Class 28: Christ's Baptism & Public Ministry & Who's Who in Judea

Pages 132-135 (plus top paragraph of 136)

Notes (additional): 

1. Repent: Metanoia (meta + nous = change of mind) needs to be on an ontological level

2. Kingdom: Basileia (Greek word for kingdom) has direct relation to a key building in Old Town Alexandria, because the ancient basilica style of architecture came from government / royal buildings -- not religious worship sites such as Jewish or pagan temples

3. A fourth key group in Judea not mentioned on p135 is the Essenes from Qumran. Scholars point to St. John the Baptist and St. Mark as key (former?) Essenes who shape the ministry of Jesus. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we give you thanks for a new Sunday. And today being what we could call the eighth Sunday after Pentecost, we're moving a couple months now into this time where we're really appreciative, we're grateful for the Holy Spirit that enlivens our hearts, our minds. And so this hymn, Lord God, is each Sunday most of the year. And so I'm going to read this just a few lines here in praise of Jesus, who we come to know better because of the Holy Spirit. And so these are the last few lines from the hymn at morning prayer on Sundays. New hope, his clarion note awakes. Sickness, the feeble frame forsakes, the robber sheathes his lawless sword, fate to the fallen is restored. Look on us, Jesus, when we fall, and with thy look our souls recall. If thou but look our sins are gone, and with due tears our pardon one. Shed through our hearts thy piercing ray, our souls dull slumber drive away. Thy name be first on every tongue, to thee our earliest praises sung. All praise to God the Father be, all praise, eternal son to thee. All glory as is ever meet to God the Holy Paraclete. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, good morning and welcome back. Um you've you're stuck with me today, no uh no big uh credentials from from this guy, but uh happy to be teaching. And um I did want to um orient for today's class the key word I'm gonna look at is repentance or repent. I think that's central. It's like one of the word first words out of Jesus' mouth, right, that we uh see recorded in scripture. So not something we want to gloss over. Uh specifically in our orange textbook, we're on pages 1 uh 32 to 135. That's the topic area we're covering. But I I worry that we might have overlooked page 128, and it's a really important uh part, it's it's the opening section for this chapter six, right? So we're here in chapter six of Introduction to Catholicism, just an intro course here. Um and the topic, of course, for chapter six is the Paschal Mystery, uh, the first section there being God the Son. So if you look at the fourth paragraph on page 128, I'll give you a second to get there. Um, and in your handouts, I've given you two handouts, one is uh without highlight and the other one is with highlight, right? But they're both double-sided. So if we're looking at the come and see participant handout, um we're jumping down to the bridge portion. Okay, so I'm gonna jump down there real quick to bridge number one, and it's bolded. Do you see that bold on your handout? So I'm quoting there from page 128. So if you don't have your orange book, you can still follow along. Alright, so in the orange book, it says before beginning this chapter, take the time to read thoughtfully at least one of the gospels in its entirety. Um, I don't know, maybe you've done that. I'm not gonna uh take away points if you haven't read one of the gospels in the last couple weeks in its entirety, but that's important. It's something we want to be doing regularly, right? And that's not new. Um at least I try to stress Lectio Divina. We want to prayerfully read the scriptures daily, right? That's that's who we are as Catholics. We're coming into contact, especially when we prayerfully open up the word, right? To break open the word of God and invite the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds, right? I've got nothing to offer you. Uh, and that's what Peter says, right? He's got nothing except the name of Jesus to offer. And so just the mere shadow from Peter uh is able to do so much because of Christ. Uh so I want to highlight this portion before beginning this chapter. Take the time to read thoughtfully at least one of the Gospels in its entirety. Um as you read, note especially how Christ fulfills the Old Testament prophecies and how he not only upholds the Ten Commandments and the moral law, but also elevates them by emphasizing and demonstrating that our motivation for obeying God must be what? Right? What's our motivation for obeying God? Certainly not fear in the sense of uh like he's gonna beat us or cast us to hell if we don't obey him. That's not the spirit of a son or daughter, right? But we've been we've been baptized. What's our motivation?

unknown 4:36

Love.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Love, absolutely. Right. Yeah, so it says absolutely, 100%. So it says our motivation for obeying God must be our search for holiness. And how do we become holy? By knowing, loving, and serving God and neighbor, right? That's that's so basic, but uh sometimes we gotta review the basics, right? There's a saying, um do routine things routinely, right? Uh that's how you become excellent. We do the routine things routinely. That's a business mantra, but like it works for for us as Christians because it's true. That's why it's that's why it's good, because it's true. So I want to open up uh before I dive into my notes, like which which gospel did you read? What insights did you get from slowly reading through the gospel? Because that's the book, right? This is it, this is the orange book, we call it that, right? It's an intro. But the gospel, that's the word of God. It's inerrant, there's no errors, no problems. And when we read it in a prayerful way, God teaches us. So I'm I'm gonna open up to your thoughts. What's speaking to you from the gospel and why? What's helping you in your search for knowing and loving God and Abraham? Nicole.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

I uh almost done read uh the gospel of Mark.

