Latest / The Lila Rose Show / [Rebroadcast] The Surprising Truth About Halloween w/Fr. Ambrose Criste

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[Rebroadcast] The Surprising Truth About Halloween w/Fr. Ambrose Criste · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  Should Christians celebrate Halloween?
• 0:02
  Absolutely, because Halloween and the days that follow our
• 0:06
  Christian festival. Death is on our mind in these
• 0:08
  days, and that's a good thing for Christians to think about.
• 0:11
  Now what about ghosts? Most of the time, those kind of
• 0:14
  supernatural experiences are attributed to one of two things.
• 0:20
  Hey guys, welcome back to the Lila Rose Podcast.
• 0:23
  Today we're going to do an episode on Halloween.
• 0:26
  It's coming up not just Halloween, but it's also All
• 0:30
  Saints Day, All Souls Day, the next day in some faith
• 0:33
  traditions. So anyways, we're going to get
• 0:35
  into Halloween. We're going to get into what is
• 0:37
  the Christian response to Halloween?
• 0:40
  Should your kids trick or treat? Most people will say, yeah, of
• 0:42
  course, duh. What about the goblins and the
• 0:46
  gremlins and the witches and the ghosts?
• 0:48
  Are ghosts real? Do ghosts exist?
• 0:51
  What does that mean? Should we interact with ghosts?
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  What does it mean that some Christian traditions teach
• 0:57
  purgatory? And purgatory has a lot to do
• 1:00
  with All Souls Day because in the Catholic tradition, you pray
• 1:03
  for the dead. What does this all mean?
• 1:05
  We're going to break it down. Miss questions and
• 1:08
  misconceptions about Halloween, and we're going to have on very
• 1:12
  popular Father Ambrose, Christ. Father Ambrose was on before
• 1:15
  talking about angels and demons and his work as an exorcist, But
• 1:19
  now we're going to talk all things Halloween.
• 1:22
  Do you ever wonder where your meat comes from in the grocery
• 1:25
  store? Did you know that even if it
• 1:27
  says product of the USA, it might be from another country
• 1:29
  entirely? And are you ever unhappy with
• 1:32
  the quality of your meat or chicken at the grocery store?
• 1:35
  Well, I certainly have been, and that's why my husband and I were
• 1:37
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• 1:40
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• 1:44
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• 1:48
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• 1:52
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• 1:55
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• 1:59
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• 2:01
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• 2:02
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• 2:03
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• 2:08
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• 2:11
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• 2:15
  That's goodranchers.com. And you can use the code Lila at
• 2:19
  checkout for $30 off your order as well as free express
• 2:23
  shipping. Father Ambrose, thanks so much
• 2:25
  for coming back in the podcast. Thanks for having me back, Lila.
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  Your last episode, you, you were a huge hit.
• 2:31
  I mean, everyone, everyone loved that.
• 2:33
  The episode that you did on Angels and Demons.
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  Well, I think the topic is really attractive.
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  People have a lot of questions about that.
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  And you know, it's all for God's glory, Lila so.
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  Amen. Amen.
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  Well, we loved people wanted you back, and there are lots of
• 2:47
  questions about faith and spirituality we get on the
• 2:51
  channel. And so who better to talk about
• 2:53
  Halloween than you? We're going to talk about
• 2:57
  Halloween. We're going to talk about All
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  Souls Day, All Saints Day, which are the traditional Christian
• 3:02
  holidays, separate from Halloween but connected.
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  And we're going to talk about, let's see, ghosts.
• 3:08
  OK, that sounds good. And purgatory.
• 3:10
  We'll get into that and wherever else we go.
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  So thank you again. Now, how have you been since we
• 3:15
  last had you on the show? Well, God is good and my
• 3:18
  conference and I are are trying to do all we can to build up the
• 3:23
  Kingdom of Christ here on earth. So a lot of wonderful projects
• 3:25
  underway in the Midwest, in Springfield, IL, our new Priory
• 3:29
  there, of course at the Abbey. Lots of great things happening
• 3:31
  all the time. So thank you for asking.
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  Yeah, and you just launched a a new program as well, I heard?
• 3:35
  Yes, a little commercial, huh? Thanks Lila.
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  So the Evermode Institute, St. Evermode is a Saint of our
• 3:40
  Norbertine order and we're we're launching A catechetical program
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  of formation to teach the faith to different demographics,
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  Catholic school teachers and catechism parishes and parents.
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  So kind of bolstering the full and Orthodox Catholic identity
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  amongst the people who might be missing that and need to have
• 4:00
  that. Wonderful.
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  Wonder if I look forward to learning more about it.
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  OK, so Halloween. OK, should Christians celebrate
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  Halloween? Absolutely.
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  Because Halloween and the days that follow our Christian
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  festivals. This is a Christian, a Catholic
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  Christian series of three days Halloween of course, you
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  probably know this Lila the the word comes from the old English
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  All Hallows Eve, All Hallows Eve Halloween and it's the eve of
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  All Saints Day, Hallows Day All Hallows is All Saints.
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  So it's the vigil of the Great Solemnity of All Saints, and
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  that's why we have it at all, because in in Catholic Christian
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  life, we mark these biggest and holiest days of the year with a
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  vigil, and sometimes with preparation even before the
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  vigil. So this is the eve of a great
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  solemnity, which is a holy day of obligation for Catholics now
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  and a great festival throughout the Universal Church, All Saints
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  Day. Now, some people say that we
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  took a Pagan holiday and we made it into a Christian holiday.
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  Is there any truth to that? There's also these accusations
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  about Christmas. Yes.
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  So no, I mean, it's easy. It's easy for people who hate
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  Christ and his church to try to make these associations which
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  might be founded in some kind of similarities or certainly
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  cultural. The cultural bleed from one
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  group of people to another is real.
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  But no, it's not it. It would be an
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  oversimplification and also wrong to say that Christianity
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  simply took Pagan festivals and put this veneer of faith on top
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  of them. It.
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  That's way too simple. And that's not exactly what
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  happened. So in the case of Halloween,
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  it's even farther from the truth.
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  The late 19th century, early 20th century accusations about
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  about Halloween being a Pagan thing that was somehow baptized
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  by Roman Catholics is just, that was just kind of Protestant
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  vitriol against, against Catholics.
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  You know, our, our, our country, the United States was founded as
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  a Protestant Christian nation. And there was always a real fear
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  and even mistrust and sometimes a real kind of persecution of
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  against the Catholic Christians. So when all of these English and
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  Irish and Belgian and Dutch immigrants were coming,
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  especially at the end of the 19th century, they brought with
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  them all of their Catholic customs, including the things
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  surrounding All Saints Day and All Souls Day and Halloween, the
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  eve, the eve of those feasts and the the most kind of anti
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  Catholic Protestants were like whoa.
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  What are these? What is this trick or treaters
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  doing more? Reason to to put the smack the.
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  Smack down on the counter. When those Catholic immigrants
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  came into the United States in the late 20th or the late 19th
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  and, and 20th century did and you're, they kind of brought the
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  tradition of All Souls, All All Saints Eve and then All Souls
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  Day, All Saints Day. And so Halloween.
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  So you're saying there's sort of this emergence of Halloween in
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  the United States? What, what did it look like
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  then? Were they trick or treating?
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  Well, so. And what is trick or treating?
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  How is that Christian? OK.
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  So I think 2 kind of two paths we can follow there, Lila.
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  One, just the nature of Catholic festivity, Catholic festivals
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  and the customs that go along with that very culturally
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  founded and particular to different parts of especially
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  European culture. So many of the, we might say,
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  cultural trappings of the way that Catholics celebrate
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  festivals comes with them when they come to the New World.
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  And they're certainly some of that with Halloween and All
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  Souls Day and All Saints Day, All Saints Day, All Souls Day.
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  So it's it's perfectly normal across all of Catholic cultures
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  to pray for the dead, to spend time in the cemetery on All
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  Souls Day and to prepare for that on All Saints Day.
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  So to be in those places where we have laid our beloved ones to
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  rest, decorating their graves, bringing flowers, carrying
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  candles, washing their tombstones.
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  And in some cultures, they would even spend the whole of November
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  2nd in the cemetery having a picnic, praying for the dead,
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  remembering with great fondness their their loved ones who are
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  members of the church, right? Just because they've died there,
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  they haven't, they haven't. They're still members of the
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  church and members of our family.
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  So, so along with that comes these wonderful customs.
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  You, you mentioned trick or treating in certain parts of
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  European culture on the the vigil.
