Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Good News #188 082325: Heat, Humour, and Holiness: A Deacon’s Weekend Reflections

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Good News #188 082325: Heat, Humour, and Holiness: A Deacon’s Weekend Reflections · 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. I'm Deacon Al Lundy here on the Catholic Spirit Radio.
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We talk to you every Saturday and Sunday evening from 8 to 8.30 to talk about
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the good news, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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We do that through the readings of this weekend's Mass, and talk a little bit
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about what's going on in my life, maybe a little bit of what's going on in your life.
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And so far in our lives this week, it's been hot.
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Today was the first day we really had something of a cool spell, but I mean it's been hot.
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I serve two churches here in Bloomington, and we had air conditioners break
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down, not in one, but in both churches.
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So got to go from one very, very hot mass to another very, very hot mass.
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And it happened in both churches that the air conditioning unit that wasn't
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working was the one that controlled the climate in the sacristy and the sanctuary.
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So yes, our parishioners had it rough. It wasn't as comfortable as we'd normally
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like it to be, but up in the sanctuary, when you're under layers of vestments.
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I've been visiting my son in Vegas before, and I don't think I ever felt as
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hot as I felt in those hot, humid sanctuaries. Oh my goodness.
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I was reminded of when I was a child, one of the few homilies I remember.
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And I mean, right now, I'm always surprised when somebody remembers the homily
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after they walk out the door.
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But to remember one for decades, that had to be a pretty good homily, right?
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So it was like 102 outside in my home parish.
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No air conditioning in the building. We, you know, parishes didn't always have
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air conditioning. You had oscillating fans.
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We had one oscillating fan for our parish.
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Place sat, I would guess, 250 people, right? And it's up in the sanctuary pointing
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out at the nave, just swinging back and forth slowly.
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I'm watching the priest, Father O'Donnell, sweet, sweet man, just dripping in sweat.
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And he steps up to the ambo for the homily.
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And he stands there for a moment, and he just kind of looks thoughtfully out at the congregation.
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And he says, in his great Irish accent, Dear God, it's hot in here.
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In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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And he went and sat down. That was the homily, because I'll bet it had to be 112, 114 in that church.
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So as I prepare for my homily this weekend, that's all I can think of right now.
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After last weekend's Masses, Father O'Donnell's words just keep ringing in my head.
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Oh, pardon me. And I'm going to try not to have that short of a homily.
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But hopefully, if today's any forebearer, it might be a little more comfortable. I'm hoping.
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What else is going on besides the heat? Well, the fog.
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We've had a couple days of really, really heavy fog, which simply means it's
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humid and warm air is moving in.
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Neither was really a good sign. What else? Oh, I know. Moe. Have I told you about Moe?
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So I'm getting up there in years. We've had some really hot days.
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Getting out to do lawn care has been really, really tough.
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So my wife, my lovely wife finally said, maybe you should get a tractor.
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And like any guy, my eyes widened and yes, thumbs went up. Yes,
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I love you, right? Let's get a tractor.
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My yard's too small. I knew that. As soon as she said that, my yard,
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our yard is too small for a tractor. Well, maybe they make a small tractor.
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That's a possibility. So I looked into small tractors.
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Well, the center of balance on a small tractor does not fill me with hope because
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I've got a berm in my backyard. I have a big slope up.
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It doesn't rise a huge amount, maybe six feet higher than the,
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but it's on a, it's a pretty good slope.
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And I'm looking at these small tractors and how high you sit on such a small
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base. And I thought, I'm not sure about this, right?
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So I'm driving by Firestone Tires, OTR. here in Bloomington.
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And I look out and they have robots. They have three little gray and orange
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robots running around their fields. And they got quite a bit of acreage out there.
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And they're cutting the grass and it looks really nice where they're cutting.
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And I thought, well, wonder about a robot.
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It turns out they're a lot cheaper than a tractor, a lot cheaper than a tractor.
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They cost less than a heart attack.
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Right? Which at my age, that's a big plus.
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That's a big plus. So I started looking into robots. Used to be you had to bury
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a line of wire around the perimeter of your yard and it would stay inside the wire.
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I had a neighbor who had one of those. I talked to her and she said,
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that's great unless the grass gets tall and then it can't see the wire.
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And then it's anybody's guess where that's going to mow, right?
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So they still have ones that use a wire, but now
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they have ones that use lidar this thing
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actually looks and it talks to satellites and it's
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got a camera and it looks at things and determines what's mobile and what's
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not mobile right and so i got me a robot and we call him we've named him mo
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mo looks like a formula one racer with all wheel tires for a big trend to do
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the incline it does the berm it'll do a 50 incline.