SPEAKER_04 5:55

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

And then the other one was when did Jesus tell this in the street?

SPEAKER_04 6:22

Now is that a question you're still searching for answers? Yeah. Okay, so uh Nicole Sand, she read through Mark. That's also the one I've been reading this last week. Uh, because I've read through the orange book, I'm like, well, I can't ask you to read the gospel if I'm not gonna read it. So the mark marks seem the easiest one, make sure I get through that. We all have work or other things we got to do. So Mark's the shortest gospel, and it's rapid fire, and then he did this, and then he did this, and then they did this, and then this happened, right? That and is all you know throughout the gospel, and it's in the the Greek too, it's not just like in the English. It's definitely the way Peter, right, Peter's teaching uh Mark what happened. Um, and so we see especially healing, right? And that's part of the hymn that I was reading from from morning prayer. So there's this there's a system there that the church wants us to be healed, so it's ongoing, right? The question from Nicole is when did Jesus stop the healing ministry? She couldn't quite find it. And of course, the sacraments, Jesus imparts those so that because he does go away, right, his body ascends into heaven, right? We believe that really now our our humanity is up in heaven because of Christ's ascension, not just for that reason, but that's one in particular. And so, in particular, there are how many sacraments, right? Seven, right? Seven sacraments. And in in the gospel of Mark, we see uh seven loaves and other indications of things that will continue to be uh bringing us the presence of Christ, which is the healing presence, right? That's our hearts are are broken, our hearts are divided, our hearts are uh separated from our minds, so that we're you know, there's always that trying to bring our mind back to the heart. Um, and that's really what repentance is, right? And um so how many, if we have seven sacraments, there are some that are classified or categorized as healing sacraments. So how many healing sacraments do we have? Two, okay. Any other numbers? You were gonna say two? One, okay. Four, three? All right, I'm gonna say there's two, although I don't know a sacrament that wouldn't heal you, right? Um in in some sense. But there are two that are categorized or classified as the healing sacrament. So which two did you have? We'll see if you got the two that I'm thinking of. What's your name, sir?

unknown 8:44

Uh Oz.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Oz?

SPEAKER_03 8:47

I was thinking about baptism. That healing.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Yeah, no, absolutely. Baptism does heal, but that's a one and only. That's a one and only. So we want to, because Jesus knows that we've got to keep getting healed, if you're like me, we keep on needing healing. So what is Eucharist?

unknown 9:01

That's what we're talking about saying about it.

SPEAKER_04 9:02

The Eucharist will heal you from venial sins, but we don't we don't call it uh uh what what category do we call the Eucharist? Initiation sacrament, right? It's the third, I know sometimes it's in sequence number two, but it the church in all the documents, can of law, catechism, right? And in practice over the centuries until about a hundred years ago, Eucharist is always the third and final initiation sacrament.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

I'm sorry. Okay, age for uh St. Thomas' prayer decision.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

Absolutely. No, 100%. And so that's uh that's again for for venial sins, we'll be healed by the Eucharist. But for a mortal sin, according to St. Paul, and Thomas is a great his his day job, St. Thomas Aquinas was a Bible teacher, right? He was a scripture teacher. He wasn't just like a um you know systematic theologian or something. He was a scripture teacher, he taught the Bible and he wrote on the Bible. So St. Paul tells us if we eat unworthily, we eat our death, right? That it will bring death to us. So if we're a mortal sin, it will not heal us. The Eucharist, if you take that immortal sin, it will kill you. Your soul, of course. Not it's not you'll fall dead necessarily. But Paul sees that happening. Uh so it's not a healing sacrament per se, but we would say um a second uh plank, right? If if the if baptism is like getting into the ark, we're saved from the floods. Um that is a necessary for salvation. You'll get washed away in the flood, otherwise. So a second plank, or like uh if somebody, if you fall off the ship in the crazy storm, um somebody throws you a life jacket or a buoy or a plank, a piece of wood. Um confession, absolutely. That's a healing, that heals you, right? So confession will heal you. And then there's another that if you've been in the hospital, maybe you've gone for surgery, anointing of the sick or extreme unction, right? Those are those are healing in a way that the Eucharist won't if you're in like mortal danger, mortal sin. So our healing sacraments. And I want us to see repentance through those eyes. So we're going to continue on. Uh we're just moving down our sheet here. Uh I like that we went with Mark because that's repent and believe in the gospel. Right? That's that's what Jesus opens up with. And he's not coming up with that out of out of nowhere. He's echoing St. John the Baptist, right? And St. John the Baptist is not the first to use the words repent. They're throughout the Old Testament. So this is a central theme of God the Father to restore man. Because who was the original one in need of healing? The original one in need of repentance. Adam, absolutely. And Adam means, in the basic language, what does Adam mean? Man. Man. Yeah, okay, so get you up here to teach. This is good.

unknown 11:59

Is there any name of man? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Adam.

