SPEAKER_00 0:14

Yeah, I think that's what that does. Well, if you want to master this thing, we get to train it.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

One upgrade at a time. Yeah, well, not everything's working as we can, but I think the recording should be going.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, it should be going.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

So ten o'clock.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Okay. We have to get rolling. All right. Um, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll have to get our just get the show on the road. So just as a uh scheduling note, so of course next weekend we have Columbus Day on Monday, so we're not going to have class because I don't know. I don't know who goes on vacation or Columbus Day. I know if that's a thing. Oh. Only three of you. All the rest of you can come then. All right. But we're not having class, so the three of you can be, so don't have to worry about missing anything. So so that'll so that that'll give you to so you guys don't be hating on the three people who can't make who can't make it, okay? Don't be doing that. That's wrong, okay? Name of the Father, and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love, send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and now shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. God shall have the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit. Grant us in the same spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in his consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our Lady Seed of Wisdom, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and name of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And if you want to be on campus again, and you have you want to bring your pet, that'll be at noon. You come to the circle and at the bell tower. And just as long as your animal is not threatening to the priests, okay? So I've got mass at 515. I want to live, okay? All right. Also have we also have confirmation practice, and I hope to make my hockey game, so I want to be healthy for that. Okay, so in the uh in the book, there are two sections, one on Call to Be Saints, one on the church. I thought it would be good to focus on, uh give you a little sort of primer for the church. Of course, there'll be a deeper dive, but I think it's it you kind of give you a little bit of a um a little overview of our understanding of the Catholic Church. Okay. So we're going to start with that. So we want to be able to say what is different about the Catholic Church than, let's say, you know, other Christian denominations? So there's lots and lots of Christian churches. What makes the Catholic Church different than the others? Okay. Uh is the church a simply a man-made organization that can be changed if enough people agree. And that's I think that's something that we have to, when we understand the nature of the church, we'll have the answer to this question, of course, then our role in the church. So I want you to, if you if you know your Bible, okay, you want to go to Matthew chapter 16. This is a very important scripture passage with regards to the church that also talks about the papacy. Of course, we'll get more into the papacy at another time, but we're going to focus more on the church than on the role of the Pope here. So when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do the people say that the Son of Man is? They replied, Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter said in reply, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jesus said to him in reply, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So we're going to let's break this, some of this down here. So we see that there's this idea of the word church. So if we have the book of Exodus, we see that in chapter 24, that's when we have Moses is you know bringing the law to the people. And they're going to enter into a covenant bond. We're going to get to that a little bit. And there the people of Israel become the original church, the assembly. So when you read the first five books of the Bible, you're going through, you start getting into especially Exodus through Deuteronomy. You're going to hear this term, the assembly, which in Hebrew is kahal, Greek is ecclesia, or Latin ecclesia, which we call a church. So that's sort of a gathering, right? The people of God. That is the gathering, okay? So Israel is the original church. And then we see that Jesus intends on founding a new church, a new assembly, a new ecclesia, a new cajal. And we see that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. This is a very important passage. Because what we see is the history of Israel, the history of the of the Israelites, we see that it that there was there were invasions, there were exiles. In 722 BC, the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom. We might recall that the Israel split into two into two pieces. So after King Solomon's reign, his son Rehoboam created a division. He was an unjust king. I think he raised taxes. That's the theme, I guess, right? So he was a very unjust king, and then uh a figure called Jeroboam broke Israel off of Judah. There was a big split, right? So that's so when you hear after Solomon, we talk about Israel and Judah, those are now two separate entities. And we we know that, for example, Elijah, right, was always going after you know King Ah, you know, going after the king of Israel, right? He remembered Jezebel and that whole and that whole thing? He was king uh in Samaria over Israel, the northern kingdom, because they had established a separate sanctuary and there was a lot of pagan worship that entered into Israel. So the punishment was that Assyrians invaded, not only did they invade it, but they dispersed the people all throughout the region. There was a dispersion. So all there