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  So the eve before All Saints that people would go asking door
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  to door for little sweets and say, you know, I'll pray for
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  your those who died in your family this last year.
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  If you'll give me a little sweet, you know, a little soul
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  cake, they called that or so you give me a treat and I will do
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  this alms for you. I will pay this alms for your
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  beloved debt. I'll say a prayer for them.
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  And so that kind of door to door, asking for gifts and
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  exchanging prayers for those gifts for the dead, dead.
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  That's the Catholic underpinning foundation of trick or treating
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  those words. Trick or treating.
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  I think that's a much more modern invention.
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  Yeah, the trick word, I think some people are concerned it has
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  to do with some sort of witchcraft or, you know, I've
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  heard people, you know, concerned, you know, Christians
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  concerned and Catholics mostly, you know, evangelicals
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  concerned. That's like a a cult reference.
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  Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, that's not where it
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  comes from. That might be what people
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  interpret it to me now. But the trick, as I understand,
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  and I could be wrong about this, but as, as I understand that
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  the, that English root of that, it's more about if the a little
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  bit of a play, you know, this is a, the, the tomfoolery of
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  Catholic festivity. You might think about Mardi
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  Gras, for example, or other times of the year when there's
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  this wonderful partying in preparation for serious praying.
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  And there's there's a fair amount of that also in the
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  history of Halloween. So the trick is I'm going to
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  play a little trick on you more like I'm going to I'm I'm going
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  to make a fool of you or do something tongue trash.
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  Can. Something like that, you know,
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  tongue in cheek kind of play a game on you.
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  If you don't give me your give me the the candy.
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  Now again, it's all that in Catholic life.
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  That's all that's all in the context of people understand
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  that that's all on good fun. And also it's not about this
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  overlay of weird neo paganism. So that part, that's a very
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  contemporary kind of layer of interpretation on Halloween.
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  I want to get to that. I want to get to the ghouls and
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  the goblins and the ghosts. Because you know, my
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  neighborhood, for example, we walk down the street and there's
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  like houses with these extremely scary, you know, figures.
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  So I want to ask about that. But you said something really
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  interesting. You said the tradition is
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  connected to, you know, it goes back to prayers for the dead and
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  you know all. So November 1st is All Saints
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  Day, November 2nd is All Souls Day.
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  And the idea, especially on November 2nd is you pray for the
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  dead. Now, this is very controversial
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  among some Christians because, you know, certainly the Orthodox
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  and the Catholic Christians pray for the dead and they ask for
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  the prayers of the dead. But, you know, evangelicals and
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  most mainly Protestants, you know, Baptists, this is not
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  acceptable. You know, then I think it goes
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  back to verses in the Bible that say you should not, you know,
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  against necromancy, you shall not interact with those who are
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  dead. These prohibitions.
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  So help us understand why praying for the dead is not only
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  acceptable, but encouraged. And just before we we tease some
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  of those threads out the the beautiful Catholic wisdom of
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  putting these festivals together is that we have we, we
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  understand ourselves to be what we call the Church militant.
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  Those who are still struggling here below, you know, working
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  out our salvation fear and trembling as Saint Paul says,
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  undergoing our our time of testing and getting ready to
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  enter into the Kingdom when our life ends right and meeting our
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  our judge and and please God, seeing him face to face.
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  That's the church suffering or rather the church militant here
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  on earth. The church triumphant are all
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  the Saints in heaven. Everybody who has arrived at the
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  the heavenly homeland, there they've won the victory through
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  Christ. They have reached their
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  destination. That's All Saints Day.
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  We celebrate all of those Saints, known and unknown,
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  everybody who is entered heavenly glory and are waiting
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  the resurrection of their bodies at the end of time.
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  And then we have the church suffering.
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  That's all of those souls who are still undergoing some
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  purification, which is the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.
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  There's an Orthodox version of that as well.
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  The ancient Church and the whole Christian Church really until
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  the time of the of the Reformation, the Protestant
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  Reformation understood the, that there is this whole church
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  universal, which is the living on earth, those living on earth,
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  those awaiting their time of purification and those rejoicing
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  in heaven. That's the whole church.
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  We're all members of the church. So these these days together,
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  what we call hallow tide, all hallow tide like Christmas tide
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  or Easter tide and they could even call it hallow mess.
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  The the festival of the holy ones is bringing all of those
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  parts of those three parts of Christ's church together and and
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  rejoicing in each other's goodness in the case of the
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  Saints and praying for those who are still undergoing
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  purification. OK, so you're purgatory.
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  That's it that you're right. That's a controversial topic for
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  non Catholic or non, I would say non Apostolic Christians, those
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  whose roots don't go back to the beginning of the Christian
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  Church. So the with the Protestant
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  Reformation that there was a a great deal of rethinking some of
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  these very ancient 5th by then 1500 year old theological
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  truths. So you're saying praying for the
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  dead before the Reformation was a 1500 year old tradition?
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  Oh sure, And even before that the the the Jews just before the
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  time of our Lord's coming and that we read about this in the
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  books of Maccabees. Praying for the dead is is also
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  a Jewish custom. So that that becomes part of the
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  Christian life too, because we understand that death is not the
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  end of our relationship with one another.
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  And our Lord himself says that, you know, God the, the father of
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  the God, God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, He's not the
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  God of the dead, but he's the God of the living.
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  Well, when our Lord said those words, Abraham and Isaac and
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  Jacob had already passed through the veil to the other side.
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  And our Lord is saying that they are still alive.
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  They're alive. And so we have a relationship
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  with them and so. Can you talk to them when you
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  say they have a relationship with them?
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  I know some people that their grandparent has passed and they
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  really feel like their grandparent is watching over
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  them. It feels tangible to them.
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  These are people of faith. You know, they have a deep
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  connection. So when you say, but, you know,
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  it's hard to know, is this real? Is that really happening?
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  Or is the Lord just giving them, you know, comfort that they are
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  with him in heaven or, or something of that kind?
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  What does it mean to have a relationship with the dead?
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  Well, I think that teasing out what exactly is going on there
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  in that individual Christians experience of that consoling
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  kind of communication with those whom we love who have died, what
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  exactly is going on there? It could be something emotional.
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  It could be something deeply spiritual and real.
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  It could be that God really is giving the consoling grace of
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  knowing that this person is with me in some mysterious way and
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  hears me. And of course they can if God
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  permits them to. So that relationship and that
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  communication, just like I can ask you to pray for me, so to
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  you, God forbid you should go before me and death, I can ask
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  you to pray for me from there too.
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  We are, we are all members of Christ's mystical body, and
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  death does not somehow break our relationships with one another.
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  So of course, there's a veil between those two worlds, isn't
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  there? And it's only rarely and by
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  God's special favor that we can peer through the veil or that
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  there's some more tangible kind of experience of the
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  communication through that veil of life into death.
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  But certainly the the relationships are real and the
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  intercessory power of the Saints is very real.
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  Just like if I ask you to pray for me because I have some
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  intention on my heart that I need help with as fellow
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  Christians, and you pray to God for me or for my intention that
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  that might be exactly what God wanted to help affect whatever
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  the answer to that prayer is. So too, if you were to go before
• 16:45
  me in death and I asked that for you, why wouldn't you want to
• 16:48
  pray for me from there as well, right?
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  So all that is quite mysterious, but the relationships are real.
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  That's the point. So what it What about this
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  prohibition against engaging the dead?
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  Yeah, we don't want to so divination and and using in a
• 17:05
  kind of more occult way. I need to know the answer to
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  this question. You know, like reading the
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  reading the tea leaves or you know, it's it's a kind of
• 17:16
  attempt to manipulate those relationships for my benefit or
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  for my particular selfish aims. That's that's what the Lord is
• 17:29
  is prohibiting. And also you have to remember
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  that the time of those prohibitions from the old
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  covenant is the Lord is gradually leading his people out
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  of real paganism, the the the worship of demons and idols and
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  a kind of misunderstanding about where the dead feature into that
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  world. It's a it the Lord needs us to
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  be far, far away from what is real paganism, you know, with
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  all of his cultural trappings and all of its errors and all of
• 18:00
  its demons. And so so that he's that that
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  beautiful, gradual pulling of his people out of that ancient
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  Pagan, demonic world and into the possibility for the
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  incarnation and the light of the gospel.
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  And so those prohibitions are feature part into part of that
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  drawing of his people out of darkness into light.
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  So the prohibition biblically isn't against asking for the
• 18:28
  prayers of the dead or praying for the dead.
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  Instead, it's against seeking answers from the dead, as if
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  it's an Oracle or some special spirit that will help you with
• 18:36
  your life. That's exactly.