unknown 12:06

Okay, we're both a man.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Yeah, so he's obviously an actual man, but he's also the first man. So we could say he's standing in the place of all men. And who's the new Adam? Jesus Christ. He is the new Adam. We know that especially from St. Paul, but if we're just reading it without the letters of Paul, we're just reading the gospel, we can come up with that, but it's like for sure in St. Paul, the new Adam. And we want to put on the new Adam. And how do we do that? Through our baptism, right? So the pages I've been assigned specifically, right? 132 to 135. So if we turn the page in the orange book, uh, I know it's 130, uh, so maybe I messed up, but I definitely was looking at 130 to 135. Um, so my emphasis here again was with repentance. And under the blue heading, the baptism of Christ, uh, let's see here, I count them 1, 2, looks like the third paragraph where it begins. St. John the Baptist had a simple message. Repent. Right? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Um again. We've got someone that's reading the Bible in Hebrew, we've got someone that just read through all of Mark and is wondering where does this healing end? It doesn't seem to end, it's great. Um the word repentance, do we know in another language, what's that word that John the Baptist uses, that Jesus himself will also use. From over on my right, uh, I think somebody might think Cherry knows, so I'm gonna encourage him. Metanoia, absolutely. So metanoia, uh show of hands, familiarity with the word? Okay, we use that word in English, but it's coming from Greek. Um and particularly two words in Greek. You can hear metanoia, right? Um what's meta mean?

unknown 14:00

Change.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

Change, absolutely. What is what's noia come from? That's not a that's not an actual word per se. Okay, so noose come is noia is coming from noose, which is the mind, right? Um the mind, so change your mind. See things differently. Because Adam saw, because of eating the fruit of the tree, being tricked by Satan, uh, going along with his wife Eve. He doesn't see straight anymore. He's so blinded by his sin that he's not able to see that God saw it all and didn't hate him. Right? He doesn't see clearly that God still loves him. So when he cries out, you know, they're hiding as if that's something you can do from God, right? So he doesn't see right, he doesn't think right. Very from the beginning, we gotta change our mind, change our attitude, change the way we see the world in order to see the way God sees, right? That's that's what contemplation is, right? Uh one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the knowledge is not being smart, not being puffed up with pride, but seeing how God sees, which means we're gonna be lowly. Because how does God see? He sees in a humble way where he's able to come down from heaven to be with us, not to scare us away, but to invite us close for his healing. Because when we draw near to Christ, he heals our heart, he changes our perception of things. Right? So this repentance, we could gloss over that, but that's like so important. I don't use the words like, you know, I'm a valley from the valley, right? I won't use the second part of that phrase, but I'm a valley dude, I guess. Um but no, absolutely, repentance is incredibly important. Um, so metanoia to change the way we see things. Is that a one and done? Yeah. Okay, so some of you are like me, it's definitely not a one and done. This is a lifetime of repentance. And so we can I I invite you, what are some other words we can use? Instead of I don't want to just like consider the Greek meta and noose, right? But or meta noia, even what are some other words for repentance? Conversion, absolutely. What does that mean? That's coming from the Latin, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Absolutely. Intimacy, you said to turn about, I think to traverse, we could say, to go about, to move about, to turn. Yeah. Uh metamorphosis. So, yeah, and metamorphosis is the word for transfiguration. There is a change that takes place of Christ the way he's appearing, right? His nature. So, what were you saying in the back? I'm sorry.

unknown 16:51

We can't hear you in the back. Can you repeat what you can say so we can't?