were not so people there were not many people who remained in the northern kingdom. And then we see later on that in 586 BC, the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar, you know I know that Charlie Brown talked about the dust of Nebuchadnezzar on Pig Pen. You remember that? Anybody? You might remember that? Obscure reference for you, you know, older folks here, right? You know, if you know Charlie Brown. Um 586 BC. So what happened, there were actually two invasions. One actually they that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Israel, exiled uh Jeconiah the king and his sons, brought them to Babylon, and then established Zedekiah as the king. He was a cousin, and then he rebelled, and then Nebuchadnezzar had a definitive invasion, and they not only deposed Zedekiah, they destroyed the temple. Of course, the Ark of the Covenant is lost. We won't know more about that until Raiders of the Lost Ark. Is that right? Okay. Um more references for you, okay, more cinematic references. Um but what happened? The Ark of the Covenant's lost, the temple was, and then all they exiled all the people of Judah and exiled them to Babylon. And that's when we hear about the prophet Daniel, Ezekiel, and so on. So we have this, so this kingdom, of course, was was prevailed against. The kingdom that was established, you know, you know, the Davidic kingship, of course, 1 Samuel chapter 7, right? This is a no, 2 Samuel chapter 7, sorry. And this is a kingdom that was supposed to last forever. What's going on there? Of course, we know there's a prophecy in Isaiah, right? A shoot will sprout from the stump of Jesse. Of course, we know that'll be that'll be Jesus, right? So we see that now there's a promise that this new assembly, this new church, uh, the the new the new this this new establishment, this is not going to happen. This cutting down is not going to happen. The gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church, as opposed to what happened to the northern kingdom and the kingdom of Judah. So we see that Jesus is now the founder of this church. So we're going to skip ahead to the Last Supper. And we're actually we hear this in the consecration every week. He says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you. So just as a um, and just a sidebar note, just remember that what happens at the Last Supper is an anticipation of his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. So by celebrating the Last Supper and instituting the Eucharist, he is already setting into motion the events of Good Friday and, of course, Easter Sunday. Because what we do at Mass is actually that event is made mystically present on the altar. He was making that present in advance. But we see he's going to establish a new covenant in his blood. This also, what we, if you go back to Exodus 24, which I referenced earlier, so we see that what happens at the foot of the mountain is that Moses sets up an altar. He offers a sacrifice, and then with hyssop, he dips the blood of the hiss, he dips the hyssop into the blood of the sacrifice, sprinkles it on the altar, which represents God's promise to the people, and then he sprinkles it on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord was made with you according to all these words. So Moses is establishing the law, right? The Torah, the first five books of the Bible that as we know it, right? There, he's establishing the law, right? That he is coming down from the mountain, the Ten Commandments, right? I don't know if you remember Mel Brooks. I have these 15 crash, Ten Commandments. I mean, I'm just kidding, right? Ten Commandments. Okay. So now they're bound to God, right? They now have a family bond relationship with God. That's what's going on with the people of Israel at the foot of the mountain. They are now bound to God. God is now bound to them. And then we see this reference. I have this reference from John, but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. Now, this has multi-there's multiple things going on here. So, first and foremost, at the Passover on Good Friday, the Passover lambs would have been sacrificed, it was right at the time when Christ died. Now, apparently the way the things worked for the Passover in Judea at the time, of course, the command on the law was you had to wait until sundown, but because you had so many lambs, people packing into Jerusalem, you know, people were buying, getting their lambs to be sacrificed for the Passover in the temple. So what they waited for is as soon as the sun made a made a started curving towards the horizon, they started sacrificing the lambs. And there were so many of them that the there would be the the blood was was washed off the altar. And where did it flow? Well, it flew flows out the right side of the temple. So what that's oh, so when so when a faithful Jewish person is reading this, what is it saying? Well, Jesus is the new temple. Isn't that interesting? Because that's the he's the new Passover sacrifice, right? And which has established a new covenant, which establishes a new church. And so also, as we know, that's the father the church fathers look at the blood and the water in a symbolic way as the water representing the waters of baptism, the blood representing the most holy Eucharist. Okay, so you see some symbolism is going on here. So Jesus in himself, right, is the new temple, right? What is the temple? Temple is supposed to contain the presence of God. The Ark of the Covenant contains the Ten Commandments, it's supposed to be the whole the Holy of Holies, we're where the Ark of the Covenant was. Alright, that was, and remember when the when the when the priest on Yom Kippur would go into the sanctuary, they put a rope on him in case he sees God and dies. And can yank him out, right? So we see that what our Lord is doing is He He's He's endowing the church, right? So first of all, he's established authority. Right? Authority. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Of course, there was there's a passage, I believe, in Isaiah about I should have brought that up. Now that I'm thinking about it, about there's this uh thing about the viceroy of of Israel had the keys of the kingdom. Right? Like the prime minister. So the Pope is like the prime minister to the king, Jesus is the king, Peter is going to be the prime minister. Okay, now there's no parliament, thank God, right? All right. Uh, you know, I've seen Parliament. It's a bit rude, okay? So anyway, whatever you buy on the and so now there's power to bind and loose, there's power to make determinations. What is true, what is not. So it's a rabbinical type of thing to bind and loose. So that's a that's authority, right? That's power that's vested in the role. So that so the church has authority through, because it establishes it through Peter, right? Of course, in the College of the Apostles. He also endows the church with the gift of the Holy Spirit. So in John, he says, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows it, but you know it because it remains with you and will be in you. So he's prophesying Pentecost. He's promising that the Holy Spirit will be in the church. So, of course, remember the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity. It is the love that is shared, the divine love shared between the Father and the Son. So the church is going to have a divine quality, right? There will be some quality that in which the Holy Spirit exists within the church, right? So that's going to be important. So remember when we had the question about whether this is a man-made sort of organization only? We could say, okay, that there's there's something, this is evidence that it's not. Because one of the things we tend to look at, uh, especially when we have to elect a new pope, you know, sometimes you you see um you know the popular media, they're commentating on you know this candidate and that candidate. Will the church change its teaching on this, that, or the other thing? And you always have to hang your head like, oh, you know, don't you guys get it? Right? It's it's this is not this is not uh any other political organization. This isn't like a you know like a Congress or Parliament or any kind of governmental organization. We just don't have the power to do that, right? That's a whole other that's a whole other thing. When we see that the church will come alive at Pentecost, we see what happens. So we see that, okay, when the time of Pentec for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together, and suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a driving strong wind. Of course, I remember in in John 3, the conversation between Nicodemus and our Lord, right? The spirit blows where it wills, right? You know. So that reminds, that's our kind of hearkening back to that conversation to a certain extent. It filled the entire house which they were, then there appeared to them tongues of fire, which pardoned came to rest on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. So we see the Holy Spirit comes down upon them, and it's not like they're in the we're presuming this is the same upper room that in which the Passover, the Last Supper was celebrated. So the Holy Spirit comes to them, and they're like, hey, dude, love the Holy Spirit. Why don't we just sit here and just enjoy the Holy Spirit for a while? No, that's not what the Holy Spirit infuses them, and the love that they experience, the the love that has been that the Father and the Son share in the unity of the Holy Trinity, right, compels them, not compels them in a sense of forces their will, but they're so inflamed with love of the Lord that they have to proclaim the word. It just is like you can't stop talking about it. It's like when two people fall in love and you're so annoyed at the other person because they can't stop talking about the other person. Will you just stop talking about I'm sick of it, right? Right? You know how you're like, oh, you know, will you stop talking about your girlfriend? Okay. Can we talk about sports now? Okay. Um they're just so filled with the Holy Spirit, they're so in love with God that they gotta they gotta proclaim the gospel. And then they are also given the gift of tongues to speak in different languages, which indicates that the church is going to be you know universal. That the church is no longer going to be just sort of, you know, because we we the the covenant with Israel was for a specific people. Because we see what God is doing in salvation history. Remember, he starts with Abraham, or it starts with Abraham and Sarah, and we know the miracle of that. And of course, then it becomes like a family, right? We have, you know, we have, you know, Jacob and the amazing technical dream coat. Okay, I'm just kidding, right? You know, the whole, the whole thing with the brother, right, the the you know, the brothers, right? Sons of Jacob, right? Family. And then we have a nation of Israel, right? The nation of Israel. And now it's going to go beyond Israel. It's going to go, it's not going to just be about a specific people or ethnicity. Now this relationship, this covenant relationship, is going to be offered to everyone. Anyone in the world is going to be offered to everyone. See, God is working gradually in salvation history. So Pentecost, the original, is the anniversary of the giving of the law, which we talked about Exodus 24. It's 50 days after the Passover. Okay. So now it's fitting that this is the same day in which the church is born. This is the new law of the Spirit. So now the law of Christ, right? The Beatitudes and so on, this is now the gospel is now the new law. The new law fulfills the old. So we can get in a whole conversation about why we don't do all those Jewish things. And