• 18:37
  Right, telling you what to do. That's exactly right, which is
• 18:40
  also why in the current day and age, that whole world of
• 18:44
  consulting A psychic, that's necromancy.
• 18:46
  I mean, that's what that is. So then what is the biblical
• 18:51
  evidence? Is there any biblical evidence
• 18:54
  you know, stories in the Bible or passages that show prayer for
• 18:58
  the dead or prayer asking the prayer of the dead?
• 19:00
  I would invite everybody to read the second book of Maccabees.
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  So sadly in the in those awful days of the division of the
• 19:10
  Christian Church in the 16th century, the Protestant
• 19:13
  Reformation, that that period there was an attempt.
• 19:18
  And of course, I'm giving a very Catholic reading of that
• 19:21
  history, as you would understand.
• 19:23
  And. I hope your friends would
• 19:25
  understand that too, that all of those what were then understood
• 19:29
  to be scriptural canonical books of the scriptures, including the
• 19:32
  letter of James and also the letters to the Maccabees which
• 19:36
  some Christian Bibles, non Catholic Christian Bibles now
• 19:39
  call Apocrypha. Those are the places where some
• 19:42
  of those most contested doctrines are to be found in the
• 19:47
  in the case of the letter of James.
• 19:49
  Is that why they were they were removed?
• 19:51
  That's why we would understand that to be that's why they were
• 19:53
  removed, because there's something here that the
• 19:55
  Protestant Reformers just don't like theologically.
• 19:57
  So take out those books of the Scriptures that don't conform to
• 20:01
  this, this Reformed theology. And included in that would be
• 20:06
  the Second Book of Maccabees, where it's very obvious that
• 20:09
  prayer for the dead is efficacious.
• 20:11
  And that the Lord. It's pleasing to the Lord, and
• 20:13
  it's part of the life of what will become His church.
• 20:18
  So why were the Protestant reformers against the teaching
• 20:23
  on prayer for the dead? It's a really good question,
• 20:25
  Lila. The I would say the root of all
• 20:32
  of the Theod. The deepest theological
• 20:34
  divisions from that period are philosophical in nature first.
• 20:40
  So in this case, the the Reformed theology and the the
• 20:44
  Protestant theology flows out of a post enlightenment
• 20:48
  philosophical world where the individual takes primacy that
• 20:54
  and and does this complicated rejection of the material world
• 21:00
  outside of us as a sign of God's goodness and the way that we
• 21:03
  come to know the truth by looking at the things around us.
• 21:06
  You might remember Descartes said famously, I think therefore
• 21:09
  I am somehow this turning into the, the experience of the, the
• 21:17
  psychological, we might say, experience of the individual
• 21:19
  from my own interiority as the place from which I assess truth
• 21:24
  or falsehood. That's a Copernican revolution
• 21:28
  in philosophy and it's erroneous in many, many ways.
• 21:31
  Not in always, but in many ways and so.
• 21:35
  What is Copernican? Revolution so just just in the
• 21:37
  same way, just in the same way that that with Copernicus, the,
• 21:41
  the, the scientific revolution that the Earth is the center of
• 21:44
  the universe and everything revolves around it and, and
• 21:48
  versus the sun being the center of at least our, our, our solar
• 21:51
  system and everything revolves around it.
• 21:53
  That was a revolution in science.
• 21:55
  So too in philosophy. There was that kind of radical
• 21:58
  revolution that came with the primacy of the individual.
• 22:02
  And there's a lot more to be said about that philosophically.
• 22:04
  But not to belabor the point in philosophy, when I am the center
• 22:10
  of my judgments about the truth of anything around me or within
• 22:14
  me, which is what that philosophical error leads to,
• 22:19
  then things get really murky as far as theological points,
• 22:24
  metaphysical points, truths that depend upon the material
• 22:28
  universe being the 1st place that we come to know what is
• 22:30
  true and then have revelation to aid us in that and to assist us
• 22:34
  with those truths that we can't know by natural reason alone.
• 22:37
  So that's a long way of answering your question.
• 22:40
  Probably not a very clear way of answering your question, but
• 22:42
  there's some serious philosophical error at the root
• 22:45
  of what became the errors of Protestantism.
• 22:49
  So was it a combination then of the gripes, and some of them
• 22:52
  understandable gripes, about corrupt church leaders in the
• 22:57
  Catholic Church? And so there was a lack of trust
• 23:01
  in the leadership of the church connected with this
• 23:03
  philosophical movement of I am the center of the universe in
• 23:06
  terms of deciding morality or objectivity around me and
• 23:10
  understanding, you know, what is right and what is wrong.
• 23:12
  And that combination led to, perhaps, the Reformation.
• 23:16
  Yes that's a that's AI think a fairway of bringing all of those
• 23:21
  threats together that contributed to this disaster and
• 23:23
  it really was a disaster. It is a disaster.
• 23:25
  You know our Lord wants it to be 1.
• 23:27
  He prayed for that at the the night before he died.
• 23:30
  You know, father, they might be 1 is I am in you and you are in
• 23:33
  me that they might be one in US. You know, and we're still
• 23:35
  waiting for that right. I'm praying for that yes there
• 23:41
  when you look at the scandal of Christian believers who don't
• 23:45
  live their life well or with the integrity that is required of
• 23:49
  us, including church leaders, including priests and bishops
• 23:54
  and even Pope's through history where there's real scandal in
• 23:58
  the way that they represent the Catholic Christian life.
• 24:02
  Then of course that's going to cause people to say how can I
• 24:04
  trust you? It's a, it's a real, it's a
• 24:07
  problem for each of us, isn't it, that when my life and my
• 24:11
  words don't conform with what I proclaim to believe what I
• 24:15
  profess, then that might be a scandal to someone who says,
• 24:20
  well, why should I believe what you believe?
• 24:22
  Look at how you live your life. So that's part of the call to
• 24:26
  holiness, right? That we, we, we need our lives
• 24:28
  to, with Christ's help and with the grace that comes from
• 24:32
  Almighty God, live our lives in conformity with these truths.
• 24:35
  And you're right, there were periods in, in the history of
• 24:39
  the of the church where that wasn't.
• 24:41
  So there wasn't always that kind of integrity.
• 24:45
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• 24:47
  cup of the most delicious gourmet organic hot coffee.
• 24:50
  And that's why I love Seven Weeks Coffee.
• 24:52
  sevenweekscoffee.com is a gourmet, organic and delicious
• 24:56
  coffee company that is not only making the best and ethically
• 24:59
  sourced coffee, but it is also America's pro-life coffee
• 25:03
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  sevenweekscoffee.com, 10% of the money that you spend on that
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• 25:27
  That's seven weeks coffee.com and you can use the code Lila at
• 25:30
  checkout for 10% off your order. So back to the Reformation.
• 25:35
  You know, one of the I as I understand Martin Luther's
• 25:38
  particular grievances, you know, one of the, you know, the lead
• 25:41
  reformers at the time who ended up rejecting I I understand
• 25:44
  there was a lot of work to try to reconcile with Martin Luther,
• 25:47
  like let's figure this out and reform the Catholic Church don't
• 25:50
  separate from the church, but he ended up going his own way.
• 25:55
  But one of his concerns was indulgences.
• 25:58
  It was this idea back to trick or treat of saying if you give
• 26:03
  me something, you know I will get a prayer or I will say a
• 26:08
  prayer. It's kind of trading of graces,
• 26:12
  trading for prayers, trading for graces.
• 26:15
  Yeah, So that you're right, that's historically the the
• 26:18
  doctrine of indulgences was one of the grievances that that
• 26:23
  eventually drove poor Martin Luther out of the church.
• 26:25
  At least he says that that was one of them.
• 26:28
  And again, just because there are some abuses of the
• 26:34
  discipline surrounding some of these truths, like the value of
• 26:37
  indulgences or prayer for the dead, just because that was
• 26:41
  abused in some places or times doesn't mean that the doctrine
• 26:45
  isn't true. And so he threw the baby out
• 26:48
  with the bathwater. But there's, there's still a
• 26:50
  baby in who needs to be in the bathwater.
• 26:52
  There's still a baby there. And that is the the doctrine of
• 26:54
  the prayers for the dead and the value of indulgences.
