Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Good News #198 120625: Facing Death with Faith: A Deacon’s Advent Reflection

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Good News #198 120625: Facing Death with Faith: A Deacon’s Advent Reflection · Catholic Spirit Radio

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  Welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio, a program for teens and almost
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  teens to better understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant in their
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  lives, and it's a place where your questions about faith and religion can be answered.
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  And now, here's your host, Deacon Al.
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  Good evening and welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  I am Deacon Al Lundy, a permanent deacon of the Peoria Diocese,
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  and we're here to talk about good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord.
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  And we'll be looking at the readings from this Sunday's Mass in just a little bit.
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  Until then, talk to you a little bit about my week.
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  Hope your week has been good. We're heading into the second week of Advent.
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  It's hard to believe Christmas is creeping up. Two and a half weeks,
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  John. Two and a half weeks.
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  Isn't that amazing? Wow. Anyway, it's been a bit of a week.
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  Two days ago, this is, if you're listening either Saturday night or Sunday evening
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  now, two days ago, I buried my mother-in-law.
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  So yeah, it's hard to believe. My mother died in June, and now my mother-in-law
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  has just passed, was with each of them in their hospital room when they passed.
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  Wow. And then did the funeral, deacon the funeral for both of them,
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  did the homily at the funeral mass for both of them, did the graveside service for both of them.
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  And I am so glad to be Catholic. It's, you know, this is one of the occasions
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  in life where I am just so glad to be Catholic.
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  I've been to other funerals, other funeral services and other faiths,
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  and they're quite lovely, but they're usually focused on mourning.
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  They're usually focused on
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  the loss of a loved one and consoling the family, consoling the friends.
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  But it's really focused on the sorrow. and the Catholic mass,
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  the funeral mass and the graveside service are really focused on joy.
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  And it's so refreshing and it's so uplifting and so hopeful that,
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  that it's more about the promise of Christ's resurrection than about the loss of a loved one.
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  And that's what it should be on. This should be a reminder of our own mortality.
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  But it should be more a reminder of our own faith and our own hope as was lived
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  out through the person who passed.
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  Both my mother and my mother-in-law were women of deep faith,
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  both Catholic, both very active
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  in their Catholic faith, both held on to their faith to the very end.
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  My mother-in-law, this last week that she's been ill, she has known since the
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  first day of her illness that this was going to be fatal.
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  She knew that it was just a matter of time, a matter of days,
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  and she was well aware of that.
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  And she took that news and lived out those last 10 days with the most amazing
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  bravery and faith and calmness that I've ever witnessed in someone.
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  I know a lot of people who are gravely ill, cancers and other issues where they
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  know their time is limited.
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  And many of them are, they're still upset.
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  They're upset about the loss of this life, the loss of the company of their
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  loved ones and their friends.
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  They're concerned about what's going to happen to the other people in their
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  lives, but they're also worried about themselves. What's going to happen to me?
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  Have I lived the life I needed to live?
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  Have I been forgiven for the sins that I need to be forgiven for?
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  What's going to happen when I come face to face with God?
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  Not my mother-in-law. She was just, you know what? If God's ready for me, I'm ready for God.
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  And if this is how he wants things to end, so be it, you know, his will.
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  She had her sacraments, anointing the sick, the apostolic pardon, and she was good to go.
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  In fact, her last night alive, she was in a morphine sleep.
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  The pain that she was going through got to be a little too much, and it woke her up.
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  So before they gave her some more morphine, she looks around the hospital room.
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  My sister-in-law is in the room with her overnight. We were keeping vigil.
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  And my sister-in-law was there. And she said, Mom looked around the room and
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  then turned to her and said, Why am I still here?
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  Like, what's God waiting for? I'm ready. Let's get this show on the road kind
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  of thing. Why am I still here?
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  And they had a good chuckle over it. And she knew that she was in the last hours of her life.
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  She was just so ready and so looking forward.
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  Her biggest concern wasn't the life that she led because she's a good woman.
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  This was a, I mean, she raised three wonderful children, all daughters,
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  had a lovely marriage, lasted over 50 years before my father-in-law passed away.
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  Tony was great. I just adored the man.
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  And so did she. And so she was anxious to see Tony.
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  She knew she had lived a good life and done the best she can.
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  And she was willing to take whatever God offered her.