I'm so happy about that because that means I don't have to cut up animals and things like that. So I don't even know if I have Levitical heritage, but anyway, you know. But that that would be like for, you know, imagine having to mix the two. It's like, oh, this is a lot of work. Um because it that there was a whole controversy about that later on. But we that might be another class for another time of how the new covenant fulfills the old. So then we see, and of course, this this now we see the church is is is coming alive. They were in the upper room, remember in Acts chapter 1, they're with the Blessed Mother in the upper room, the apostles, and they're praying the first novena. They're there for nine days after the ascension. So they're all kind of huddled in there and they're in prayer. And then this amazing event of the Pentecost, the Holy Spirit coming to the church and flaming the apostles to go out and proclaim the word and giving them the gift of tongues, right? To speak in languages that they real that did they didn't originally know. Because remember, and the other miracle about this, these aren't learned men, remember, these aren't rabbis and Pharisees, right? These are fishermen, you know, who are, you know, and other uh sundry folks here. These are not the well-to-do folks, these aren't the learned folks, these are simple folks. Right? So this is part of the miracle that you know you have you have simple, you know, fishermen with no education speaking other languages, which is very you know, pretty wild stuff. Okay, then we see that Peter, right, who is given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, he's the one that steps up to speak. So this is an indication of his authority or his role, right? Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice to proclaim to them, you who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem, let it be known to you and listen to my words. And then we see his proclamation. So he's going to proclaim the charygma, right, which is that the basic proclamation of the gospel. This man, meaning Jesus, delivered up by the set plan of foreknowledge of God, you killed using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death because it was impossibly held by it. And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Spirit. So we see, okay, so we have right that we have the church coming into focus here. We have we have Peter, we have the College of Apostles with our Lady interceding for the Church. See the Holy Spirit comes upon them. The gospel is proclaimed. Peter steps to the forefront in his role as the first pope, I guess we'll say the viceroy, the prime minister of Jesus, right? As the king of the new Israel. Remember that Jesus has David, you know, king's Davidic line, right? He's in a Davidic line. So we're establishing a new church on the basis of a Davidic king, which fulfills, right, God's promise that the kingship of David will last forever. Isn't that? And of course, that also harkens back to the Annunciation as well in Luke's gospel. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 persons were added that day. So now we have, right, our group of faithful laity who have now been baptized. So you have Peter, the College of the Apostles. These are the your your establishment of, these are they're the first priests, the first bishops. All right, and then we also see that day 3,000 persons are baptized. Okay, so now we have brought into the church, wait, we now have the faithful lady. So we see how the church is enlivened. We see this outline of the church already in place. Isn't that really cool, right? They devoted themselves the teaching of the apostles and the communal life to the breaking of the bread and of the prayers. So that's interesting. The breaking of the bread, that's code for celebration of Mass. Isn't that so what we see right away, as soon as this happens, right, a the church life begins in its very basic form. That the teaching of the apostles, so that is what they have received from Christ. So the apostles having lived with our Lord for the three years, traveling with him, listening to him, right, absorbing his teaching, that they have they have they have absorbed everything that Jesus has given them, and they are now handing that on. They are celebrating a sacramental life, right? Because we have baptism, of course, that also includes confirmation. And we have the celebration of the Eucharist, a prayer of life, I mean a prayer, a prayer, like prayer going on in the church, continuing the church, and then also a communal life, right? A life of care for one another, right? So charity, the works of charity, right? So we see, right, how's this, does this look for sense should look and sound familiar? Okay. So we see that the church is instituted by Christ, it's willed by him. He establishes it through its passion, death, and resurrection, right? He grants to the church authority, bestows the Holy Spirit on the church. The church proclaims the word and sanctifies the believers to live a shared communal life. So this is because I'm focusing on the part of this chapter on the mystical body of Christ. Because that's another term for the church. Of course, that comes from, um, we're going to look at 1 Corinthians in a second. So in Lumengentium 48, they use this term the sacrament of salvation for the church. So the church is the sign, right? We think a sacrament is a sign instituted by Christ to give grace. That's Baltimore Catechism. I love that definition. Everybody tries to make up a new one. It's tried and true. Just use that one, okay? Everybody tries to come up with all these different like formulations. Like, no, Baltimore Catechism, a sign instituted by Christ to give grace. Fantastic, all right? That's great. So the church is a sense of sacrament. It's a sign that has an efficace, is it is an efficacious sign of salvation.