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Are you able to hear me, but not hear all the participants? Okay, great. Uh so we're hearing that um conversio or conversion, intimacy with the Lord, so is it changing the way we're our posture, so we turn towards the Lord and start moving in a new direction? Where? Well, he's the way, right? He's the way, the truth, and the life. So if we we pivot and head down that road, and if we think of uh the second book of Genesis or the second book of Moses, uh not the second book of Genesis, second book of the Pentateuch, second book of Moses, what's that called? We call it Exodus, that's for the Greek name for the book, right? It's not the Hebrew name. I think that's the um the not the names, maybe the I forget right now, but it maybe the wilderness. I think it's called the wilderness, but umas is the way. Um so it and it also means the road or the highway. So there is a sense of they this is their way out. So ex, of course, we think of out, like the exit. That's a that's the Latin word that means it goes out, right? That's what that means. Um and so Exodus is the way out of slavery, right? Out of this uh pain and suffering. They needed to be healed, liberated. Um and so we we want to converse to turn away from slavery, turn away from darkness, into the light, down the road with Christ. Uh that that's what we're we're hearing from here. Then that comes from intimacy. How do we get that intimacy? Intimacy with God, of course. Um how do we get that prayer? Routine things routinely, like prayer, yeah. Daily prayer. And what's a daily prayer that we know from Christ? The Our Father, yes. Um, our daily bread, like regular access. Um sometimes the word of God is considered the bread, right? Uh we we know that from John 6, even. So, because and also the will of God, right? Jesus doesn't um just eat natural bread to be to be fed, but he's fed on doing the word of God, uh, doing his will, knowing him. Because you can't do the will if you don't listen. So, what was that uh about a month ago? I think I was teaching the um the greatest commandment. What is the greatest commandment? Right, so I'm I'm grateful that we're remembering that part, but there is another part that we sometimes forget. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one. So this comes from Mark. You were just reading this, Nicole, so excellent. This is chapter twelve of Mark, the first commandment. Uh specifically, chap well, I'll start at twenty-eight. And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, and asked, Which commandment is the first of all? Okay, so that's the question posed to Jesus. The next verse, verse 29. Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And the scribes said to him, You are right, teacher, you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he, and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. So this listening part, hear, O Israel. The scribes say, You're right, Lord, that that are you're right, teacher. That's that's the right one. Um that's the most important. And of course, if we're hearing, then we can then we can um listen, obey, follow after, right? We can have intimacy only if we're hearing. So our prayers, we want to say the Our Father, but we want to listen to what our Father has to give us. Not just daily bread in the sense of, you know, flour and whatnot, wheat, um, maybe pumper nickel, whatever it might be, right? Uh wonderloaf, right? The one the wonderloaf is across the parking lot, right? That's the amazing wonder, the Eucharist. But we're we're also looking to be fed by the Bible. We've got to be reading it regularly, and then to pause and meditate, let the spirit percolate. You know, we've got the coffee makers over there, it takes time. Uh we've got to have that intimacy. Um, if you're, for those of us who have embraced the journey of marriage, right, there's gotta be those, they're no longer awkward silences, they're just they're beautiful, intimate silences that we're able to rest with our spouse. We don't have to say much, but we just enjoy being with them. So I'd say also regular holy hour, right? Regular periods of silence to hear God. And what does he say? I love you. That's what God tells us. Maybe fix this and that a little bit, but I'm there with you to fix those things. He's not there to condemn us, he's there to heal. That's why he's come to die for us. Okay, so our scripture is really important to read regularly, to meditate upon, and let's see if we can figure out where we are. So on our handouts, definition of repent, the metta and the noose, the mind, metanoia. I've listed here physical, spiritual, mental, and even ontological metanoia. Repentance can be on an ontological level. What is ontology? Or what does ontological meaning? The science of being. The science of being, absolutely. So we can think of things that exist, right? The way of looking at existence. So on an existential level, we need to change. Not just how we think about Jesus, not just how we see our neighbor, everything, our whole entire way of being needs to change. Because that sickness that we got through Adam that was passed on through original sin, right, that has warped everything. And thankfully that's not the end of the story, right? That's the beginning of the story almost at creation. But there's so much more to consider. So on an ontological level, we want to change the way we live. So that when Christ tells us to love our enemies, we do it, right? It's not just something we quote and then move about our lives. But it changes the way. So like if I'm in traffic, you know, that's something I have to confess from time to time, that I don't love my enemies. It doesn't just mean, you know, we're currently, you could say, a war with Iran, right? They're there are like big-time enemies, but that doesn't affect me that much. My wife's still in the military. I'm you I'm former military, but I'm not about to get deployed and like help out with that cause. I'm not going down that road. Um but in my road, it's the traffic I deal with. Those are people that unfortunately, because I haven't daily changed the way I see things, they've become my enemies, right? They're obstacles to get around and to get to my destination sooner without the person going five and a 25, right? Whatever it is. That's our real world change that needs to happen. Uh, and maybe that doesn't sound sophisticated, but like that's that's where Jesus comes into our real life, right? Um, so other terms for repentance. I think we're probably good unless you got church.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

How about come to your senses, the mind used in the product of the sun and also the Samaritan woman at the well?

SPEAKER_04 24:37

Beautiful. We're gonna come back to the woman at the well. Uh so let's put that one on pause. The good Samaritan. These are both, uh, and this is gonna point us forward to the, if we look at the bottom right section of your handout, who's who in Judea, right? Page 135. We'll get to that one as well. Uh, because I'm gonna ask you, who are some Samaritans that we can consider in the scriptures? For the purpose of how did they show a level of repentance or changing the way they see things, right? I want to I want to come to those. So excellent. And so our senses, because we're not just changing our mind, but our strength, like all of our heart, everything has to belong to God. Not because he's um demanding a debt to be paid, although that's some of the language he uses, but because we're sons and daughters. It's it's like a small child running up for a hug. My my goddaughter's birthday is today, but we had the birthday party yesterday, and I was filled with joy, right, when she runs up to get a hug and to be picked up. And that's how God the Father sees each of us. We forget that. Sometimes we can be consumed with the doctrine or with the um you know the teachings of the church and forget how much we're loved. And that love heals and changes us. So we want to have that time of intimacy, prayer, to feel like we can run up to our Father and be experience his His profound love. Okay, and that should change our senses, right? That'll have a major impact on us. Christ's public ministry. I want to kind of gloss over that because you're capable of reading. Um, real quick, we have Christ preached, so this is pages 132 to 134, and also 136, the very top of 136. The first one, Christ preached the kingdom was at hand. That the kingdom was at hand. What is the kingdom?

unknown 26:29

Heaven. Heaven.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Heaven, salvation, yeah, healing. Um those are those are all right answers. Uh and what is it not? Maybe that's a better question. Sometimes to know what something is, we rule out the things it's not, push them aside. Lucas.