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  And going in with having received the sacrament of healing three times in the
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  last five days, and the apostolic pardon twice,
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  she felt, you know, this is as clean as I can get, God, so, you know, take me as I am.
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  And so she was really comfortable with the fact that she was about to pass away.
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  There was no hesitation. There was no concern.
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  She was just, she was curious.
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  She was curious about the transition. She had great faith in the teachings of Christ.
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  She had great hope in the promise of eternal life.
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  And what was greater than both of those was her curiosity.
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  What's the transition like? And I thought, what a beautiful question.
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  What a great state of mind to be in at the time of your death. No fear.
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  You know, Jesus says, be not afraid.
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  And she wasn't. And in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about,
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  you know, this, oh, death, where is thy sting?
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  You know, so he talks about my faith is in Christ.
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  So why should I be afraid of death? And my mother-in-law, Margaret, lived that out.
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  And God bless her. And Margaret, we know you're healthy now and happy and in the arms of Christ.
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  And we hope you'll put in a good word for all of us now that you're there,
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  because at some point in time, we'll be following behind you.
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  And we look forward to seeing you and Tony again.
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  And thank you for what you taught us in those last few days.
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  She was so concerned about, why hasn't God taken me yet?
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  And she asked me, and I said, obviously, he's not done with you yet.
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  He still needs you for something.
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  And I think I figured out what it was. As I was writing her homily the other
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  day, God was using her to teach.
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  Her daughters, myself, and the hospital staff, about the dignity of dying,
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  the dignity of life, but the dignity of the next life.
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  There wasn't a nurse or a doctor who visited her in that last week that didn't
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  know she was dying, that knew that she knew she was dying,
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  and yet they were so moved by how confident she was in Christ.
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  And how joyous she was about, yeah, this life's ending, but look what's ahead of me.
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  And I mean, she had people in tears. They were all asking, are you okay?
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  Do you need anything to calm your nerves? And she says, what do I have to be
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  nervous about? I've got Christ.
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  And people were just in awe of her show of faith.
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  And I think that's why, even with all that she had going on,
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  that God kept her around a while because she was an inspiration to everyone
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  she met in that last week.
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  And she met a lot of doctors and a lot of nurses in those last seven days.
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  And thank you to the staff at Carl, Carl Broman in Bloomington.
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  You were wonderful to Margaret and took such great care of her and showed her such compassion.
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  So thank you very much for that.
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  Thank you to my priest friends who came to visit her.
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  Appreciate everything you did to prepare her. But thank you,
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  Margaret, for leaving us such a great legacy of faith and hope and perseverance.
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  So that was my week. And not the most fun I've ever had, but certainly very
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  educational, very moving. very enriching.
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  And so now it's, you know, she's with God and good for her.
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  And hopefully we'll all be able
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  to meet our Creator with the same joy and dignity Margaret met Him with.
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  So that's me this week. I hope as we move through Advent, you're thinking about
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  how are you going to meet Christ?
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  What are you going to be like?
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  Are you ready? Is your inner room decorated? Is it cleaned up and ready to go?
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  Are you ready to come before the throne and say, my Lord and my God,
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  and be welcomed into heaven?
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  It's a good time to think about that, because as our readings last week told
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  us, you never know when it's going to happen.
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  My mother-in-law certainly didn't know that 10 days prior she was going to pass. She had no idea.
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  But she was ready, and she was ready from that moment. And that was obvious
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  from the time that the final illness struck.
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  So we should all be that way. And Advent's a good time to get ourselves prepared
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  for the coming of Christ, both
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  in the Nativity and in our lives at His second coming or at our death.
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  It's all the same. It's all Christ coming in contact with us personally.
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  So keep that in mind. We're going to take a few-minute break.
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  And when we come back, we're going to look at the readings from this Sunday's
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  Mass, the second Sunday of Advent.
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  Stay tuned. Good news will be right back on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  December 8 is a holy day of obligation. You can find the special Mass times
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  for over 100 local churches in the cities of our listening audiences.
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  Go to catholicspiritradio.com and click on the Mass tab at the top of the page
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  and then click December 8.
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  Welcome back to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  I am Deacon Al Lundy. We're looking at the readings from the second Sunday of Advent.
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  The first one is from the Old Testament, from the prophet Isaiah.
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  Our second reading will be from Letter to the Romans, from Paul.
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  And then our Gospel is the Gospel of Matthew.