unknown 29:44

Right?

SPEAKER_00 29:44

That the church of the world is supposed to draw, is draw and try to draw people to the church, draw people into the new covenant. Okay? And so when we talk about last week we talked about holiness, we talked in the and then we're talking the section of called to be saints. Then remember, your holiness, your striving for perfection through the grace of Christ, because that's not done on under our own power. Remember that. That's my homily for the 515 Mass, by the way, if you haven't, if you're going there. If you're if you're going, don't spoil it, you people. No spoiling it. So you're contributing to the building up of the church. One of the things that we'll we'll get into later is I want you to remind remind you, we often think of the church only in terms of its institution, terms of the hierarchy, which means priestly rule, by the way. Eros means priest, archos means rule. That's Koine Greek. So hierarchy. The idea we have, we have, you know, we have the Pope, we have you know cardinals and bishops and priests and deacons, and we have buildings, and we have like our parish church, this campus, you know, we have parish churches, we have the cathedral, we have a chancery office. We all we think of like St. Peter's Basilica, which I had uh, you know, and all the curial offices. We think of that sort of institutionally as the church. But when we think about the mystical body of Christ, it's meaning that everyone who is Catholic is the Catholic Church. So wherever you are is the church. Ooh, wow. That's pretty heavy, Father. Oh, yeah, well, that's true.

unknown 31:28

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Because you bring with you the gift of the Holy Spirit that you've received, right, out into the world. So, yes, when when I when I go out, you know, and I'm, you know, and uh and people see me dressed like this, and they go, oh, well, there's the Catholic Church walking right right by, right? So, but it's everyone who's a Catholic, everyone brings the church wherever they are. So your contributions, you know, whether it's building up of your family or your friends or whatever, whatever, building up of you know what you what you know charity you bring to your job, everything builds up, everything all those contributed to your gifts and talents that you bring to the building up the kingdom, all that counts. Because when we think about the mystical body of Christ, it's an in it's an integrated whole. It's not just the institution that we see, but it's also all the people the people of God. As you know, Lumengentium is a great document. We've talked, I think we talked about it before. Um talks about that relationship between the people of God, like the the priesthood of the baptized and the priest, the ministerial priesthood, which we'll probably get into another time. So St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, as a bot as a body is one through as many parts, so all parts of the body, the many are one body, so also Christ. For in one spirit we're all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, we're all given the drink of the one spirit. So the church is united to Christ, Christ is united to the church, and that as well we are to be called as other icons of Christ in the world, so that we are together as one people, right? We all are witnessing to the faith, that we are all part of this mystical body of Christ, as Christ extends, extending himself out into the world through his people. Okay. All right. So, okay, yeah, we're right at just right at 10:30, which is probably a good break for questions. So um, so I just want you to, if that helps understand, you know, when we're talking about the mystical body of Christ, this is just sort of a primer on the church. We're gonna get, of course, probably do a more deeper dive into all of that. But just sort of, I want you to give you an understanding of that. And of course, then of course, how your role in the church is important. No matter how big a role you have, no matter how small a role you have, whatever small or big you perceive you have, all of it's important. Because we all are contributing to, you know, through our through our sacramental practice, through our love of you know, of God and neighbor, that we are all building up the kingdom. So that's why so our vocation to be holy, our vocation to be saints is intimately connected to the church. The other thing I think is important to remember is that we are all in this together. You know, why do we gather en masse as a group rather than just lining up individually for communion is because you know we are here to support one another. Because I like to say the church is the hospital for sinners. It's the you know, it's the support group of support groups, right? It's like hello, I'm Father Thompson, I'm a sinner, right? This kind of thing. Um we are here for one another. You know, we are we are all here because we are all on