unknown 26:45

Military victory over the Middle East.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Yeah, conquest, uh, in the sense of worldly conquest. Because Christ has come as a liberator with the sword, right, on a white horse to set us free from Satan. So he is he's coming to conquest our hearts. So that's where the kingdom seems to be, to win over our minds and our hearts. Not to go down the road or across the sea to dominate other people. That's ridiculous, right? That is not the Christian way. I'm not what I'm not doing here is I'm not trying to be ideological and before or against certain wars. I'm a former army guy, right? So I do believe in the church's just war theory and want to practice that, right? But in general, the kingdom Jesus is talking about, that's the context here. The kingdom is within. And it's also without, because we move about. So the the interior life should spill out into our everyday living, right? The way we treat people. But the kingdom that Christ is talking about is in heaven and it's in our minds and our hearts, and it's not a divided kingdom, right? Unfortunately, Israel got divided north and south for centuries. And that's that's how our hearts are. That's how our our person, on an ontological level, we are divided. We need to be brought whole again, right? Through repentance. So, what is the kingdom? It's heaven. Um, it's being letting God be in you, right? And he is. He's the in there's the indwelling of the Trinity due to our baptism, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are alive and well in our hearts. And if we only took time to say hello and to listen to what they have to say to us, which are words of comfort and healing, right? He's the comforter, he's the healer. So let us not forget that. Basilea in Greek. Uh so now we're on the top right of your handout. Basileia is the Greek word for kingdom, okay? Um basilikus or uh the basil, you can think of that as a royal plant, even, okay? Um so if you cook with boy with basil or basil, um those are those are good kingly things. What word derives uh from basileia that we know about an old town?

unknown 28:53

Basilica.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

The basilica in old town, right? Absolutely. So what's a basilica? Why I thought that was just a style of architecture or uh an important church. What's the word basilica mean coming from Basilea? Lucy. So if if we want a church to be named a basilica, it needs to be you know doing well in terms of teaching the teachings of the church faithfully in accordance with magisterium and under the Pope. But the word itself predates what we think of as the papacy. This is an ancient Greek word, basileia, which means kingdom. So, in terms of this um church in Old Town, I think you've got something there that, yes, the we can think of the king here on earth being um Poblio right now, right? He he's the head of the church on earth. And so we can think of him as a king. That's why he has the mitre, and it's a three-tiered tiara, and till the near the end of Paul VI's papacy. But that's still how we see it in the coat of arms, right? The the tiara that has three of them, three crowns, he's like a king. Okay, so the kingdom is manifested by all the loyal subjects that are following the king's orders, the magisterium. Absolutely. So there's something there. But um for it to be named for a church seems seems odd. Normally think of a king having like government buildings. So can we think of where does this word come from? It's not it's not like it means temple, but we're talking about churches, places where you pray and worship. Why would why would the early church adopt basilica to name for the name of churches? So this is a government style of architecture. You knew that's a government building because of the way it looks, right? So you can easily approach it, and then who's inside? Maybe a magistrate, maybe even the king himself, or the Caesar, or the emperor, whatever the title might be. The head honcho's in there, you might get a chance to go in that government building and dialogue, right? To hear what he has to put out, so you follow the right decrees, but also maybe to petition him, right? To ask, hey, I need help with this thing, and he's there to listen to your needs. So the early church did not adopt the uh the architectural style of, for instance, the temple in Jerusalem, or the pagan temples, for instance, in Rome or Greece or other places where you know everybody was worshiping. So they could have chosen lots of styles of building or architectural styles for building their own churches. But they chose, in contrast, these government buildings, the basilica style of architecture, where you could come in and meet with the magistrate. Because who is in our churches? The King of Kings, right? He's there to put out his decrees through his ministers, the priests, as they proclaim the gospel, right? Hopefully, even singing it, right? So beautiful we want to sing with joy the gospel, the good news. And then to hear it explained with like a homily, a sermon. And that the priest might be there to hear our needs and maybe collect them, right? That's the collect at the beginning of Mass. To collect our needs and put them before the God, God, the King of Kings, right? To hear on, so it's maybe just the minister of the minister who's hearing us. And of course, in a holy hour, we can go and put our needs before Christ, who sits enthroned in the tabernacle, right? So we have a government-style architecture for our worship because of our theology. I don't know if I that might be too much of a tangent, but but I think there's something really cool there that the kingdom of God, Basileia, is the word that we derive from to get things like Basilica of St. Mary in Old Town. Okay, so we can think of that extending of the kingdom. Um, and that should, you know, changes the way we see everything, right? Even architecture. Everything gets subsumed into uh the knowledge, the understanding of Christ. Question E here, so one E. Is Christ your king? How so? How not? That might be something we don't answer today, but I encourage you to take that to your holy hour. Take that to your rosary, take that to your Bible study. Is Christ your king? How so? How not? Uh F, are you preaching the kingdom? I hope so, right? We're all called to preach the kingdom, not just the deacons and priests. Because through our baptism, we've been anointed, right? We've been healed in such a way that now we can be like Adam was meant to be. Priest, prophet, king. Obviously, we're sons of God, spouses of God. So we need to extend that kingdom by preaching it. The second section for Christ's public ministry, Christ did not abolish the law but fulfilled it and perfected it. What is the law? The Mosaic law? Okay, we can think of the Ten Commandments. Are there some laws that Christ undoes? Yeah.