• 26:56
  So the church still teaches this, just like in the second
• 27:01
  book of Maccabees, where prayers for the dead can help them can
• 27:07
  help the dead and it's a gift for the the whole body of
• 27:11
  believers. So to the church now believes
• 27:14
  that we can exchange the spiritual goods with one another
• 27:17
  and help one another, all because the whole treasure House
• 27:23
  of merit is stored up in the hands of the church that Christ
• 27:28
  himself established when our Lord said to Saint Peter,
• 27:30
  whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven or whatever
• 27:32
  you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
• 27:34
  In Saint Matthew's Gospel, there's so much that goes along
• 27:37
  with that, not just about the forgiveness of sins and the
• 27:40
  Sacramento order that touches on confession, but also with this
• 27:43
  wonderful treasury, the storehouse of grace that's in
• 27:46
  the hands of the Church of Christ here on earth And in the,
• 27:52
  in the, in the, the, the hands, as it were, of that institution
• 27:56
  which Christ established, that is the Catholic Church.
• 27:59
  So we can, we can exchange the spiritual goods with one
• 28:04
  another. And so a Catholic believer can
• 28:08
  ask for a Mass to be offered for the soul of their loved one who
• 28:13
  just died. And the value, the merit, the
• 28:17
  grace that comes along with that offering of the Holy Sacrifice
• 28:19
  of the Mass, we believe the Church can determine, can be
• 28:23
  applied to that soul. That's what indulgences are.
• 28:27
  It's this wonderful exchange of the spiritual goods and about
• 28:32
  helping those who still have some penalties to pay.
• 28:37
  We call them the the the temporal punishment due to sin.
• 28:40
  This is again, we're deep, and we're deep in the in the tall
• 28:43
  grass of Catholic theology here. That's good.
• 28:45
  These are where the disagreements.
• 28:47
  That's where it happens. That's right, that that that we
• 28:49
  can help alleviate the temporal punishment due to sin in another
• 28:53
  member of the body of Christ who is still paying that off in
• 28:56
  purgatory. OK, there's a lot to unpack
• 28:59
  there. So, and, and I just want to get
• 29:01
  to the, to the dressing up as goblins for Halloween.
• 29:05
  You know, should you dress up as a goblin?
• 29:06
  We're going to be asking you that soon, but you're on
• 29:10
  purgatory right now and you just said something you said they're
• 29:13
  they're they're paying the temporal price punishment due to
• 29:18
  sin. And you can help other people
• 29:20
  pay that price. Break that down because if I'm,
• 29:24
  you know, I, as you know, I was raised evangelical Protestant
• 29:27
  about many friends and the understanding there is Jesus
• 29:30
  Christ blood is covers us all. And I know you agree with that,
• 29:33
  but we don't need to, you know, do any work, especially after
• 29:37
  death. Goodness, you know, life is hard
• 29:39
  enough, but to earn that salvation, Jesus Christ, death
• 29:43
  on the cross is more than enough.
• 29:46
  And the idea that we have to do work after death or that other
• 29:49
  people have to do work for us after death, you know, I think
• 29:52
  it's against that sensibility of this is not what we understand
• 29:56
  the Bible to teach on the power of Jesus, death and death.
• 29:59
  His his, his victory over sin and death is all sufficient and
• 30:03
  complete in the shedding of his butt on the cross.
• 30:05
  That's absolutely true that that every, every single Oz.
• 30:12
  If you could measure it out like that of salvation and the
• 30:16
  payment of the penalties due to our sin, the eternal payments
• 30:21
  due that the eternal punishment due to our sin is paid by Christ
• 30:25
  on the cross, Absolutely. That's without doubt true there.
• 30:31
  Let me let me think of an example to see if I can help
• 30:35
  everybody to understand this a little bit.
• 30:37
  If I'm playing baseball in my backyard and I hit a ball
• 30:42
  through my neighbor's window, I break the window.
• 30:48
  I go next doors little boy, and I ask the forgiveness of the
• 30:51
  neighbor whose window I just broke.
• 30:53
  And he says, of course I forgive you.
• 30:54
  It's an accident. You know what happens.
• 30:56
  Nevertheless, someone has to pay to replace the window.
• 30:59
  So I'm going to go mow his lawn for the rest of the summer,
• 31:02
  whatever it is, right? And I mow the lawn and then he's
• 31:05
  like, OK, good. You paid off the penalty due to
• 31:07
  that infraction against this this world of justice.
• 31:10
  You just so you paid back that penalty even though I already
• 31:14
  forgave you. There's something like that
• 31:16
  That's a all analogies limp but that's you know when when I
• 31:21
  commit when we commit grave sin that offends Almighty God after
• 31:26
  our baptism, after we've been saved washed in the blood of the
• 31:29
  Lamb. Of course we ask for forgiveness
• 31:32
  and Christ forgives us. That's the beauty of the
• 31:34
  Sacramento Lord of the church as well.
• 31:36
  We even have a sacrament that makes us know, helps us to know
• 31:38
  that that happened or restored to sanctifying grace.
• 31:43
  But there's the window still broken.
• 31:47
  And my prayers, my sacrifices, the sufferings that come along
• 31:50
  with this human life, eventually the old age and infirmity, all
• 31:55
  of that is what pays off, the replacement of the window.
• 31:59
  But what if my brother said, you know what?
• 32:05
  You've got other things to do this summer.
• 32:06
  You can't mow the lawn. I'll mow the lawn for you.
• 32:10
  He mows the lawn. He pays back the actual material
• 32:13
  cost of the window. So too, we Christians can do
• 32:16
  that. You know what, You're a busy
• 32:19
  wife and mother. You have a family.
• 32:21
  How about somebody else in the communion of Christ in the body
• 32:24
  of Christ? How about I, I fast on Friday
• 32:27
  for your intentions and my fasting is helping.
• 32:30
  You know something like that. You know that there's this
• 32:33
  exchange of spiritual goods. So because maybe you don't have
• 32:36
  the wherewithal or I don't have the wherewithal to do whatever
• 32:39
  that is, we, we exchange these spiritual goods.
• 32:41
  We are united in the body of Christ and purgatory is
• 32:44
  everything about that, about that exchange of spiritual
• 32:47
  goods. And indulgences are also that,
• 32:49
  that the ebb and flow of this treasure throughout the whole
• 32:54
  mystical body. It's a beautiful thing.
• 32:56
  And, and to throw that baby out with the bathwater, I think we
• 32:59
  lose a lot. I think that there's a lot
• 33:01
  that's lost, Like I think there's a lot that's lost in all
• 33:05
  of those errors, theological errors of that period.
• 33:09
  And someone might say, well, Jesus can pay for the window.
• 33:12
  He's the richest, you know, he has all the money in the world.
• 33:15
  He can, we can, you know, make that window put be put back in
• 33:18
  an instant. But in this life, as we see, the
• 33:21
  window still is broken. There are still natural
• 33:24
  consequences to sin. And I, I, I find that when I,
• 33:28
  when I help someone else with their consequence or I have to
• 33:31
  pay my own, even though Jesus forgives me, you know, I find
• 33:35
  that I learn, I grow, I can become more virtuous that way.
• 33:39
  So it in a sense the consequence is a gift.
• 33:42
  Yes, and in a way this touches on that philosophical point, the
• 33:46
  complicated philosophical, philosophical underpinning of
• 33:48
  the Protestant Catholic divide. You're touching on something
• 33:53
  that relates to that. Christ and God the Father.
• 33:57
  They love to use what we call instrumental causes so that you
• 34:02
  can be the instrumental cause by participating in this exchange
• 34:06
  of spiritual goods. As you said, that's a gift for
• 34:10
  you to be able to help your brother or sister in Christ,
• 34:12
  right? He, he, he loves to use.
• 34:18
  Sure, God could fix the window, but he loves the fact that I get
• 34:23
  to mow the lawn and help fix the window because there's something
• 34:27
  so Sacramento about that material about that
• 34:30
  incarnational about that. And really, that's where that
• 34:33
  divide becomes most pronounced, that Catholics and Orthodox, the
• 34:37
  ancient Apostolic Christians understand the incarnation to
• 34:40
  have touched every facet of this life here below.
• 34:44
  We're not just trapped in our heads.
• 34:45
  We're not just thinking people trapped in our heads, but but
• 34:50
  you know, again, using that limping analogy, my brother
• 34:54
  mowing the lawns that I don't have to do it and that pays for
• 34:57
  the window is somehow so much more, so much more beautifully
• 35:02
  sharing and God's goodness as he pours that out to his children
• 35:05
  than if God were just to fix the window miraculously without my
• 35:09
  brother mowing the lawn or my needing to mow the lawn to pay
• 35:11
  for it. That's so beautiful.
• 35:14
  So one more question on purgatory before we move on to
• 35:17
  our ghost topic and trick or treating.