the journey. Each of us has our own strengths, that we know our faults, the things that we're working on, the things that we continually go to confession for. Um we are a hospital for sinners. We're all on this journey together. So that's what Christ has given us, that the fellowship of that we hopefully experience within the church inspires us to continue to be to work towards holiness, to to work towards our salvation, because we're not only given the graces that come through the sacraments, right, in the word of God, but also in prayer, but we're also hopefully inspired by the help of the people that we see at church every Sunday and in the communal bonds that we form through our through our community here at St. Louis, for example. So all right. So we're gonna stop there because I know we have a hard I have a hard stop at uh in 10 minutes, about 10 minutes. Okay. So I tried to get the the the micro the mobile microphone to work, but I couldn't get it done. So so if uh so we who what kind of uh what questions do we have? Do we trying to stump the priest today? Okay, what have we got? Who wants to try to stump the priest, right? No? Okay, yeah, go ahead. You're talking about John, John's gospel, right? We're talking about, you know, so you're talking about the uh so chapters 13 through 13 through oh actually, chapter 17, the priestly prayer of Jesus, talking about being one. I just speak specifically about the un uh unity, but what what do you mean so what what are you asking about the unity part? Okay, so that's a that's okay. What we're talking about, like schisms and all that kind of stuff. All right, so what we're so what we're the question is about um, okay, John chapter 17. I should have had my, should have brought a Bible out with me. Um it talks about so he so he's praying the it's called the priestly prayer of Christ, and he's consecrating the apostles in truth. You know, he's praying to the Father that that they be one in him as he is is because that's a there's a term called paracaresis existing in. So that's a big theme in John's gospel, by the way, is that you know the you know Jesus said, you know, Jesus, you know, Jesus will say, Do you not know, Philip, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Right? That's kind of an an insight into the mystery of the Trinity. So the idea that Jesus also is praying is that they be that they be one in him, the apostles and the disciples, as he is in the Father. So that's the prayer, the prayer that he's praying for unity, right? He's praying that we be one with him. Now, what we now the one thing we could say about um, so I don't know if I when I if I'm looking at this, okay, um, did he promise the I don't know if he if he promised the apostles that there would not be schism, okay? But what we talk about the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, what are we talking about? Well, we're talking about, first of all, the doctrine that Jesus taught will prevail in the true church of Christ. Okay. So the doctrine that comes from Jesus to the apostles to us is the same. It may develop, right, and unfold, but it can't, it can't be different. So we can't change more truth, faith, and morals. We can't change those things. That's not for a pope to come around and say, um, hey, you know, like Paul VI in humane vite. Some pope can't come along and say, oh, humane vite is uh, we're throwing it out. No, it can't do that. Um these things have been handed down from generation to generation. These are the teachings of the church that don't go away. So what we've been revealed by Christ to the apostles about himself, right, this is not changing. The dogmatic, the Nicene Creed, which we pray every Sunday, that's not changing. Okay? We have the hierarchy of the church is preserved. So we have un we have a line of popes from Peter all the way down to the present day. Okay. Um we have so we have preserved the the apostolic succession. Right? We're gonna get into, I think in the next chapter, I think we're already talking about the magisterium, the teaching body of the church. So we're talking about the unity of the church, the Catholic Church is in those matters, right? In the matters of faith, morals, sacraments, authority, these sorts of things. Now, of course, unfortunately, we've had these unfortunate incidents of, you know, 1054, you had the great schism with the East, you know, we've had the Protestant Reformation, these sorts of things. So, of course, the project of the church has been to work towards, you know, unity, bringing all Christians into the Catholic Church. So when you see like Scott Hahn and his work and and other so Protestant converts like going out doing apologetics, like Catholic answers, you know, the coming home network, things like that. And then, of course, dialoguing with our Orthodox brothers and sisters over the issues that, because the issue is like the role of the Pope and things like this. So I would say in the in the