unknown 34:07

Dietary laws.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Dietary laws, absolutely. There are certain things that maybe were burdensome, that we're not really from God, but the religious leaders were imposing them. And so Christ even frees us from these, we got might say silly laws. Some of those go away. Some were for our sake, to be separated so we didn't get contaminated by the Gentiles that were crazy, right? Yes, Lucas? Animal sacrifice. Animal sacrifice, right. Because those are foreshadowing, they're types, they're figures. They're pointing ahead to Christ's offering himself. Of course, we're not mere animals, we're rational animals, but there is the animal sacrifice, right? The higher than all the animals. Like we said, king of kings. You could say animal of animals. Jesus Christ is the rational of all ration. You know, he's wisdom itself, incarnate. So there is still the animal sacrifice, but not of old. There's a new one, a new way of seeing things. We see that at the Eucharist, right? Number three, Christ performed many miracles as signs of his kingdom. And if we look at John's gospel, by show of hands, did anybody read through John recently? Yeah? So we see what is the word that he likes to use out of these two? Miracles and signs. That's right. Absolutely. And I think I overheard over here. Someone was saying key words for John. There's even, it's called the Book of the Book of Signs. So these are significant, um, so some some people will put a distinction between miracles and signs, but ultimately it's for God's glory, right? He is manifesting his divinity particularly through healing. Most of the miracles, especially early on in John, what does he do? He heals the lame, the suffering, right? Those who are sick, those who are demoniacs, right? All sorts of uh the the woman with with the hemorrhage for 12 years, right? That that's incredible healing. That's what Christ is doing. And and they at one point he says, uh, you know, go for your sins are forgiven. And they say, What? Well, I could easily say pick up your mat and walk, right? But but I'm able to do both. I'm God. I'm here to heal the heart, the mind, the body, everything. The senses. Okay. Let's let's skip over five and six and move down to this last section. Who's who in Judea? Which is really the call-out section, we could call it on page 135. That golden part. Who's who? So I've got four four numbers here. Number one, the Pharisees, number two, the Sadducees, three, the Samaritans, and four, um, we're gonna say another major group. So got some questions here. What class uh should be of Jews, not or so that's a typo. This is one B. What class of Jews were they? Who were the Pharisees? How do you describe them? Like obviously there's Herodians that are ruling as king and princes, etc., right? Um, and they're not rightfully the heirs of the kingdom. Um false king, we could say, or um pretender. But uh but these Pharisees, so they're not ruling in the sense of having royalty, but they're ruling with all sorts of doctrinal uh authority, it seems. They seem to be quoting important teachers of the law. They're not priests, right? We don't see them in the temple offering sacrifice, animal sacrifice, etc. So they're not a priestly class. We could call them lay people, but they're kind of know it all, lay people, right? They're they're oppressing people with their knowledge. They're not healing people and liberating people with their knowledge. Uh they're looking down on others and coming up with strange rules that are imposed. They're not from God to help us. The Pharisees, we could say they're self-righteous, but they're lay people. Uh they're they're looking down on, particularly Gentiles, right? They seem to hate Christ because he's willing to welcome in the Gentiles. Okay? Um, and especially those who are sick, even lepers, right? So we're gonna call them the lay people. Um who was a prominent Pharisee in the New Testament? Uh we're gonna be keepers of the law. Keepers of the law? We could call it enforcers, but but I just want to emphasize they're not priests. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Nicodemus. Paul.

SPEAKER_04 39:23

Yeah, two great ones there, Nicodemus and Paul, absolutely. Lucy? Yeah, it seems they have time on their hands to learn things, so they're a bit of an educated class. They can read, talk about the things they've read, listen to those who are scholars. Um, absolutely. So those are good examples of describing who the Pharisees are. And in particular, Nicodemus seems to know a lot, and and Jesus says to him, You're a teacher of Israel? And you don't understand what I'm talking about? Very basic things. Um so they're they're learned, but they don't seem to know the most important things. They're blinded by their pride, we might say. And so um, Paul, absolutely, Nicodemus and Paul. Let's keep going. Uh or yeah, for 1H, that should be 1D. Sorry about that. Um what repentance did the Pharisees need? We're supposed to do what they say, generally speaking. They seem to know a lot and want to tell you all the things they know, but what are we not supposed to be like them? Why? What repentance are they in need of? Who's he?

unknown 40:37

Hypocrites.

SPEAKER_04 40:38

Okay, they're hypocrites. Uh can you define hypocrite?

unknown 40:41

Someone who publicly says something but doesn't truly say one does something that they don't have.