• 35:20
  So if I there's obviously the teaching in of our Lord in the
• 35:25
  Bible about how he is the one mediator ultimately, and he is
• 35:30
  the he is the, you know, he is the path to salvation, Jesus
• 35:33
  Christ. And so this is obviously to the
• 35:36
  concern about praying to Mary, praying to Saints, praying to
• 35:38
  the dead. I want to ask it one more time
• 35:40
  because I, I do think it's, it's a hard thing if you aren't,
• 35:44
  it's, it's a cultural shock. You know, I don't grow up this
• 35:47
  way. And I know for me, I didn't grow
• 35:49
  up this way with prayers. You can pray for the dead.
• 35:51
  They can pray for you. You can ask Blessed Mother for
• 35:54
  her prayers. I mean, not all of it as a
• 35:55
  Protestant girl for me was like this.
• 35:57
  I got to, I got to get to the bottom of this.
• 35:59
  And once I really studied it, I was persuaded.
• 36:03
  But you know that one of the objections is intercessors, you
• 36:07
  know, yes, you can ask me to pray for you.
• 36:09
  I can pray for you in this life, but ultimately Jesus Christ is
• 36:13
  the intercessor. Yes, absolutely.
• 36:16
  He is the one mediator between God and man, the God man, Jesus
• 36:19
  Christ. Christ is the mediator.
• 36:21
  Everything flows through him. He is the center of all things,
• 36:25
  and in Him all things came to be right again.
• 36:29
  This is about that beautiful instrumental causality that God
• 36:32
  loves to use amongst His created universe, that that power of
• 36:39
  intercessory prayer, the power of the intercession of the
• 36:41
  Saints is about that instrumental causes.
• 36:46
  So Christ is the Mediator and our Blessed Mother leads us to
• 36:51
  him. She prays for us on our way to
• 36:54
  Him. She is the Saint.
• 36:57
  Bernard beautifully says that Christ is the fountain of the
• 37:01
  life giving waters, and Our Lady is the aqueduct through which he
• 37:04
  comes. So there are these wonderful
• 37:07
  channels of all of that mediated grace mediated by the power of
• 37:11
  the sacrifice of Christ. And those channels are each
• 37:14
  other. We are the channels, one for
• 37:17
  another of the grace that comes from the mediating power of
• 37:20
  Jesus Christ through our Blessed Mother, through the Saints in
• 37:23
  heaven, through each other here on earth to the Saints who are
• 37:26
  members of the Church below. And again, you see how that's a
• 37:30
  philosophical problem, that if you understand how that
• 37:34
  instrumental causality that is God loving to affect the things
• 37:38
  in his creation through the instruments whom he has created,
• 37:42
  makes all of those theological truths shine with their
• 37:46
  brightness. So.
• 37:49
  So you said earlier on trick or treating that yes, it's, it's
• 37:52
  actually ultimately a Catholic tradition that yes, of course
• 37:56
  trick or treating is good. And I think maybe the person
• 37:58
  you're going to their home, they're not thinking, oh, I'm
• 38:00
  going to give you a candy so you can pray for my dead.
• 38:02
  I wish they would but but it's a it's a practice that us
• 38:05
  Christians can do as we trick or treat is pray for the dead of
• 38:08
  the homes of the families that we meet.
• 38:10
  Yes, and and pray for the and pray for the people who are
• 38:13
  living in those homes too. You know, it's like an
• 38:14
  opportunity for Christian witness.
• 38:16
  Yes. So, you know, so is it right
• 38:18
  then, you know, today the Halloween thing has gone crazy.
• 38:23
  There's obviously the scantily clad, crazy Coed type outfits on
• 38:26
  college campuses. There's that.
• 38:28
  But then there's also the for your little kids, you can dress
• 38:33
  up as a, as a, you know, obviously a ghost.
• 38:35
  You can dress up as a witch, you can dress like, there's devil
• 38:38
  outfits for like babies, basically.
• 38:42
  What do we think about that? OK, so.
• 38:43
  It makes me. Uncomfortable.
• 38:45
  OK, so you're you're uncomfortable with a lot of
• 38:47
  things there. I think Lily, you're
• 38:48
  uncomfortable with the fact that once again our post Christian
• 38:51
  secular culture has Co opted one of our Christian things, our
• 38:56
  Catholic Christian festivals and made it completely
• 38:58
  materialistic, sensual over over materialized farce once again,
• 39:06
  like Valentine's Day, like Christmas is quickly careening
• 39:09
  toward that also. I do love Sweet Tarts, so
• 39:13
  there's some things that's like that, material things.
• 39:15
  Some of the material things are cute, but with Halloween, a lot
• 39:18
  of it's not. Cute.
• 39:19
  That's right. And so I don't think that we
• 39:21
  Catholic Christians or Christians in general, I don't
• 39:23
  think we should cave to the fat. We shouldn't just let this go
• 39:27
  and say because they've ruined it, we're not going to have
• 39:30
  anything to do with it. I think that we can try to
• 39:33
  reclaim the culture, at least in our own families and maybe in
• 39:35
  our church or parish communities by saying we're going to restore
• 39:39
  as much as we can the Christian roots and the Christian flavor
• 39:42
  of these beautiful ancient festivals.
• 39:45
  And so I would say this there that don't let all of the weird
• 39:53
  demonic like scare value of the of the things on the on the face
• 39:57
  of it, keep you from appreciating the depth of what
• 40:00
  can actually happen in the in these wonderful high holy days
• 40:03
  of our Christian liturgical year.
• 40:06
  By the way, the whole thing about masquerading and even
• 40:09
  dressing up as demons and and ghouls and friends, that's also
• 40:13
  there's a place for that in in ancient Christian life and
• 40:16
  medieval Christian life. Unfortunately, we don't live in
• 40:19
  a culture that makes sense of that.
• 40:20
  But if Christ is victorious over sin and death, then the demons
• 40:25
  are conquered. And medieval Christians in
• 40:29
  different parts of, of especially Western European
• 40:32
  Catholicism said that this is the perfect opportunity for us
• 40:35
  to thumb our noses at them. You dress up like a ghost or a
• 40:38
  goblin and you say, you see, you have no, you've got nothing on
• 40:41
  us because Christ is victorious over you.
• 40:44
  We're going to celebrate tomorrow the Saints in heaven.
• 40:46
  And on the next day, November 2nd, we're going to pray for our
• 40:49
  beloved dead. And you and.
• 40:50
  You can't do anything about it. It's mocking them.
• 40:55
  It's mocking them in, in the way that a Catholic culture can make
• 40:58
  sense of it. There's still places where this
• 41:00
  happens not only on Halloween. So in, in parts of Bavaria
• 41:04
  before Lent begins, that the culture has people dress up in
• 41:08
  kind of ghoulish masks and, and, and yeah, it's a masquerade with
• 41:13
  a parade and festivities and fun like Mardi Gras in France or in
• 41:18
  New Orleans or in Brazil, all those places that have that kind
• 41:21
  of French root, the French roots that that happened at the
• 41:24
  beginning of Lent as a it's a wonderful way to let our hair
• 41:28
  down and party with some of the excesses of, of human life and
• 41:32
  fun in order to be able to pray well, prepare well for the
• 41:35
  feast. And part of that is mocking the
• 41:37
  devil who's who's, again, figuratively, right.
• 41:40
  So the masquerading and the costumes don't have to be weird
• 41:45
  or creepy. Unfortunately, a secular culture
• 41:47
  doesn't understand any of that, so I don't know how we get that
• 41:51
  part back. Many, many fervent Catholic
• 41:53
  parishes have adopted customers. Yeah.
• 41:57
  Dress up in costumes. Kids love that.
• 41:58
  Dress up as the Saints, you know.
• 42:01
  But you're saying it's OK to dress up as a witch or to put
• 42:04
  the devil ears on your baby? I think no, I don't think so.
• 42:07
  I don't think you put on your baby but but I think that you
• 42:09
  can make. Sense I mean you.
• 42:10
  Can make sense even of that. You can make sense even of that
• 42:13
  if you're in a cultural atmosphere that makes sense of
• 42:16
  it. Like, we are mocked together.
• 42:19
  We're mocking and we're celebrating the victory of death
• 42:23
  of of life over death, of Christ over death.
• 42:25
  Yes. And so part of doing that is to
• 42:28
  dress up even as the goblins and the gremlins and the ghouls, to
• 42:30
  say like, you have no power. Yes, now I don't I again, I
• 42:34
  wouldn't recommend that necessarily for a family.
• 42:36
  You know every Catholic listening is out.
• 42:37
  We're going to get our our ghoul costume on.
