Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Good News #204 02072026: Brisket, Bulb, and Blessings: Deacon Al’s Parish Stories

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Good News #204 02072026: Brisket, Bulb, and Blessings: Deacon Al’s Parish Stories · Catholic Spirit Radio

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  Welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio, a program for teens and almost
• 0:04
  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, Permanent Deacon of the Peoria Diocese,
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  here every Saturday and Sunday from 8 to 8.30, looking at the readings from
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  this weekend's Mass and giving my take on it, my personal reflection.
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  Also talk a little bit about what's going on in my life and in my church.
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  And very happy to have you with us tonight. And I hope you enjoy the next 30 minutes.
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  So what's going on in the church? I'll tell you what's going on in my parish, all right?
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  So I serve two parishes in Bloomington, Illinois.
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  One is called Holy Trinity. when it's called Historic St. Patrick.
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  So at Historic St. Patrick, one of our priests, Father Bo, decided to carry
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  on a tradition from previous parishes.
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  He hosted a chili night, a chili contest.
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  Now, I'm not a big chili fan, I'll be honest with you.
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  Chili, Sloppy Joe's, I like Sloppy Joe's, which is real close to chili.
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  Just doesn't have the beans, right?
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  I know, and I like baked beans, I do.
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  But there's other beans I'm not
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  so hot on. And chili, chili has just never been a big favorite of mine.
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  But he's having this chili contest, and I want to support my parish,
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  you know, make sure events are successful. So I said, you know what, I'll do a pot of chili.
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  Now, again, not a big chili guy, not a big bean guy.
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  So somebody told me, one of my buddies, said that in Texas, chili does not have beans in it.
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  That putting beans in chili is a Midwestern offense to chili that we do here in the center states.
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  And so I got curious and I went online and I looked up Texas beanless chili
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  recipes and I got a bunch of them.
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  And so one of them was for an all meat chili, but you used, Oh,
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  now I'm going to forget the cut of meat. It's a really good cut of meat.
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  It's like a big piece of beef that they grill usually.
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  And why can't I think of the name of it now?
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  No, no, not ribeye, not steak. No, no, no, no, no. Something you would normally smoke.
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  Brisket, brisket. Thank you, John. A brisket chili.
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  And I thought, that sounds interesting, right? So I thought,
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  I'm going to make a brisket chili.
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  Then, then I did something really stupid.
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  And I told some of my church friends when we were comparing notes for this upcoming
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  event, I mentioned, I'm going to make a brisket chili.
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  So now I'm kind of locked into it. I can't change my mind.
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  Now, why would I change my mind? Well, I went to the store to buy the ingredients.
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  I had no idea how expensive brisket was. This recipe calls for five pounds, five pounds of brisket.
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  It's like 23 bucks a pound, right? And I need five pounds of brisket.
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  All right, I'm going to admit it. I cheated. I went back online and I said,
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  what's a substitute for brisket? And Google.
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  Google, thank goodness, came back and said, well, there's a thing called the
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  poor man's brisket, and that is chuck roast. Five-pound chuck roast.
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  Still, not cheap, but not 90 bucks, right?
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  So I made brisket chili.
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  Now, just to give you an idea of what this takes, you start by cooking bacon,
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  about four strips of bacon. You fry four strips of bacon until they're crispy.
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  And then you take them out of the pan and you've taken your brisket,
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  or in this case, ground, I mean, chuck roast, chuck roast.
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  And you've, you've cubed it into little quarter inch cubes and you've flopped
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  it in a mixture of spices that the recipe gives you.
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  Salt and pepper and cayenne and a bunch of other stuff. And you flop it around
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  until everything's coated. and then you fry that in the bacon grease.
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  Oh, that smelled so good.
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  Yeah, and then you add in, gosh, chopped onions and garlic and a cup of coffee.
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  Yeah, calls for a cup of black coffee, half a cup of black coffee,
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  and then a bunch of other spices and then peeled tomatoes, right,
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  to make the really thick base.
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  And then you cook that down for four and a half hours. You boil it for four and a half hours.
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  If you want to know who won, there were 14 entries.
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  If you want to know who won, you can go to our parish Facebook.
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  Or you could look at the, you could look at the bulletin.
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  It's going to be the bulletin. Or you can come to my house and see it sitting
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  on the dining room table.
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  Never made chili before. 14 entrances, entries, and I walk away with the big
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  traveling trophy for the best chili of the night.
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  Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I actually got to try a teaspoon, not even a tablespoon.
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  Spoon i got to try like a just a regular
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  spoon of of this stuff
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  and it was pretty good but i got like one piece of
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  meat and some broth and that's all i got and by
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  the time the evening was over there was nothing left it was just the the crock
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  pot had been scraped dry so but it was a lot of fun we had about i don't know
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  60 80 people there and like say 14 entry entrance and they were all very good.