SPEAKER_04 40:51

Okay, great. So uh they're pretenders. They're they want to be seen as holy, but they're not, right? Uh as opposed to the humble person is seen as holy because he goes around saying he's a sinner. You know, forgive me, I'm sorry. Uh we look at we look up to those people. We don't want to look down on the lowly. Um, they're the ones that are lifted up. And so the the uh the prideful, the hypocrite is the person who seems to think he probably within realizes he's not, but he wants to put on a show, like an actor, right? Uh to put on a mask, a persona that's not authentic. Uh so we can great example would be in the uh in the temple we have a couple men praying. Jesus tells us. Uh one prays in a really prideful way, and he doesn't even seem to pray. He talks to himself. He sees himself as God, even though he's in the temple as if he's talking to God. And this is the Pharisee, right? And the publican. The publican knows he's a sinner, he's a public sinner. People can look down on him because he's publicly sinning, right? But he he buries his head, so he doesn't even want to look up his eye with his eyes to heaven, to his father. And we might say his prayer is the Jesus prayer. It's not the only source of the Jesus prayer, but we want to use that as a daily prayer, just like the Our Father. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me as sinner. And there's so many variants of that. It's a basic one. Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me as sinner. Repeating that over and over is a beautiful way to be like the publican, to be lowly, not a hypocrite. So when we when we condemn ourselves, Christ forgives. When we condemn others, good luck, right? That's that's not what we want to do. Um okay, so those are our Pharisees, the Sadducees. What can you say about the Sadducees? We're coming to a conclusion. To say back, I think sometimes the Sadducees are seen as those who embrace only the Pentateuch and they are at odds with the Pharisees. I want to say that they are at odds with the Pharisees, but they're more like the hypocrites because they embrace more than the five books of Moses. So they should know better, but they don't believe the things they read. They don't believe the things they hear proclaimed with joy, like a resurrection of the body. They're sad, you see. Because they've been hearing the news. They hear the news and they reject it. But they go about as if they're faithful Jews. So they're hypocrites. And I don't say that to condemn, I say it as a quotation of the scriptures and as a warning to myself, right? That I don't want to be up here preaching something I don't believe. I don't want to go out with a bumper sticker or whatever and not live that authentically. I need to radically change, have repentance, metanoia, right? An ontological way of moving in a new direction, which is Christ. Um, so these sad these Samaritan Sadducees, can you think of one by Name, I'm not sure if one gets named. The Sadducees are named in Mark, even, but I don't know if we get a name of a Sadducee per se. Whereas Paul says, I'm a Pharisee of all Pharisees, right? And uh we know Nicodemus's. So we know those for sure. But we'll just say in general we can read about the Sadducees in the Gospels. Let's move. Uh so the repentance clearly that they need believe in the resurrection. It's that's not the end of the story, right? Christ doesn't just die on a cross, it's not an execution, it's the beginning of a world movement of believing in God, right? And lowering ourselves. So the third category that the book talks about, Samaritans. We heard from Jerry the good Samaritan. It's a good one to start with, and also the woman at the well. So her name is actually on your sheet of paper. I don't know if you knew that. She's a canonized saint. I don't know if I don't know if I use canonized, but she's known as a saint in both the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy. She has a feast day. Okay. So Saint Fotini, we'll start with her and we'll come back to the Good Samaritan. Saint Fotini is that woman at the well. What's beautiful about our church is sometimes we can name those people, right? And even pray to them, right? Ask for them to intercede for us and be more like them. So what's her story? How is it that she well, first of all, we can go back. The Samaritans are really the ones with just the Pentateuch. The first five books Basta, right? That's it. Nothing more. And they worship on a different mountain. Sagarasim, which is their their holy mountain. It's not the Temple Mount, right? But ultimately, we want to worship in spirit and truth, right? It's not about which mountain. The mountain per se doesn't matter. It's about worshiping in the heart, where the kingdom is, right? Where Christ dwells. So the Samaritans, uh, they also even have their own land. We can talk about Samaria, right? Christ goes through Samaria. So, in a way, if if we're talking about being infected or contaminated, maybe Christ is even a Samaritan, because he was willing to associate with him. Now he wasn't genealogically, right? He's not a Samaritan. So that's not in his ancestry. We wouldn't name him a Samaritan usually, but in a way, he's the good Samaritan, right? We can say this story is about Christ being rejected by the priest, the rabbi, you know, the Pharisee, these people just walk past, but it's a Samaritan who seems to embrace him. And who does? St. Fatini. That woman at the well, she does embrace him and heal him in a way. Because he's seeking water, right? That's what he wanted. So what repentance do the Samaritans need then? The Samaritans are in need of repentance, as we all are. What type of repentance do Samaritans need? If they were falling astray, yes, but I'd say the Samaritans were seeking to worship the Lord. Um they're following the five books of Moses, which which do speak of, Yahweh. Um so I don't want to say they're worshiping false gods as a practice. They might uh we all do, right? But that's not their belief system. Um but yes, they they need all of us need to repent in that way, so we include them too. Lucas?

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Uh having mercy on their neighbors, letting them pray for their for their neighbor who basically the Jews proper uh oppressed them and authorized them just for me, right?