• 42:39
  Are just kidding. I think, like I said, you can
• 42:41
  make sense of it culturally, but unfortunately we don't live in a
• 42:43
  Catholic culture anymore. So you have to, you have to find
• 42:46
  a way to, to make these things Incarnate and lived in family
• 42:50
  life or in perish life or in church life in a way that's
• 42:52
  going to make sense now. And a lot of that, as I said, is
• 42:55
  about proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ in this particular
• 42:58
  atmosphere. So it might not be a great idea
• 43:01
  to put the, the devil horns on your little bee.
• 43:02
  I think it'd be kind of silly anyway.
• 43:04
  But like I said, having I, I remember as a kid, you know,
• 43:08
  growing up in a, in a very ordinary Catholic parish and
• 43:10
  Catholic atmosphere, it's not like that was Christendom, not
• 43:14
  by any stretch of the imagination.
• 43:16
  But you know, the Casper the Friendly ghost decorations and
• 43:20
  the skeletons in the skulls. There was a context for that in
• 43:23
  my family and in my parish. We understood what that meant.
• 43:26
  It wasn't scary for the kids. And it's also because we
• 43:30
  understood that to be referring both to the mockery of, of the
• 43:34
  conquered foe and also about the fact that death is on our mind.
• 43:39
  Death is on our mind in these days, and that's a good thing
• 43:42
  for Christians to think about. And to remember the dead.
• 43:45
  Memento Mori, remember the dead, remember the dead, remember your
• 43:49
  death. And so that the the the talk of
• 43:53
  death and the decorations and things that make us remember
• 43:56
  death, even those have a very important place in the Christian
• 44:01
  life. You're going to die.
• 44:03
  Are you ready for it? What about the people who have
• 44:05
  died? Were they ready for it?
• 44:07
  And so surrounding ourselves with those things, I would
• 44:10
  recommend, and you haven't asked about this yet, but I think
• 44:13
  especially for Catholic Christians, for Catholics, take
• 44:15
  your children to the cemetery and pray for your beloved dead.
• 44:19
  It's a beautiful custom and death should not be scary.
• 44:22
  It's a part of life. And it's OK to welcome children
• 44:26
  into in an appropriate way, in an age appropriate way, helping
• 44:30
  them to understand that death is a part of their life too, a
• 44:32
  family life. I think that it's really sad
• 44:36
  that Catholics don't go to the cemeteries anymore.
• 44:38
  The Church thinks it's so important that she blesses that
• 44:40
  with an indulgence visiting the cemetery in the Octave of All
• 44:45
  Saints Day. And what does that mean?
• 44:47
  What? What?
• 44:47
  When you say indulgence, what do you get?
• 44:49
  So yeah, so that you. Go to the cemetery to pray for
• 44:52
  the dead. Yes, and there the Catholics can
• 44:54
  can look this up online about how to how to find the, you know
• 44:57
  what all of that means. If you don't know what that
• 44:59
  means, and there are many places you can find out what all that
• 45:03
  means. Basically, it's an indulgence to
• 45:04
  act. Praying for the dead is a
• 45:05
  valuable and important thing. And you can gain what we call a
• 45:09
  plenary indulgence for to be applied to the souls of the
• 45:12
  faithful departed by visiting a cemetery and praying for the
• 45:15
  dead. And there's again, that's I'm
• 45:17
  oversimplifying that, but so your Protestant friends are,
• 45:21
  their heads might spin, but that's OK.
• 45:24
  There's so much beauty, beauty to what you're saying, though,
• 45:26
  and you know, odds over the years, I've come to understand
• 45:29
  it and live in it. And again, I think culture
• 45:31
  clashes, I think as significant as a philosophical question or
• 45:36
  disagreement, because if you don't grow up with it
• 45:39
  culturally, it can feel very strange.
• 45:41
  Pray for the dead, you know, Now, most people do visit the
• 45:44
  cemetery, at least to remember. But to to remember and to pray
• 45:48
  is the call for for Catholics and unorthodox and I believe for
• 45:52
  all Christians. I believe too.
• 45:54
  So, so now what about ghosts? What are ghosts?
• 45:57
  Are they real? Not just should you dress up as
• 46:00
  one or not, but do we, you know, if there are some actual, I know
• 46:04
  as an exorcist, you know, there's demons are real, angels
• 46:07
  are real. But I've heard stories of people
• 46:10
  that really believe there was a ghost that they encountered or
• 46:14
  that they were scared of. So I think that the the Catholic
• 46:19
  perspective on this and also the perspective of, I would say the
• 46:22
  vast majority of exorcists on this would be that most of the
• 46:25
  time those kind of supernatural experiences are attributed to
• 46:29
  one of two things. Either some demonic presence
• 46:34
  that's manifesting itself in that way, or, and this is a
• 46:38
  different kind of manifestation of that, the souls of the
• 46:41
  faithful departed asking for prayers in some kind of manifest
• 46:46
  way. That's a little bit complicated
• 46:50
  and a little that might be too far afield for this
• 46:52
  conversation, but the so those two things.
• 46:56
  So if you, if you, there could be a soul that's not getting
• 47:00
  prayers and he might come knocking.
• 47:03
  Yes, correct. Like knock knocking.
• 47:06
  Correct. That's that there, that, that is
• 47:08
  a possibility. And I could tell a beautiful,
• 47:12
  fun little story from the Orthodox world about that which
• 47:14
  was reported to me. So this is about, you know, this
• 47:16
  is a story that comes in third or fourth hand now, But the, the
• 47:20
  priest who was a drunkard and he, he was struggling in his
• 47:27
  priestly life as an Orthodox priest to maintain kind of the
• 47:30
  integrity of his own Christian life.
• 47:32
  And but he was repentant and he was a struggler and he was a
• 47:35
  beautiful, beautiful, beautiful struggler.
• 47:38
  And he could celebrate the prayers in the Orthodox Church
• 47:42
  for the faithful departed. That's what he was doing,
• 47:44
  offering the the Divine Liturgy for that intention.
• 47:46
  That's pretty much all he did. And his Bishop was really
• 47:52
  irritated with his drunkenness and how that was a public
• 47:54
  scandal and so forth. And so he, he wanted to remove
• 47:58
  the ability of this priest to say those present to offer those
• 48:00
  liturgies. And the, the Bishop was awakened
• 48:05
  one night by this crowd of ghosts, that is souls of the
• 48:09
  souls of the faith departed who were chastising him in the
• 48:12
  night. Don't remove this priest
• 48:14
  faculties to be able to offer these prayers because we need
• 48:17
  them. And even though he's a drunkard,
• 48:19
  at least he's praying for us, you know, So, so that's a just
• 48:23
  a, a fun little story about, about, about how that the world
• 48:27
  between the beyond that veil, that liminal veil between this
• 48:30
  world and the next is sometimes a is sometimes perforated and we
• 48:35
  have communication across it. And that's a beautiful and
• 48:38
  mysterious thing. So a non demonic ghost is not a
• 48:41
  scary thing at all. It's a it's a soul that really
• 48:45
  just needs a prayer. That's right.
• 48:49
  A bit of an over oversimplification, but yes, in
• 48:51
  a nutshell, that's right. And if you are I, so I've had
• 48:54
  dreams in the past as an example or felt, felt strong, a strong
• 48:58
  impulse to pray for someone who had passed that I had not
• 49:01
  thought of in years or who I didn't have any kind of close
• 49:05
  connection to. And dreams where this person
• 49:07
  would be in my dream. And the sense of it was they
• 49:09
  were asking for something from me.
• 49:12
  And so in that case, and I've heard other people express
• 49:14
  similar things, it's a it's prayer that they're seeking.
• 49:17
  I think so. And why wouldn't, why wouldn't
• 49:19
  God allow that communication to happen in our dream life?
• 49:23
  Again, it's difficult for us to interpret those things in some
• 49:25
  kind of a country. It's not like a it's not like a
• 49:27
  checklist that you can check off all of the factors and say, oh,
• 49:30
  that was definitely this person asking for purse, but why not?
• 49:33
  And I would say that if you were inspired to pray and you did,
• 49:37
  there's nothing bad about that. But and that's nothing but good
• 49:41
  about that. And that can't come from the
• 49:43
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• 49:45
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  order. All right, so for those
• 50:33
  listening that want to celebrate that already are celebrating,
• 50:36
  you already mentioned the beauty and the grace of going to pray
• 50:40
  at a cemetery with your family and your children for the dead
• 50:44
  trick or treating is OK. It's got the it's got the thumbs
• 50:46
  up, but pray for those in the home and pray for the dead of
• 50:48
  the home as you do that. What are some other things that
• 50:52
  Christians can do during this these those upcoming holy days?