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So so that's pretty cool mow takes i i would be able to mow my lawn on a nice
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day i could raise through my lawn at a pretty good pace done in 45 minutes,
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mow takes six and a half hours and i don't care because i'm doing something
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else while mo is doing the mowing and this is the closest i've ever got to buy locating,
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I'm mowing the lawn while I'm doing something else, right?
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So here's my idea of a perfect life.
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I spend all day at church in adoration, at mass, evangelizing.
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And while I'm doing that, I'll have a robot mowing the lawn.
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I can get controllers for my lawn sprinklers, right?
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That I can use an app on my phone.
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I could have the dishwasher start on a timer, right? Don't have to be there for that.
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They have vacuums. They have robot vacuums. I could be at church all day while
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my lawn's getting mowed.
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My house is getting vacuumed. My dishes are getting washed.
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My lawn is getting, how good is this? Now, I'm not to that point yet,
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but I'll have to tell you, talk about temptations.
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Turning your house into robot-controlled so you can spend time doing things
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for God, that's a temptation.
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Now, I don't know if that's ostentatious or not. Am I committing one sin while
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I'm trying to take care of some others?
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I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet.
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I just know that I don't have to mow anymore.
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And I like that. And there's the blades. You know what lawnmower blades,
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when you go to change them, how tough that is. And then you have to resharpen razor blades.
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Double-edged razor blades, six of them. Take out a screw, drop in a new razor
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blade, or flip the one that you've been using, flip it over,
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because the other side hasn't been touched yet. It shaves your lawn.
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Well, you know, I've used an electric racer for a long time.
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It's really not any different.
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I just, I feel like I'm just allowing my lawn to use my electric shaver.
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That's basically what it is. It looks nice.
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And I have some very jealous neighbors.
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And I didn't mean to do that. But they're out residing the house and re-roofing
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the house and getting new decks.
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And I told Keith across the street from me, I said, Keith, You know,
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you're making me look bad because you've replaced all the windows.
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You've resided the house. And
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he said, yeah, but you've got the coolest lawnmower in town. Now, I don't.
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Actually, OTR and State Farm and Country Companies, I believe,
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has these guys as well. They're a little larger than my little guy.
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But there are some cool lawnmowers out there, guys. And they're quiet.
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And they have headlights.
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You can run it during the night and nobody will know. So it's just,
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anyway, I just thought I'd get that out there that I have a lawnmower now.
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So that allows me to stay active more longer because I've pushed back my heart attack.
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I've just rescheduled my heart attack, right? I have this theory I shared with
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some friends the other day who are big on going to the gym and things like that.
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I really believe that we were created by God with so many heartbeats.
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And when those heartbeats are used up, you pass away.
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Exercise exercise that uses up a lot
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of heartbeats my friend a lot of heartbeats so
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i'm thinking i can i can be reading scripture while my lawn's getting mowed
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right that's a plus there you go i think i'm trying to talk myself into into
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something that i shouldn't be talking myself into but anyway i just thought
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that's just my life this week it's always something going on,
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So we're going to pause here for just a couple minutes. We're going to come back.
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I'm going to talk about important things rather than unimportant things like I've been doing.
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We're going to look at the scriptures from this weekend's Mass for the 21st
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Sunday in Ordinary Time. You're listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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Good news. I'm Deacon Al Lundy, permanent deacon of the Peoria Diocese,
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and a privilege to reach out to you over the airways of Catholic Spirit Radio.
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You can also check out the shows that have been done in the past.
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You can find those on our blog site at catholicspiritradio.org.
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A great website, all sorts of cool information.
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Besides some of our past programs and some of the other live programs that we
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have here on the station, you're going to find all kinds of calendars for church
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events for all over our diocese.
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If you're listening to me right now, then your diocese has information on Catholic
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Spirit Radio or could have.
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If they don't, contact us and say, hey, this is what my parish is doing.
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This is what my diocese is doing.
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We will be glad to promote it on our website.
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reaching far beyond the Bloomington Normal area, not only throughout the Peoria
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Diocese, but we go into the Joliet Diocese.
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We go into Rochester, not Rochester, what am I trying to think of, where we just opened.
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We're up in Madison and just all over the place.
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So anyway, I know we're having a brain freeze here at the moment, both John and I.
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But we're reaching all over. Milwaukee, yeah.
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So be sure and check that out.
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So our readings this weekend, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, our first reading
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comes from the prophet Isaiah, who, by the way, lived about 700, 800 years prior to the.
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So, much of Isaiah talks about Jesus, especially like chapter 53,
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chapter 66, which we're going to be reading from.
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A lot of it talks about the coming of Christ and gives us a lot of information about what to expect.
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And today's reading is no different. We've got our second reading is from Paul
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to the—I'm sorry, it's a letter to the Hebrews, and most people consider Paul
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as the author of Hebrews.
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And then we have the gospel, of course, according to Luke, as we're studying
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Luke in the church all year long.
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So, from Isaiah, Thus says the Lord, I know their works and their thoughts,
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and I come to gather nations of every language, and they shall come to see my glory.
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I will set a sign among them. From them I will send fugitives to the nation,
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to Tarshish, Put, Lud, Masak, Tubal, Javan, to the distant coastlands.
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They have never heard of my fame or seen my glory, and they shall proclaim my
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glory among the nations.
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They shall bring all their brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering
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to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and carts on mules and dromedaries,
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to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the Lord.
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Just as the Israelites bring their offering to the house of the Lord in clean
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vessels, some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the Lord, the word of the Lord.
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So seven, 800 years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah is telling us through
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the words of God that I will set a sign among them and from them I will send
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fugitives to the nations. That's Jesus, that's the apostles.
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So he's telling us that something really incredible is about to happen.
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Up to this point, God's people have always been the Jews, all gathered mainly around Jerusalem.
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The holy mountain. But soon, God is going to reach out to all lands,
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to all people, and draw them together in one church.
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He talks about bringing them together to give glory to His name.
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It's the purpose of the church, right?
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To gather a community in the name of God.
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So, we're being warned hundreds of years before the Messiah,
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before Christ comes, what God has in mind.
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Now, we turn to the letter to the Hebrews. Brothers and sisters,
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you have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children.
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My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved
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by Him. For whom the Lord loves, He disciplines.
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He scourges every son He acknowledges.
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Endure your trials as discipline. God treats you as sons. For what son is there
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whom his father does not discipline?
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At the time, all the discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain.
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Yet later, it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
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So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
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Make straight paths for your feet. And what is lame may now be disjointed but
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healed. The Word of the Lord.
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So, who doesn't complain about their aches and pains, their woes,
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their problems at school, their problems at work? We all have issues.
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So much of that is brought about by sin. Maybe not our sin, maybe someone else's sin.
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But sin is still at the cause of all our unhappiness.
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And God's telling us, be patient, persevere. Life is not going to be easy. Life is meant to be hard.
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What father doesn't love his child enough to see them disciplined?
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Not to hurt them, but to make them stronger, make them better,
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bring them about to a right path. It's not easy.
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And God doesn't promise us that it will be easy.
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What He promises us is that at the end, we will be with Him forever. This is temporary.
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This is not our home. Our home is in heaven. This is our proving grounds.
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And so, there's going to be problems.
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And stick with it. Persevere in the name of God.
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Persevere in the name of Christ and in what Christ went through for us.
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He suffered out of love, not out of punishment.
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We can turn our suffering into that same kind of love.
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In our gospel reading from Luke.
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It says, Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making
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his way to Jerusalem, just as we heard in our first reading from Isaiah.
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Someone asked him, Lord, will only a few people be saved?
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He answered them, strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many,
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I tell you, will attempt to enter, but will not be strong enough.
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After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
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then will you stand outside knocking and saying, Lord, open the door for us?
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And he'll say to you in reply, I do not know where you are from.
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And you will say, we ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.
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And he'll say to you, I do not know where you are from.
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Depart from me, all you evildoers. And there will be wailing and grinding of
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teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom
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of God, and you yourselves cast out.
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And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south.
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And will recline a table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who
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will be first, and some are first who will be last. The Gospel of the Lord.
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So once again, we hear that the way to heaven is not an easy one,
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and God never promised that it would be easy.
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I mean, how do you know if you're truly a follower of Christ?
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Today's Gospel presents Jesus' uncompromising challenge regarding the serious
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demands of true discipleship.
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We read in Scripture that His disciples often did not fully grasp the challenge of being a disciple.
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Jesus is the door to life, and we have to walk through that door in order to enter the kingdom.
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But today we hear about a narrow gate, a heavy door, a locked door,
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with Jesus urging us to focus on entering through them, reminding us that the
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journey requires effort.
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So what's needed to pass through this door? What kind of strength and perseverance is required?
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Jesus tells that we must be willing to take up our cross and follow Him every
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day of our lives, not just now and then, but every day.
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We need to suffer through these problems, and we need to turn to Christ,
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not necessarily to solve them for us, but to give us the strength and walk with us.
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And I think that's where we miss the boat a lot. We keep asking God to take the storm away.
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Think about the reading we had just a couple weeks ago with the storm on the
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ocean with the disciples in the boat, and Jesus comes walking out to them through the storm.
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He's going to ride out the storm with them.
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And they're all frightened because they're more worried about the storm than
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they are about moving towards Christ.
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But Peter says, if it's really you, tell me to come to you and I will.
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Jesus tells him to come, and Peter steps out of the boat and begins to walk
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across the water to Christ.
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He's doing what seems to be the impossible in order to be with Christ.
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But then his focus changes, and he starts paying attention to the storm,
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to the height of the waves, the strength of the wind, the lightning, the rain.
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And as his focus leaves Christ, he sinks into the storm.
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We aren't different than that, are we? We tend to get so absorbed in our own
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personal problems that we stay away from prayer. We stay away from Mass.
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Maybe we stay away from Bible study because this is such a huge problem.
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I've got to solve this problem.
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There is no problem so big that Christ can't help, but you have to talk to Him.
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You have to move closer to Him as Peter started to do. Don't lose your focus.
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You have to persevere in your faith every day in order to not be swallowed up by the storm.
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It's a great series of readings this Sunday.
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If you didn't pay attention or you haven't been to Mass yet,
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go and read it. Pay attention to these readings.
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Pay attention to what the prophet is telling us, what the apostles are telling
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us, what Christ is telling us.
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These aren't just stories. These are lessons that hold brilliant truth to them,
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that have been true for now 2,000 years and longer.
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And still, we don't pay attention. And that's really what Jesus is telling us
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in today's reading. Pay attention.
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This is worth understanding. What does it take to be a follower of Christ?
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You need to try and be making yourself in the image of Christ.
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And that can only be done through an act of the Holy Spirit.
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That can only be done through prayer and obedience.
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Every day we should be able to end the day saying, who did I show forgiveness
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to today? Who did I show love to today?
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What did I do to show my love to God today? And it starts in the home.
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What are you doing in your home to show love to your children,
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love to your spouse, love to your family, love to your neighbor?
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It's exhausting. It really is. If it weren't for the strength we get through
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the sacraments and the strength we get through Christ,
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God asks a lot of us, but then he offers us the most incredible reward you could ask for.
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And he offers it freely. He offers it with his own blood, his own sacrifice.
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And all he asks in return is to love God and love our neighbor.
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And yet, we kill. We have these horrific wars where thousands are dying every week.
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I heard a number the other day where in one African nation, a day,
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a hundred Christians a day are dying, murdered for their faith,
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martyred for their faith. It's just...
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What this world needs is more Christians, not less. And it seems we keep trying
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to lower the count when we need to be raising the count.
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And to that end, we offer a program through the Catholic Church called OCIA,
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Order of Christian Initiation for Adults.
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This takes place in every parish throughout the country, and it all starts now,
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basically this month or within the next couple weeks, your parish will be starting it.
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And if you're not Catholic and want to be, this is the doorway in,
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this is the narrow door in, because it's a lot of effort.
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It's an evening a week for nine months.
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And then what's waiting for you at the end of it is Christ.
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The body and blood of Christ waits you at graduation, if you will.
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I'm really happy to say that in the parish I serve, we have 13 people now going
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through the OCIA program, and this is after one class.
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We'll probably have a few more join us at the next class.
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And it's working all over the world. Remember, one of the last numbers we get
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out of Scripture is the 72 disciples that Jesus sent out on mission.
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Seventy-two. Right now in the world, there is 1.4 billion Catholics.
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People say, oh, the Catholic Church, you know, look at the attendance at Mass.
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The Catholic Church is going down. And actually, we're growing every year.
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Now, it might not be growing in your neighborhood, but you're not the only neighborhood.
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We have neighborhoods all over the world.
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And the Catholic faith is growing because it's God's church.
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It's the only church founded by Christ.
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So it's time to make a decision if you're going to follow christ follow what he commands,
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get the sacraments take the eucharist love god love your neighbor if you're
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not catholic and you want to be now's the time to listen to the holy spirit
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and say i'm i'm ready to learn about this.
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And call your parish and sign up for OCIA.
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And come Easter, be ready to join this marvelous faith.
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And as Scott Hahn would say, it's time to come home.
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With that, I'll wish you a wonderful week. May Almighty God bless you,
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protect you from all evil, and bring you to everlasting life.
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Good night. 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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Thank you for listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.