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  We're into Cycle A now. So for the rest of this year, until the first Sunday
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  of Advent in 2026, we're in Cycle A, which is primarily Matthew's readings.
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  So, a reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
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  On that day, a shoot shall sprout up from the stump of Jesse,
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  and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
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  The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
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  a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord,
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  and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.
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  Not by appearance shall he be judged, nor by hearsay shall he decide,
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  but he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide a right for the lands afflicted.
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  He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath
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  of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
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  Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.
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  Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.
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  The calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.
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  The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest.
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  The lion shall eat hay like the ox.
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  The baby shall play by the cobra's den, and the child lay his hand on the adder's lair.
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  There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain, for the earth shall
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  be filled with knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea.
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  On that day, the root of Jesse set up as a signal for the nations.
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  The Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious. The word of the Lord.
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  The reading starts off with Isaiah, who again was prophet long before the incarnation of God as Jesus,
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  telling us about that incarnation, telling us about the coming of Christ through the tribe of Jesse.
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  He talks about how the Spirit of God will be upon him, talks about how he's
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  going to debate with the Pharisees.
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  The rod of his mouth shall fight them, So it talks about how he's going to stand
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  up against some of the evil in his world.
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  But then it moves on, it gets more into the end of days, the final judgment,
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  when the earth becomes at peace and Jesus returns.
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  So there's a lot into this. But what I want you to really take away from it,
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  most of all, is that the prophets of the tribes of Israel knew the Messiah was coming.
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  This wasn't a surprise. They were expecting him. And yet when he came,
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  very few recognized him.
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  And I find that interesting that they take a thousand years to teach these lessons
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  about the coming of the Messiah and what to expect from him.
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  And when he comes and he fulfills all these signs, they say,
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  no, that's not him. It's got to be somebody else. We'll keep waiting.
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  Well, some are still waiting. The tribes of, I mean, the Jews are still waiting for that Messiah.
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  But the Messiah came and he completed what God started through the Israelites.
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  Jesus completed with his coming. And those who recognize that,
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  that was the early church.
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  Those were the first Christians. That was the Catholic church.
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  And it's been around now for 2,000 years. And there's been all kinds of other
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  Christian churches have sprouted up.
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  And we talk about Jesus coming from the root of Jesse, most of our Protestant
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  brothers and sisters, their faith came from the roots of Catholicism.
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  They all have some taste of Catholicism in there, but then they changed things.
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  They said, well, even as in the time of the apostles when Jesus said,
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  my body is real food, my blood is real drink.
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  And so many of his disciples said, that's kind of tough.
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  That's a little hard to understand. It's too difficult for us to understand
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  And so we're going to go back.
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  And it was the ones who had faith in him as the Messiah, as God incarnate,
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  that stuck with him, that became the apostles of the Christian church and the
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  first bishops of the Catholic church.
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  And our churches now, we have new Christian churches springing up every day.
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  And they all have their roots in Catholicism, but then they take the parts that
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  are too hard for them to understand or too hard for them to follow, and they change them.
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  And that's why we have one Catholic church and tens of thousands of Protestant
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  churches in the world now, all with different doctrines, all with different
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  administration, different leaderships,
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  different beliefs, different traditions, different practices.
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  And to me, that just shows the Holy Spirit at work guiding this church,
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  that it's held together for 2,000 years to its core beliefs and really hasn't changed.
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  Our second reading is from the letter to the Romans.
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  St. Paul writes, Brothers and sisters, whatever was written previously was written
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  for our instruction, that by endurance and by encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.
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  May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with
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  one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with
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  one voice glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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  Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you for the glory of God.
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  For I say that Christ became a minister of the circumcised to show God's truthfulness,
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  to confirm the promises to the patriarchs, but so that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.
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  As it is written, Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing praises
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  to your name. The word of the Lord.
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  So Paul's writing to the Roman Christians, inviting them to stick together,
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  to stay unified, to remember that this is one church under one Christ.
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  Not to let differences, Jew or Gentile, Roman, slave or freeman,
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  not to let these differences tear them apart, but let these differences unite
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  them through the same singular Christ.
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  Our gospel is according to Matthew.
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  This comes from the third chapter of Matthew, verses 1 through 12.
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  John the Baptist appeared preaching in the desert of Judea and saying,
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  Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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  It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said,
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  A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord,
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  make straight his paths.
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  John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist.
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  His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time, Jerusalem,
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  all of Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and
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  were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.
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  When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism,
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  he said to them, You brood of vipers!
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  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
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  Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. and do not presume to say
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  to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.
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  For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
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  Even now the axe lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does
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  not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
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  I am baptizing you with water for repentance.
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  But the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
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  I'm not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
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  His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather
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  his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The Gospel of the Lord.
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  A really powerful letter when you sit down and tear this open.
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  Paul's saying that what was written before, the Old Testament,
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  the Torah, was written for instruction.
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  Not as a finale, not as the end of lessons, but as instructions as to what's to come.
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  He's telling them that the time is coming for the Messiah to come.
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  What they've been taught for all these years.
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  And now it's time to get ready for them. So he's doing a baptism of repentance.
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  And that's the big difference between the baptism that John does and the baptism that the church does.
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  The baptism in the church is a baptism of salvation.
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  Through baptism, we die in Christ and we rise again with Christ.
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  We resurrect with Christ.
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  It's a baptism into new life.
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  Something we talk about at funerals. We start a funeral by baptizing the casket.
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  We sprinkle it with holy water. we dress it in a white pall,
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  a white veil, reminiscent of the white that we wear for our own baptism.
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  So we start our life in baptism with Christ, we end our life in the grave with
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  Christ, and then we are resurrected to life eternal with Christ.
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  And so this is what Paul is talking to them about. And I think it's a beautiful letter.
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  I'm sorry, what Matthew's talking about. It's a beautiful gospel.
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  And we find John dressing as a repentant sinner. He's wearing coarse clothes.
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  Sometimes they would wear like a burlap. He's wearing camel hair.
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  If you've ever touched a camel, you know how spiny and bristly the skin is.
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  It had to be uncomfortable to dress in that.
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  He ate locusts and honey, so insects, and what he could find in the desert.
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  This was common for someone who was repenting, would go out to live in the desert
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  and live off the desert without any of the comforts of home.
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  So he's being an example of great repentance to the people.
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  And they're coming to him in droves because he's saying, look,
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  the Messiah is coming. You need to get ready.
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  But now you have showing up in mass in group, the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
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  the very people who John knows is going to reject the Messiah.
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  And he's warning them, you're treading really thin ice here, folks.
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  You're doing this for show. And God doesn't care about the show.
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  He's going to care about what's in your hearts. So you better show real repentance here.
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  You better start producing some good fruit or you're going to be among the trees
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  that God is going to separate from himself, this ax that's going to sever you at the roots,
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  cut you away from the vineyard of Christ.
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  And then what's going to happen? Well, the wheat, the good grain,
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  the believers, the repentant, the repenters, he's going to gather up for himself.
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  But those of you who are only in it for the show, that's the chaff.
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  That's the meaningless, the worthless part of the grain.
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  He's going to gather you up and burn you. And this is reference to Hades,
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  to hell, to the suffering, eternal suffering.
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  So he's warning them, get yourself right with God, because the time is coming
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  for the Messiah to arrive.
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  And that's what this Advent season is all about.
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  It's time for us to get ourselves ready, not just put on a show,
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  not to just decorate the house, decorate the yard. That's pretty,
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  but that doesn't show your love for Christ.
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  It shows your love for ornaments, for decorations.
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  And I decorate my house. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that,
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  but that can't be all you do.
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  There has to be, during the season of Advent, there has to be fruitfulness.
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  There has to be repentance. You have to start changing and living your life
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  for Christ and not for other things.
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  Not for, like I say, just the show, not just the talk.
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  God is calling us to prepare ourselves to bear good fruit.
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  Not only outside in our actions, but internally in our inner home.
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  That's what Advent's all about.
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  And I hope that you'll take it seriously. I hope to see you at Mass.
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  I hope to see you at the sacraments.
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  It's a great time to go to the sacrament of penance during this season.
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  And decorate yourself with good works. Decorate yourself with charity to others.
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  Decorate yourself with love for your family and your friends and your neighbor.
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  Those are the decorations that count to God. That's what Jesus is looking for in our lives.
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  May Almighty God bless you, protect you from all evil, and bring you to everlasting life.
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  Good night from Good News and Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  You've been listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio,
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  a program for teens and almost teens to better understand that the gospel of
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  Jesus Christ is relevant in your life.
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  Submit your questions to Deacon Al at goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com.
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  Deacon will answer your questions about faith and religion.
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  Thank you for listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.