• 50:55
  Upcoming holy days, I think the trick or treating thing, you
• 50:58
  know, I've heard all kinds of fun and creative solutions to
• 51:02
  this. A neighborhood that you know is
• 51:03
  safe. A neighborhood that you know,
• 51:05
  might be not quite so marked by all of those awful, you know,
• 51:09
  skeletons in the yard and so forth of the, the really over
• 51:12
  materialized thing. There's the trunk or treating
• 51:14
  that seems to, I don't know if you've heard about that, you
• 51:16
  know, in the parish, in the parish parking lot or something.
• 51:20
  A little bit more of a controlled environment.
• 51:22
  I think that especially for Catholic Christians, encouraging
• 51:25
  the people in your parish to put together a little party for the
• 51:28
  kids. Why not let them dress up, dress
• 51:31
  up as the Saints, you know, maybe have a parade, you know,
• 51:35
  all of that kind of making our faith tangible and fun and
• 51:40
  culturally rich. That's a great thing to do.
• 51:42
  That's all Halloween related. The eve, the eve of All Saints,
• 51:46
  All Saints Day, go to Holy Mass. It's a holy day of obligation.
• 51:50
  Celebrate the fact that we have this cloud of witnesses
• 51:53
  surrounding us who are praying for us, all of our friends in
• 51:58
  heaven who have arrived at the heavenly homeland.
• 52:01
  That's what All Saints Day is about.
• 52:03
  And when the Saints go marching in, as it were, you know,
• 52:05
  celebrating that triumph of Christ's victory in their lives,
• 52:11
  there are far more, far more members of the Church in heaven
• 52:17
  than there are on earth. You think so?
• 52:19
  Absolutely. That's encouraging.
• 52:21
  You think of all the people who are alive.
• 52:22
  I think so too, but. Absolutely.
• 52:25
  How many are We're the minority? How many are not in heaven?
• 52:27
  How do we know? Do we have any sense?
• 52:29
  We don't have any. We don't.
• 52:30
  We can't know that. No, we just because there have
• 52:32
  been billions of souls. Exactly, exactly.
• 52:34
  We are the we are the minority and the majority are are of
• 52:38
  members of the church. Are the deceased members of the
• 52:41
  church? If someone died in 300 AD, yes.
• 52:47
  Is are they for sure through purgatory by now?
• 52:51
  I sure hope so, Violet. That's a question about time.
• 52:53
  And I don't know those these are these are things I can't know.
• 52:55
  We can't know. You know, how long is a soul in
• 52:58
  purgatory? What does that mean?
• 52:59
  And of course time is the measurement of change according
• 53:02
  to before and after. And that's what time is.
• 53:05
  And so before and after is those are those are important factors
• 53:08
  and how we reckon time. So.
• 53:10
  Do most people go to purgatory, would you say?
• 53:12
  I would. Well, OK, so.
• 53:14
  They need a purgation process to complete.
• 53:17
  The notification that nothing impure enters heaven, that who
• 53:21
  is in heaven right now? The God, obviously, and all of
• 53:27
  the angels and all of the Saints.
• 53:31
  Who else is in heaven? Is is Grandma in heaven?
• 53:34
  Well, was she a St. demonstrably a St. before she died?
• 53:38
  Then yes, maybe. The Church probably won't.
• 53:40
  Certainly the Church can't canonize everybody who's in
• 53:43
  heaven right now. If someone is not a St. that is
• 53:48
  purified, ready to see, to behold the face of Christ, free
• 53:51
  from all stain of sin and all the temporal punishment due to
• 53:54
  their sin, then they're going to be in purgatory.
• 53:57
  I think I, I might have mentioned this last time we
• 54:00
  talked, but the ordinary path for every Catholic Christian,
• 54:04
  for every Christian, is that we cooperate with God's grace.
• 54:07
  We're saved, obviously, washed in the blood of the Lamb,
• 54:09
  baptized, cooperate with God's grace so that we become Saints
• 54:13
  on earth before we die. That's the ordinary path.
• 54:16
  So there's no. If we don't put up, that's not
• 54:18
  the, it's, it's not. The ideal situation would be
• 54:21
  that we're sanctified because of all the many, many gifts that
• 54:25
  our Lord gives us in order to become his closest friends, to
• 54:28
  become Saints and we die and go to heaven.
• 54:33
  Whether or not that happens has everything to do with us.
• 54:36
  I've heard that it's much harder to be purified in purgatory than
• 54:40
  on Earth. Because we can't, because the
• 54:42
  souls in purgatory, we call them the the poor souls and Catholic
• 54:45
  lingo are the holy souls. They can't do anything for
• 54:47
  themselves because they don't have their bodies with them.
• 54:50
  They're waiting. The resurrection of the body,
• 54:52
  Their their time of, of merit is over.
• 54:59
  Death brings an end to the possibility to to grow closer to
• 55:03
  the Lord in that way. And so they can do nothing for
• 55:07
  themselves, which is why it's so important to pray for them.
• 55:09
  They're the neediest souls in the mystical body of Christ.
• 55:13
  They are the poorest of the poor.
• 55:15
  Our prayers are the only things that can help end Masses for
• 55:19
  Catholics hath Masses said for the dead.
• 55:22
  That's what helps speed their purification.
• 55:25
  And they are, they are so grateful.
• 55:26
  Imagine if we have all of these intercessors in heaven now, the
• 55:30
  Saint Augustine's and the Saint Monica's and the Saint Norbert's
• 55:32
  and our Blessed Mother. Imagine the souls that arrive at
• 55:37
  heaven because of our prayers that helped helping their
• 55:39
  purification, how they will be our friends interceding for us
• 55:43
  so. So in the process of
• 55:46
  sanctification on this earth to avoid purgatory.
• 55:49
  And I, I, I, I think you weren't though.
• 55:51
  I know I'm, I'm going a direction here about Saints, but
• 55:53
  were there something else you wanted to say about ways we can
• 55:56
  celebrate All Saints and All Souls?
• 55:58
  And then I want to finish this out with the topic of Saints.
• 56:01
  OK, the positive topic of Saints.
• 56:03
  So I, I mentioned, you know, the, the, the trappings and the
• 56:06
  fun and the festivity and the tomfoolery around the Vigil of
• 56:09
  All Saints. That's a very Catholic thing,
• 56:12
  carving pumpkins and lighting candles and all of that.
• 56:15
  Where did the carving of the pumpkin come?
• 56:17
  And that has to do with the, with the visiting of the
• 56:19
  cemeteries, preparing to visit the cemeteries the next day and
• 56:22
  mocking the demons and carrying candles and, and all of that,
• 56:26
  that, that those are all the cultural features that go along
• 56:28
  with that. Those customs are preparing to
• 56:30
  go to the cemetery and then going to the cemetery that's all
• 56:33
  around that. So All Saints Day, go to Holy
• 56:37
  Mass, celebrate with your family, celebrate with your
• 56:40
  parish community and and then beginning on All Saints Day, but
• 56:44
  certainly on All Souls Day, visit the cemetery, pray for the
• 56:47
  dead that you can do that for a whole octave and through the
• 56:49
  month of NN is the month of the dead.
• 56:52
  So those are all suggestions about how to sprinkle holy water
• 56:55
  on the Grays of your of your of your loved ones and priest do
• 56:59
  that. We go and bless the the
• 57:00
  cemeteries in on All Souls Day. Those are suggestions about how
• 57:05
  to celebrate, and then you asked.
• 57:07
  The Saints so and there's a few things here and then we'll, and
• 57:10
  then I'll let you go because I know you're on to, on to the
• 57:12
  next thing. But on the topic of Saints and
• 57:14
  you know, the process of sanctification in this life, and
• 57:17
  you said earlier, the goal is to go straight to heaven.
• 57:20
  The goal is to be sanctified in this life, to allow yourself to
• 57:24
  be sanctified by the graces of of God and and all the graces
• 57:27
  that he gives us through all the different means that he gives us
• 57:30
  grace. But some of us end up in
• 57:32
  purgatory. What's the and you said there's
• 57:36
  a lot of Saints though in heaven.
• 57:37
  You think that there's many more than there are on earth.
• 57:41
  Is there anything more you can share?