teachings of the church, right, we have that unity before because of the authority, apostolic succession that keeps us in union with Christ. Okay. All right. Uh let's see. Got three here. Okay. Let's go over here and then we'll work our way over. Okay. Okay, remember then in the the the way it's supposed to be is the Latin is uh Dominus Vobiscum etcum spirituo. Okay, and what is that's that's a liturgical formula. So the Lord be with you and then with your spirit. What is going on there? Well, remember that the priest is in in standing in the person of Christ, he has the gift of ordination, right? The gift of holy orders. So there's a distinction between the the the priest and the people in that. So that's that's what that's signifying. Okay. It's more of it's a liturgical distinction, so in the man. Because that that um that was an inaccurate translation of what was in the the the lat the the yeah. So what happened is in it it took about uh ten years, um, but there was a document in 20 in 2000 because after after the um the the reform of the mass was issued in 1970, there of course there were um you could have the entire liturgy in English. And so there was a translation that was promulgated which which would be called a I guess they call it a dynamic translation. And um in 20 in 2010, uh starting in 2000, there was a project to re-translate the mass so it was more reflective of the Latin language, of what the Latin language actually was that was approved when that the missile was issued in 1970. Yeah, say dominantsum dinusudontresum tectume to sanitic verbos and abitonoma mea, right? That's the Latin. So, yeah, because it's a combination of what what you know Jesus says to the remember the whole thing with the centurion, right? So it's yeah, so that thing. Okay. Uh with a guy over here and then I'll work over there. Okay. Uh so for on Passover, right?

unknown 43:02

So the meal is the land before.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Oh yeah, you're gonna this is a whole controversy. There's a whole controversy about this. So there's a controversy regarding what was the meal that Jesus celebrated on on Holy Thursday. Was that the Passover? Because John's Gospel has the Passover lambs being sacrificed on Good Friday. Of course, then the Synoptic Gospels talk about the Last Supper being a Passover meal. So there's different theories. The one theory that I like the most is a very it it so there Judaism wasn't uniform in with the time of Christ, right? There was you had the Pharisees, you had the Sadducees, and you had, I don't know if you remember the the Dead Sea Scrolls. You ever heard of that? There's this group called the Essenes with these group of Jewish monks. And Dr. John Bergsma of Franciscan University has written a whole book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, highly recommend it. Um that It kind of enlightens you as to the kind of the theological kind of what was in the air at the time of Christ. The Essenes were these Jewish monks, and what they had sort of what they had believed was that the temple worship had been corrupted, and they were waiting actually for two messiahs, a priestly messiah and a kingly messiah. They had a different calendar, they had a different liturgical calendar than, let's say, the rest of the rest of the population. So Dr. Bergsmith's theory is that the Passover was celebrated on the Essene calendar. So it makes sense that since the temple is on a different calendar than what the Essenes are, because the Essenes aren't going to be sacrificing lambs because they believe the temple has been corrupted, and they're waiting for that temple worship, according to their view, to be restored, then they're on a different calendar. Then so it makes sense that the the the Jesus is because Jesus was in the Essene district, the the the um upper room is in the Essene district of Jerusalem at the time. So they so and remember and also too, John the Baptist potentially was a member of the Essenes. Strong possibility. Pope Benedict has spoken on this. That's a whole other thing. You want to get into the root weeds of that? Oh, yeah, there's a whole thing. Scripture scholars have been back and forth on this. It's like how many, how many angels on the head of a pen type thing. So just to let you know, that's a whole thing. We'll be here until three o'clock in the afternoon. Okay, over there. Yeah. So that's what we're we're proposing that, yeah, the and and and Saint Paul gets into this in Romans, for example, and Galatians, is with this whole subject of and Hebrews, the letter to the Hebrews is very is also about this issue of how the the new covenant fulfills the old. So that there's no longer a need for the is no longer a need for the following of the Mosaic law. You don't need to sacrifice animals anymore for the, you don't need to follow the Jewish rules. Why? Because there's an it's based on a new a new covenant and a new sacrifice. And so the sign of