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Okay, great. So they feel outcast. Are they supposed to return that rejection back? No. Uh turn the other cheek, right? That would be the better option. So there needs to be a healing within the family of Israel. There needs to be because they are Jews. The Samaritans are Jews. They come from um insofar as we can say they come back from Abraham, right? They're part of the family. Um, part of the prior lost Israel.

unknown 48:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

They lost part of it, but they didn't think of a bloodline. So they intermarry with that.

SPEAKER_04 48:24

Yeah, sometimes we can uh use the word Hebrew instead of Jew. So um, but ultimately they they are they are part of the chosen people.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 48:34

I'd like to explore in this super limited time um and still respect your time, this fourth group. Who is a fourth group we want to consider from the gospel? And the Essenes, right? So they're not in the book. The book is uh this is an introduction, right? We're gonna go beyond the book sometimes. But John Bergsma is one in particular among the scholars that's really incredible as a resource to look to learning more about the Essenes. Um, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's a book I I I bought it several years ago when it came out. It's too academic for what I want to be, just reading on the side right now. But I came back to it about a year and a half ago and I loved it. Really embraced it. Some of you have uh probably already read it, but I really encourage that one. John Berg's mutt, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Um his classmates with Brent Petrie. What's that? You have it?

unknown 49:23

I haven't started it yet.

SPEAKER_04 49:24

Okay, start it.

unknown 49:25

Put it at the top.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

Yeah, put it back on your list. Absolutely. Um so, Mike, when when Nicole finishes it, ask her to borrow and you read it too. Save some money. Um this is an important group, and I will say they are named by names, not not by their name, so we don't see the word Essene in the gospel that I know of. Uh, but we know of a couple people that are Essenes or were at some point. Who are a couple of the people we know from the Mark is an S is uh during the story seems to be an Essene. What are some clues, Jerry? Okay, great. I'm gonna thank you, because I want to make sure I say back what you you're saying. I have the worst memory. So um the S scenes include Mark. Uh he's able to pick out where to find the upper room in order to have the uh Last Supper, right? Kind of an important moment in history. Uh so good job, Mark. And he's seeing the man with the jug of water on as carrying it, which is normally a woman's job, we could say back then, culturally speaking, but the S scenes are very much separated from the women, and so a man needs to carry his own water. It's not going to happen otherwise. So, Mark, and also we see um in Mark chapter 14, and a young man followed him. This is chapter 14, verse 51, and a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. So linen cloth, probably not cheap, but he had nothing but that. So I think it's uh John Bergsman will say, no one wears like a really nice suit with nothing underneath it. That's weird. Um where in this case he's wearing a linen with nothing underneath, and so it's it continues, and they seized him, right? But he left the linen cloth and ran away naked, right? So if you took my jacket, I'm good to go, right? Nothing weird here. Um but with Mark, something weird there, right? So this is something that if you know, you know. If we don't know anything about this, we gloss right over that, right? But that's uh it's a little clue that the S scenes are right there in Jesus' midst. Um, and then also really important figure in he came back.

unknown 51:56

You say they like linked up to Mark?

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Okay. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Because when I read that, I was wondering about that. I was like, I think that was Mark, but I didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Yeah, it's not for sure, but like this is the RSP one, you'll see the study edition in your pews. Um, and it's the footnote does say this is often considered to be Mark. That's not essential. We do believe Mark wrote it, but whether that's Mark and the character. So he seems to be poking fun at himself. I ran away naked, right? Not to get a laugh, but to uh to humble himself, right? To be lowly. He's not making fun of somebody else, he's calling himself out, which is a good thing to do. Um and John the Baptist, right? Really important Essene. Um, Zachariah and Elizabeth being older in age, quite possibly, this theory goes, put him in the monastery of the Essenes in Qumran to be raised. And so that's why, for instance, he's uh wearing strange clothing, camel's hair, um, and eating bugs, grasshoppers, things like that. It's not a normal diet, but he doesn't abandon his ways because he's made a vow. So he maintains his dietary standards without uh living among his brethren. He's now out in the wilderness calling for repentance. So we have those figures really important as Essenes. Um, and I've given you one other handout, which I'll just point to and encourage you to read on your own. So this highlighted double side is from Father Pablo Cadens. Um, he's one of uh buddies with Dr. John uh Berg's ma, who we're really always encouraged to read. So this is his commentary on the Gospel of Luke, the Catholic commentary on sacred scripture, came out in 2016. Um and there's a couple interviews with uh Father Gadens. He teaches up at the seminary at Mount St. Mary's, and this explores like the uh the Orange Book is great, but it's an introductory, right? This is a whole commentary on Luke. We've got a paragraph in the Orange Book. So you're okay to believe that he's not the Gentile, right? In fact, you'd be with people like Origen, Jerome, St. Epiphanius, right? Major figures of scripture scholars from the early church. The fathers often saw him as one of the 72, uh, might maybe even a priest, which would explain why he knows so much about temple sacrifice. And um he's not just like a come along lately, right? He seems to have inside knowledge of Christ and the way of worshiping as a Jew. And there's other indications of that in Father Pablo's scholarly commentary. So I invite you to read that. We're out of time by by a bit, so I repent. I ask you to forgive me for that. I apologize, and I hope you have a great day. Let's close with prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit.