what we call the New Testament which is in actuality the person of Jesus Christ true God and true man so we refer to the New Testament usually we mean as Catholics we're just talking casually we usually mean uh the writings right everything that is written in terms of the um the gospels and uh the epistles and the New Testament writings but the New Testament the new witness the new covenant is actually Jesus Christ himself that's who he is yeah well and it's interesting is I mean Jesus he spells he spells it out there's a lot of times where he talks in parables but when it really gets down to it he literally spells it out sometimes um where of the blood is the blood of the new covenant like I am the covenant so all the New Testament writings are the writings which point to the new covenant of Jesus Christ and he himself says paraphrasing um like not even the smallest letter of the law will pass away you know what I mean like I am the fulfillment of all of these things. Yes yes not not throw them away and here's new stuff no no no no I am those things all this the all that other stuff was in preparation for this right so it'd be like it'd be okay so it'd be like okay so you go to your you go you show up to your first university class uh and then you show up with your uh big chief tablet and your huge jumbo pencil right and you go like uh yeah you're not prepared for this you're not ready for this right and so it's sort of insisting on that well no this is the way it's supposed to be I've always written on this big chief tablet and I've always written with this jumbo pencil like well yeah but those were learning tools and now you have to put that aside right and Paul says like when I was a child I spack like a child right like now you need to grow up and so what is what is the grown up thing what is the grown up um liturgy what is the grown up worship right this is what's most important but a lot of people miss it because or miss the heart of it because they get caught up in the the dressing right or or or the external signs and symbols right yeah so maybe so since since we're talking about how our Christian anthropology informs worship right and Jesus is the sacrifice right what is that how does that inform us like the sacrifice uh that you know he he when he was here he died resurrection and the eucharist it's all one sacrifice so what does that teach us or tell us about our anthropology and how we are to worship okay so um it's all one right so in the establishment of the eucharist as we would celebrate it as uh holy Thursday right the the establish the last we call it the last supper the establishment of the Eucharist and the joining of that sacrifice which already was a symbol a sign a prefigurement uh of the spotless lamb uh of the blood right going back to the um redemption of Israel from Egyptian slavery where the blood is sprinkled on the doorposts and the angel of death uh does not visit their camps it's all tied together and so Jesus Christ who is this perfect sacrifice who is the spotless lamb um whose blood is shed uh for all for the redemption of all of us that he is the fulfillment of all that was expected and promised uh in what we call the old testament okay so now Jesus Christ going back to to Christian anthropology uh jesus christ being true god and true man that is wholly god divine and wholly and completely man this uh his incarnation his coming into the world completely changes all of the universe there is a shift in being for all of creation because God has entered into the material world right has taken on materiality and so there's a huge ontological shift there right and we don't spend enough time thinking about that but anyway so that's for another episode uh and so let's write that one down and not take take a note and since God is extra temporal extra spatial that is outside of space outside of time so Christ being true God and true man his sacrifice and again our celebration of the Eucharist is the same our eucharist is connected to the sacrifice of Christ true God and true man who because he is true God his sacrifice exists outside of space and time and therefore our Eucharist is not a it is not a re-sacrifice it is connected to the same sacrifice of Christ that once for all sacrifice that Christ made for redemption it's a participation in the same sacrifice.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

Yes yes it's not a repetition it it is a connection to that same uh sacrifice and so again Christian anthropology eucharist worship sacrifice it all comes together in this one place and this is this is where a lot of time uh and energy has to be spent in understanding how this all comes together in this one unique Christian event of his uh sacrifice yeah uh going to John the evangelist um in his sign and his symbol of the lamb that was slain who sits on or stands on the throne right and and and lives forever and he is the judge he he's trying to put together he's trying to bring together in one image one symbol this is who Jesus is he is the lamb who was slain and who lives forever. So and this is what the whole liturgy is about this worship is about not just about worshiping Christ but also in the understanding that in the Eucharist I am called to join myself to that sacrifice. When we celebrate the Eucharist and we consecrate the bread and the wine I am asked to give my life or join my life my existence my ontology to that bread and that wine to be consecrated and lifted up and offered to God.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

That is what the Eucharist supposed to be okay so I was yeah I was just thinking because um I had a quote written down here from Saint Augustine says God is more intimate to me than I am to myself and that kind of made me think of I can't remember the exact quote but like Saint Teresa of Avula is something about like it's like friendship with God right and so this this closeness this relation this uh communion and it in that word I I wonder if there's you know a reason we use that word but it's it I was wondering if the whole point with Jesus being fully man is that my I should be a living sacrifice I guess like giving myself entirely back to God the best of me not just what I feel like and not just when I feel like but all of me should be given back.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Right and part of it is this understanding that I have been blessed with this life and that as we are called to be the regeneration of humanity and again for us as Catholics we believe that there is an ontological change in our being through the grace of baptism that I truly do become God's child I do participate in some sense in that divinity through adoption through participation in Christ's singular sonship. But because of my participation in that singular sonship I am called to live as a new creature as a new being and part of that is learning to live my life as a steward being in space and time a continued testament and witness to that new creation that God is calling us to be of course it is a um prefigurement or a the church says um uh the the already but not yet kind of tension is that when Christ comes in glory everything will be made new everything everything will be as God had originally designed and desired but until that time the church the believing church in space and time is called to be a prophetic witness to that and how do you do that?

Communion Means Loving The Neighbor

SPEAKER_00 35:39

By trying to live as best as we possibly can those values of the gospel those Christian values that have been um written down for us passed on to us and exemplified for us in not just in Christ but in the lives of our saints yeah and I I think all that it makes me wonder sorry boogie showed up and said meow and then she's gone um love our pets uh I don't know if you can hear her in the background still meowing um but anyway it makes me kind of wonder too about again back to that communion right we're called to be Christlike where he's he's the epitome of what it means to be fully human fully man yeah so we so that's what we're aspiring to in this this time and then because we're made in God's image and God is also perfect relationship then this the worship and the relationship I feel like it can't just be with God. Like I feel like there's got to be some kind of communal part to it right with so it's like I can't I can't do this perfectly if I or I'll use you as an example you can't do it perfectly if you stay in your room and celebrate mass by yourself and you never go out um and somehow in this like because I know there's there's hermits that do they're they but that's not what I'm calling that but yeah but they're not only just sitting in there thinking about themselves and God they're also their their sacrifice is is in imitation of Christ's sacrifice for the other right yeah yeah yeah so it's it's so that it seems like there's a communal aspect here.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

No there there there has to be for us uh going back to the um Christian anthropology then and community and communion it's not me and Jesus it never can be about me and Jesus it's about Jesus calling me calls us as a people that's something that that the church has said and continues to say is that we're called as a community and as a community as a church as a people we are called to witness to this new life that Christ has won for us and so going back to Augustine's statement that God is more intimate to me than I am to myself is that God knows and sees me as he desires me to be it's up to me to grow into that true um fulfillment of myself right he calls me to be steward he calls me to to live as his son to live as another Christ in the world and that's it makes me more human more humane because it connects me to others because if I am a disciple of Jesus Christ then just as he was other centered then that means I have to be other centered I have to be concerned for the neighbor for the marginalized for the leper for the widow for the orphan all that Old Testament spirituality which was always about compassion and incarnated compassion.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Yeah I was I was just thinking um the New Testament writings as a as a collection make it pretty clear that the thing we're judged on is love.

SPEAKER_04 39:33

Yes so and that and it doesn't just mean love of God no no no no no no and when Jesus says um love of god and love of neighbor everything else is commentary I mean he goes like that's essentially it's about love of God and love of neighbor and so how do you see that how do you understand that how do you live that how does that make sense in your life how do you incarnate that profession that idea and by profession I mean professing this is what you say yeah so uh how do you do that and that's the challenge that is the challenge that we're always finding ways to squirm or to rationalize our non-compliance um but it's always gonna be that challenge I mean we can we can make all the excuses and we can spin things any way you want to but eventually you're gonna have to stand before the throne of truth itself and yeah that's not gonna fly you know you you need to he sees all and and knows all and like there is no appeal to to that final judgment.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

So yeah so I guess kind of like a a closing I don't know series of thoughts here um there I think there there's a lot that we have kind of identified through this kind of rule of or kind of plus one approach that where God continued to call us through uh or back to him uh through various forms of of worship and rules which were um you know fulfilled ultimately through Jesus and we are called to continue this now um and it's about love it's about relationship it's about sacrifice it's about worship but we can't just make it up on our own right so as as Catholic Christians we believe that what was necessary to do this right was given to the apostles and and we're stewards of what was given to the apostles um so there's there yeah there's traps there like the you're saying falling into the ismness of um of that right I have to do it exactly like this kind of thing. But then we have our uh kind of Protestant brothers and sisters our non-Catholic Christian uh brothers and sisters who maybe view worship in a way that's separate from how the apostles handed it on so can you maybe recapitulate like what are the two things that we need to be mindful of if depending on what kind of camp we fall into?

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Well I think the fundamental gospel right going back to the gospel message back to who Jesus is as gospel as this um evangelion the the good news of the community that we're called to be in the world that we are capable of living a godly life as we see in Jesus Christ. We are capable of living a life of compassion mercy and compunction as we see in the life and example of Jesus Christ but especially that we are called to be a community of believers that it is about us as a community and supporting each other in that evangelical work of giving witness to this grace to this newness uh that I am called to be fully human humane in the person uh of Jesus Christ in my relationship with him as my redeemer as my savior as my healer as my God and understanding that in this relationship with him this relationship with him if it is a genuine relationship with him by its truth by its genuineness uh demands that I open my heart to the neighbor that I open my heart to the marginalized to those that are outside uh of our consideration That fall outside of our radar of uh acknowledgement or or uh awareness, right? Um, so part of bringing this together then is uh for us as as Catholics, it is a sacrament, it is an encounter with Christ. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we're celebrating it's not just a ritual, it's not a ceremony, it is an actual encounter with Christ, not just in the blood, soul, and divinity under the appearance of blow of bride and wine, but also in our relationship to each other as we come together to worship together as a people. Unfortunately, in the United States, there there's a lot of individualism, and we tend to see each other as individual units that come together instead of seeing ourselves as Paul tries to get across to us as one body functioning together. Okay, sorry for the rant. Uh got a little yeah, got a little convicted there, a little heated and convicted there, okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

So that's it's it's it's all good, as I say. Um Yeah, and I think for the for our maybe for our our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters I would I I wonder if maybe too much emphasis at times is put. I I feel like they don't fall into the ism trap, like the ritualism trap so much. But I feel like maybe there's times where they're kind of it because I mean you say Protestant and that's like a hundred million different variations, right? Um so it's you you have some like high church where there's plenty of ritual and and things like that, and then you have some low church where maybe there's an element of sacrifice that is missing. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's it's it's an interesting thing. I and I think that's the that's the kind of takeaway is everyone should probably try to reflect. Am I trying to do this my way or the way that was given?

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Right. Right. And remember that we had that that interview with that non-denominational uh what was her name?

SPEAKER_04 46:33

Uh she was ordained, remember?

SPEAKER_00 46:35

She oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um it's it's uh my my buddy Brian's wife, right? Um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:43

So sort of like there is that Courtney. Yeah, Courtney case.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

So there is that sort of like there are no guidelines. Uh there is no, there is no tradition. There is no, you know, like, okay, so okay, that's interesting. So then what, you know, what is and I'm not saying that it's not uh a faith community. Obviously, there is a faith there. It's a matter of what is it that you're proclaiming? What is it that you are professing to believe in and what holds you together as a community, then right? Yeah. And for us as Catholics, oh there are there are some Catholics that are um what I call neo-Nazis, that are, you know, are we looking out there looking for anything and anyone to condemn? I'm like, oh, that's not that's not that's not yeah, that's not who Jesus was, but okay. Yeah, there are rules and there are laws and there are things that should be followed. And there are, yes, there are sins that that can separate us from God, but sometimes that they're they're much more emphasized in the they're caught up in the ideology of the ism, of it's ritualism or ceremonialism or whatever, right? Uh and again, the challenge for them is okay, um Jesus Christ in the gospel, does how does that, how does this, how does my stance or my understanding um coalesce with what Jesus does or what Jesus lives, or how this has been handed on to us by the apostolic tradition as to who Jesus was and is for us. Yeah, yeah.

Final Thoughts And Reading The Fathers

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Definitely, definitely a lot of thing about that. That's an old episode throwback. Um which was Women in the Church with Courtney Clark. Um I think that's season two. I can't remember. It's either season one, like well into season one or somewhere in early in season two. It's funny. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, thanks. Thanks for this. I I again I think there's something here, and I think uh the more we I think these kinds of things are are being rediscovered a lot um kind of recently as we coin phrases like Christian anthropology, where once upon a time it was just part of the understanding of the universe. Right.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

This is the way things were. So yeah, read the church fathers. Yeah, that's what I say. Read church fathers.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

All right. Well, Father, I'm gonna let you go. I know you got a busy day. Thank you. God bless. I love you. Pray for us. Yes. Uh, we'll talk to you later. Everyone, thanks for joining. Bye.