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  There were some really delicious, delicious chilies.
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  And again, not a big chili guy, but there were some that were just really, really good.
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  So it was a lot of fun. Thank you guys for doing that. Thank you,
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  Father Bo, for putting that on.
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  If your parish is looking for something fun to do, put on a chili contest and
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  tell us at Catholic Spirit Radio that you're doing it, and we'll promote it here.
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  It'll go on our calendar, and we'll let people know what's going on.
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  And we love to support parishes. We want to see you guys have fun.
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  We want to see you have great fellowship. We want to see you raise some money.
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  So if you have anything going on in your parish, and we reach a lot of parishes.
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  I mean, Catholic Spirit Rodeo right now is reaching into four dioceses.
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  Right? Maybe the edge of a fifth, but at least four dioceses.
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  So that's a lot of parishes.
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  And some of them are great about telling us what's going on so we can promote
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  those. Some of you aren't so great at that, and we're here for you.
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  This is the whole reason why we're on the air is to spread the gospel and support our parishes.
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  So let us know what you're doing. We'd love to hear about it.
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  So that's pretty much me for the beginning of the week and great fun and lovely
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  trophy, which I have to give back, but that's all right.
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  Oh, we got gift certificates too of all restaurants, Chili's.
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  So I get to go get to take the wife and go have a nice, a nice meal at Chili's.
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  We have the fifth Sunday of ordinary time coming up. We are so close to Ash
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  Wednesday. I mean, Lent is right around the corner.
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  Ash Wednesday is coming up on the 18th. I mean, wow, we're, we're practically
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  there a week and a half away.
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  So, we'll be talking about Lent very soon and, of course, about Easter,
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  which is the most important day of our Catholic calendar is the resurrection.
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  That's why we talk about Sunday math so much. It's the same event. It's the same Sunday.
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  But now we're going to celebrate the very first time that we got to celebrate
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  the resurrection with our Lord.
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  And that's coming up very, very quickly. So, we're going to pause for a couple
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  minutes and we come back. We're going to look at the readings from the Mass
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  for the fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
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  You're listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  Stay tuned. Good News will be right back on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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  Even though we're healthy, the wife's been after me to sit with her and create
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  our will. Mike, I just don't know where to begin.
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  Marty, preparing a will is a loving and responsible thing to do.
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  It's not as big of a task as you might think. Why do you say that?
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  We finalized our will last month online using My Catholic Will.
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  It was easy using the free gift found on Catholic Spirit Radio website.
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  In about 30 minutes, My Catholic Will guided us in establishing guardians for
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  our kids, ensuring a proper Catholic funeral, and making sure that our assets
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  are directed at the people and organizations we care about. That sounds like a great idea.
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  Did you say My Catholic Will is free? Yep, free.
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  Plus, you complete it right at home. My wife's going to love that.
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  Don't delay. Go to mycatholicwill.com right slash Catholic Spirit Radio. Thanks, Mike.
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  Welcome back to Good News. If you have a question about Catholicism or Christianity
• 10:15
  that you would like some help with, you can write us.
• 10:19
  We have an email address of goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com,
• 10:25
  and we'll be glad to answer your questions on the air.
• 10:29
  Yesterday, I was at a local Catholic grade school and finishing up adoration.
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  They had adoration going on all day, and I went in at the end to do benediction
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  and have a little talk with the seventh and eighth graders.
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  And we do a little thing called Stump the Deacon, where they get to ask any
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  question they want. They had some great questions.
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  They really did. They asked great questions. They asked about Jesus' brothers
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  and sisters and explained that to them, how that actually ends up in Scripture
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  and what it actually means. We can talk about that sometime.
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  They asked about, why did God create Satan if he knew, because God knows everything,
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  if he knew Satan was going to rebel? That's a great question.
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  There's also a great answer to it. So we talked about that for a little bit.
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  We talked about, are there any blood relatives of Adam and Eve?
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  Well, pretty much all of us. Pretty much all of us.
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  In fact, a point I didn't mention was scientists tracing back the mitochondrial
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  DNA have traced everyone's DNA back to a single woman,
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  a single woman in the area of Africa where the scripture describes the Garden
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  of Eden being between the rivers that they mentioned in scripture.
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  So yeah, so yeah, we're all related. We're all brothers and sisters.
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  We're all adopted brothers and sisters to God.
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  And we all share a lot of the same chromosomes and blood and DNA,
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  and we're all just one big world family.
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  So we talked about that. So they had some great questions. So if you have a
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  question, drop us a line.
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  Good news at catholicspiritradio.com, and we will be glad to take your questions
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  and answer them on the air.
• 12:19
  So again, this is the fifth Sunday in ordinary time. We're wrapping this up.
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  Just have a couple more to go, and then we're into Lent.
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  And this Sunday, our first reading is from the prophet Isaiah.
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  Second reading is Paul to the Corinthians, and our gospel is from Matthew.
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  So, let's get started. From the prophet Isaiah, and remind you that Isaiah is
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  about 700, 800 years before the birth of Christ.
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  But it's amazing how specific he is, and the Holy Spirit speaking through Isaiah
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  really sets the stage for what's going to happen in the future.
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  And yet the Jewish people who knew this and knew all about this and had it memorized
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  still did not recognize the Messiah when he came, even though they had everything
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  they needed to be able to say, oh, look,
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  that's just the person Isaiah was talking about.
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  So Isaiah writes this, thus says the Lord, share your bread with the hungry,
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  shelter the oppressed and the homeless, clothe the naked when you see them.
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  Do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the
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  dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed.
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  Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
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  Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry for help,
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  and He will say, Here I am.
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  If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech,
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  if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted,
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  then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
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  and the gloom shall become for you like midday.
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  A lot of the same things Jesus talked about, right? What you do for the least
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  of my brother, you do for me.
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  And what you don't do for them, you don't do for me. And Christ says that he is the light.
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  So light is the theme that's going to be running all through our readings.
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  And it's something that we should be thinking about every day of our life.
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  Our second reading from the New Testament now, this is from a letter from St.
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  Paul to the Corinthians. This is 1 Corinthians 2, right at the opening of chapter 2.
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  Paul writes, When I came to you, brothers and sisters, proclaiming the mystery
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  of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.
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  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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  I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, And my message and my
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  proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power,
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  so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom, but on the power of God.
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  Paul, like Christ himself, became, after his conversion from Saul of Tarsus
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  into Paul the Apostle, traveled in meekness.
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  He was a very mild, quiet man.
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  Unless he was talking about Christ. And then he was quite animated.
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  He was a great speaker, a great orator.
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  The wisdom he had wasn't his own wisdom, although he was a brilliant student of Judaism.
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  He was a Pharisee, so very well-educated.
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  But he didn't talk about his education and his knowledge and his wisdom.
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  He talked about the wisdom that comes from Christ.
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  And when he went into a different area. He didn't go in preaching.
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  He went in and lived with the people. He worked with the people.
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  And so they came to know him more as just this quiet, gentle man who cared for
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  his neighbors and cared about his friends.
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  And then when they asked him, why do you do this? Then he talked about Jesus.
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  And he talked about how he does this because this is who Christ created him
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  to be. and he gave all credit and all wisdom and all accolade to Christ, not to himself.
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  And I think that's something that a lot of people miss when they read Paul.
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  Paul, like Mary, everything he does and everything Mary did was to bring focus back onto Jesus.
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  And so we see that in the way Paul writes in this letter.
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  Our final reading from the Mass is the gospel according to Matthew,
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  and this is from Matthew chapter 5.
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  Jesus said to his disciples, You are the salt of the earth.
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  But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything.
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  But to be thrown out and trampled underfoot, you are the light of the world.
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  A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and then
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  put it under a bushel basket.
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  It's set on a lampstand so that it gives light to all in the house,
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  and just so your light must shine before others, that they may see your good
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  deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. The Gospel of the Lord.
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  The light of the world, the salt of the earth, we've probably all heard those
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  terms before, but I don't know that we all fully understand them.
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  I think part of that is that we live in such a different culture than the disciples did.
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  The disciples would understand the importance and the value of salt.
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  Salt was so valuable that it was used as currency.
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  It was that important.
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  It was that necessary to preserve food and to give food taste and flavor.
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  We still use it for that today, but now we have so many other artificial flavors
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  that we forget just how much salt does to benefit the quality of the food and
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  what a great preservative it is.
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  I mean, even 200 years ago, we were coating meat with salt and keeping it in
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  a dry, cold storage to make it last longer. And we know how important light is.
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  I mean, try getting around in a dark house without stubbing your toe.
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  I can't tell you how many times I've done that.
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  But we've become so used to being surrounded by light, not just the sunlight,
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  but we have headlights and street lights and lighthouses and Christmas lights.
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  There's lights everywhere.
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  And so we forget about what happens in the dark.
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  You know, that if you think about this world, if we didn't have any light,
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  just remove everything, the sunlight, every kind of light, even the flicker
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  of a match to light a candle.
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  If you had no light at all, think of the beauty you would miss.
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  Think of the life you would miss.
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  I mean, we'd have no living plants without the sunlight.
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  Most of us would not have jobs. I mean, think about if you had to stop working
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  when the sun went down, this used to be the culture of most of the world.
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  When the sun went down, work stopped and you went home because there were no
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  street lamps. There were no, there's nothing to light your business.