the people is the fact we see they bel their their their faithfulness to Christ, their love for God and neighbor, right? So how would people know who the people of God are, how they act, right? How they how they how they treat one another, how they treat people. Okay. Yeah. Oh, we're we're like we're at the that first chapter under the sections um call to be saints and a mystical body of Christ. Yeah, I was in those, yeah, because the mystical I thought that I'd emphasize the mystical body of Christ today. Hope you don't mind. So sue me, right? Okay. That's what New York saying, by the way. I don't know who the Anabaptists from the you go to Methodists is like, was it John Wesley? John Wesley. John Wesley, for example. Right, you can always go back to a person who is making their own interpretation of things and having their own set of doctrines. Um I know that in some um, I actually ran into this in the in the OCIA class where some where one of the one of the persons who's coming from an evangelical background talked about, well, there were in the early church, a bunch of Billy Graham's out there. I was like, well, I was like, well, no. You know, you know, it's like these are the apostles, right? They're they're the first bishops that they're going out there. Now they're preaching, but they're also baptizing, confirming, you know, ordaining priests. Like, you know, Paul would go to go to basically he would stay not only like in Corinth, he was there for two years. It wasn't like a fly-by-night thing. It wasn't like he stayed there for a week at uh at the Holiday Inn. And then, you know, was there for a week, okay guys, you're good. See you bye, right? He was there for two years, building up the church. He was he was uh ordaining men to the priesthood so that he would they would be firmly established. And you know, his letters, you know, Timothy and Titus are you know are like the next generation of people. Like these are the you know, sort of the next generation of apostles who he has apparently ordained, I think, to be bishops really, right? To be to be ruling over a community, right, to be the bishop of that community. So already we're starting to see apostolic succession, even in the in the we see in the sacred scriptures, as as we see Timothy and Titus are disciples of Paul and they've been elevated to roles of authority and service in the church. So we see that happening. So now I know sometimes the evangelical community, they'll try to come up with sort of a false history of the church, that there was basically all the Billy Graham's running around, and then Constantine the Great comes along once and then ruins everything, right? And then we sort of adopt all this like ceremonial from the Roman Empire, and all of a sudden we're, you know, that's why we have mass. I mean, that's that's sort of kind of so when but once a lot of times once people and our Protestant brothers just like investigate the history of the church and really see the documents and see what's happening, what the early church fathers are actually preaching, then it's amazing what you would, you know, be a lot of those people become Catholic. So all right, we're kind of oh, one more and then we'll have to go. You have the last word. Don't make it good. Yep. Those are two separate things. Nation state of Israel is not a biblical entity. There's a whole, you know, there's a whole history of that. Goes actually goes back to the roots back to the 19th century to the Zionist movement that started in Europe, where Jews in Europe were kind of asking themselves the question of how do we deal with this fact that we're discriminated against? And like what how should we deal with this? And of course, we know that that history, and um so that's a whole complicated uh history. It goes back to the 19th century. So yeah, you don't want to conflate historical Israel with the current political entity, which is basically a you know, a dem uh it's a it's a republic, you know, basically. So that that's a political question that has nothing to do with, yeah, has nothing to do with the current uh that's not related to biblical Israel. Okay, just happens to be in the same place. Okay. All right, so let's wrap it up here. If anybody else has any questions, uh, you know, you can always come up and because uh I think I don't have to, let's see, masses at 1030. All right, so I gotta like if I'm over at church by 35, 40 after, I think I'm good. The Open Communion. So okay, name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, amen. Give you thanks Almighty God for the affections, resolutions, inspirations, given us during his time of education. We ask your help to put them into effect. Our macot brother, St. Joseph, a garden angels, intercede for us. Amen. Name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, amen. All right, see you in two weeks or our next episode, okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Okay, hold on a second here.