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  You couldn't work. You couldn't work in the fields. You couldn't work in the
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  fisheries. You couldn't work anywhere. So you went home.
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  And at home, if you didn't have a lamp, if you didn't have oil or candles, you're out of luck.
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  Try fixing your dinner in the dark, right? Try doing anything if you had no light at all.
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  So much of our light now depends on a power source.
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  When the battery goes dead, the light goes out. When you lose electricity because
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  of a storm or a car hits a power pole and you lose power, people go nuts.
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  You know, they're so used to having light at their command.
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  Then when we don't have light, we really miss it.
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  But we have a light source that has a continual power source that can't wear
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  out, can't be stopped, can't be turned off, and that's the light of Christ.
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  It's a light of love that without that, our world would be absolute chaos.
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  I mean, it's bad now, but if you look at it in the spots where our world is
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  bad, where our culture is really lost are the areas that have chosen to turn away from Christ.
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  They've chosen to take God out of the culture. And when they do that,
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  we suffer. We all suffer.
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  So Jesus is reminding us that it's upon us, it's on the shoulder of the Christians
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  to keep that light burning, to keep that light visible for others to see.
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  We do that through our obedience to Christ, through caring for the hungry and
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  the needy and the homeless and the aged and the sick.
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  That's how we spread the light. And that's how we keep the world out of the
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  darkness of sin and keep it in the light of Christ.
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  We are the salt of the world.
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  We're the preservative that keeps love in our world, in our homes,
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  in our communities, in our societies.
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  That's all coming through the Christian faith with this unending love from Christ,
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  How are you, this candle that's not hidden, how do you show your fervor for
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  Christ's love every day?
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  Not just on Sundays. I mean, it's nice that you do it on Sundays,
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  and you should, but we're made to be Christians seven days a week,
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  not just on Sundays, not just for an hour.
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  If the love of Christ is something you can only turn on and turn off for an
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  hour, You're missing the message here.
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  This is an eternal light, and you are expected, you are created to be a conduit
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  of that light for others.
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  So ask yourself, what did you do this week to be the light of Christ to someone
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  else, to be the salt of someone else's life, to help preserve them,
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  to help enhance their flavor, their life?
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  That's who we are as Christians, and that's who Christ calls us to throughout
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  these readings this Sunday.
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  You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth.
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  Christ depends on you. May Almighty God bless you, protect you from all evil,
• 23:09
  and bring you to everlasting life.
• 23:12
  Thank you for listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
• 23:16
  You've been listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio,
• 23:19
  a program for teens and almost teens to better understand that the gospel of
• 23:23
  Jesus Christ is relevant in your life.
• 23:25
  Submit your questions to Deacon Al at goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com.
• 23:30
  That's goodnews at catholicspiritradio.com.
• 23:34
  Deacon will answer your questions about faith and religion.
• 23:37
  Thank you for listening to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio. Can I ask you a question?
• 23:42
  Are you encountering adversity in your life?
• 23:46
  Are you carrying a heavy cross?
• 23:49
  Is your cross a serious illness?
• 23:53
  Broken relationship, the loss of a loved one, financial, mental,
• 23:59
  emotional, physical, spiritual.
• 24:03
  Yes, crosses come in many forms and crosses are difficult.
• 24:08
  They can be very heavy. They can be overwhelming. Is your cross crushing you?
• 24:16
  Do you feel at times like you cannot even breathe?
• 24:20
  Well, I know, I know, I know a little bit about the cross.
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  And I want to assure you that our Lord Jesus is with you and he knows everything about your cross.
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  As a matter of fact, he went before you.
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  When he hung and bled and died on the cross for you. Well, the world is being
• 24:46
  redeemed through the cross.
• 24:49
  As difficult and painful as our crosses may be, it is a great privilege to be
• 24:56
  given the gift of the cross in our lives.
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  Listen, there is one thing we will not have in heaven,
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  and that if it's possible to have nostalgia in heaven, we will have nostalgia
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  for this, And that is the redemptive and purifying crosses we were blessed with during our lives.
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  Yes, the cross is literally joined to God.
• 25:21
  Jesus, God, and man allowed himself to be nailed to the cross.
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  And if we want to be one with Jesus here on earth, we need to allow him to pull
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  us up on the cross with him.
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  Because in a real sense, that is where he is at and that is where we will find him.
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  Only really see the world for what it is through the view from up on the cross.
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  It is there that we learn to love everything and everyone from the cross because
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  God is love and he is one with the cross.
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  Yes, Jesus died once, rose and is seated at the right hand of the Father in
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  heaven, but he is mystically still on the cross, redeeming the world through his mystical body,
• 26:21
  the church, and that is you and that is me.
• 26:26
  And don't forget that the cross leads to the resurrection.
• 26:32
  I'm Jim Littleton, formingfaithfulfamilies.com.