• 57:43
  I know there's different Saints over the years that have had
• 57:45
  revelations about how there's actually a ton of people in hell
• 57:48
  and you know, the concerns about people that just blow off this
• 57:51
  opportunity in this life. And if you get to purgatory, it
• 57:54
  is a lot harder than this earth. You said they're suffering souls
• 57:56
  and that's because on this earth, you say you have your you
• 57:59
  have your body, but there's additional physical, I mean, I
• 58:02
  don't know if it's physical, but certainly spiritual pain that
• 58:04
  they're feeling in purgatory. What more can we know about the
• 58:08
  process of Saint making? OK, so.
• 58:12
  It definitely makes me convicted because it's like I've got this
• 58:15
  one day. I know I have.
• 58:16
  I might die tomorrow so better make it count.
• 58:19
  Yes, I agree. And I think that's the point
• 58:21
  about all of that thinking about, well, how many souls are
• 58:25
  damned and how many souls are saved it that's a scary thing to
• 58:29
  think about, but it's motivating.
• 58:31
  We, we learn from the Book of Revelation that our Lord doesn't
• 58:35
  want us to be lukewarm to lukewarm.
• 58:38
  He spits out of his mouth. He'd rather we be hot or cold,
• 58:42
  right? We want to be hot with the fire
• 58:45
  of charity, don't we? We want to be on fire with love
• 58:49
  for Jesus Christ. And if we think that that it's
• 58:54
  not an automatic thing that everybody just because because
• 58:58
  they call themselves a Christian means that they're going to be
• 59:02
  saved and sanctified and in heaven.
• 59:04
  If that's at least a possibility to think, you know what this is
• 59:07
  about the integrity of my Christian life and allowing my
• 59:11
  life to be transformed into a living icon of my Savior Jesus
• 59:14
  Christ, vessel of the Holy Trinity, filled with sanctifying
• 59:19
  grace, a member of his mystical body, all of those beautiful
• 59:23
  things that are true because of the life of grace.
• 59:25
  Then that means I'm not going to compromise with this world or
• 59:29
  I'm not going to allow myself to settle into a kind of
• 59:33
  lukewarmness, right. So it's motivating and I, I, I
• 59:38
  back away from well, how many is it damned?
• 59:41
  How many is it saved? How many is it in purgatory?
• 59:44
  I think we need to we need to think about that more as what
• 59:47
  does that inspire me to do with my Christian life today.
• 59:50
  As you said, this might be your last day on earth.
• 59:52
  I pray to God it's not you have too much good work to do, but we
• 59:56
  don't know when God is going to call us home.
• 59:58
  I would say. So the process of sanctification
• 1:00:00
  then I just wanted one thing that occurs to me about that is
• 1:00:02
  that. Embracing all of the set, the
• 1:00:06
  sacrifices and suffering that come with our state in life.
• 1:00:08
  You as a wife and a mother, me as a consecrated religious and a
• 1:00:11
  priest, everybody out there, all of our friends out there, your
• 1:00:14
  life carries with it a lot of purification.
• 1:00:18
  If we embrace that and offer it, offer it back to our Lord and
• 1:00:22
  say, Lord, help this. Let me let this suffering
• 1:00:26
  sanctify me and purify how to purify the souls in purgatory
• 1:00:30
  that offer it up in Catholic life.
• 1:00:31
  We, we those of us who are raised in Catholic households,
• 1:00:35
  our mothers always told us when you're, you know, you stub your
• 1:00:38
  toe or you're or you're feeling ill or you're feeling under the
• 1:00:41
  weather, whatever, offer it up, offer it up.
• 1:00:44
  OfferUp that suffering as a pleasing sacrifice to God for
• 1:00:46
  your own sanctification and for the suffer the sucker, the
• 1:00:49
  sucker of the souls in purgatory.
• 1:00:51
  So. And so if there's, you know,
• 1:00:53
  when we pray for All Souls Day and obviously we celebrate All
• 1:00:56
  Saints Day, we don't know for sure, except for the canonized
• 1:01:00
  Catholic Saints. We don't know for sure who's
• 1:01:03
  where. So in a way, we're kind of,
• 1:01:07
  there's a bit of a guessing in terms of we're going to pray for
• 1:01:10
  the soul of this person, but they might not, they might be in
• 1:01:13
  hell already. Is that possible?
• 1:01:16
  It is possible, certainly it's possible that hell is a real
• 1:01:19
  possibility. And please God, none of us finds
• 1:01:21
  him or herself there. Can you imagine?
• 1:01:23
  No, you can't even imagine. The thing that covers me about
• 1:01:26
  hell is we choose to go there. You've got to choose it.
• 1:01:29
  Yes, we have to choose it deliberately, choose not to be
• 1:01:32
  on the side of Christ and his church.
• 1:01:35
  That's right. I think I, I sometimes think
• 1:01:38
  that just to your, to your question there about we, since
• 1:01:41
  we can't know except for those Saints whom the church has
• 1:01:44
  canonized and tells us these are Saints who are worthy of our
• 1:01:48
  veneration and our intercept, we can ask for their intercession.
• 1:01:51
  Liturgically speaking, they've been elevated to the altars, as
• 1:01:54
  we say. It's always as especially as a
• 1:01:58
  Catholic priest, it makes me very anxious when people at the
• 1:02:00
  funeral say, well, grandma's already in heaven.
• 1:02:03
  We know for sure she's in heaven.
• 1:02:04
  I'm like, well how do you know she's in heaven?
• 1:02:05
  What if she's in purgatory and she needs your prayers?
• 1:02:08
  The point there is don't stop praying for your beloved dead
• 1:02:11
  because you don't know where they are.
• 1:02:13
  Just because we're good doesn't mean that we're sanctified.
• 1:02:19
  So if. He was a good man.
• 1:02:20
  She was a good man. Oh, they were nice.
• 1:02:22
  If grandma or great grandma dies and your young child asks you,
• 1:02:26
  where are they? Can you say they're in heaven or
• 1:02:30
  we hope they're in heaven? I mean, we can say we.
• 1:02:32
  Certainly, certainly we hope they're in heaven.
• 1:02:34
  We say they are in the hands of Almighty God.
• 1:02:37
  They are in the hands of Jesus Christ.
• 1:02:39
  They're, they're with Jesus in the sense that they are with his
• 1:02:42
  plan for them and, and every soul who's in purgatory is going
• 1:02:45
  to be in heaven when the time of purification is over.
• 1:02:47
  So they are with God. That might mean that they are
• 1:02:50
  still in purgatory undergoing their purification.
• 1:02:52
  That might mean that they're rejoicing with the angels and
• 1:02:54
  Saints on high. And I think you can tell your
• 1:02:57
  children they are safely in God's hands.
• 1:02:59
  If they died of good and holy death, they're safely in God's
• 1:03:02
  hands. And we're going to keep praying
• 1:03:03
  for them. There are deceased members of my
• 1:03:08
  own religious community whom I love.
• 1:03:12
  They're they're my brothers. They're my brothers in religion.
• 1:03:14
  They're my brothers in the priesthood.
• 1:03:17
  And I like to pray. There's one in particular I pray
• 1:03:22
  to and four often, both 2:00 and 4:00, because I say I don't know
• 1:03:27
  if you are in heaven or in purgatory.
• 1:03:28
  If you're in purgatory, I'm praying for you right now and I
• 1:03:30
  really hope you get there soon through my prayers and through
• 1:03:33
  my sacrifices for you and so forth.
• 1:03:35
  And if you're in heaven, please pray for me for this particular
• 1:03:38
  intention. So I don't know.
• 1:03:40
  The jury's out. We know for some, and that's the
• 1:03:43
  canonized So what who we celebrate on All Saints Day is
• 1:03:46
  the ones that we know know you know they're canonized by the
• 1:03:49
  church that. And we also, and we also, sorry
• 1:03:51
  to interrupt, Lila, we also celebrate all of those who are
• 1:03:54
  not known to us. So that is on All Saints Day.
• 1:03:56
  We're also celebrating for our grandparents, great
• 1:03:59
  grandparents, all of those who very likely could be in heaven,
• 1:04:02
  but we just don't know because the Church hasn't canonized
• 1:04:04
  them. So we're celebrating all the
• 1:04:06
  Saints in heaven, even those who are unknown.
• 1:04:09
  Does that make sense? Can it does make sense.
• 1:04:11
  Can you share a little bit about this canonization process?
• 1:04:15
  I've heard a lot of different things from different folks over
• 1:04:17
  the years. You know, it's getting in the
• 1:04:19
  weeds, but I think it's really valuable because there's some
• 1:04:22
  that criticize the whole thing. You know, how can you know?
• 1:04:25
  Or they say, of course, every Christian who passes is in
• 1:04:28
  heaven automatically, so they want to discount purgatory.
• 1:04:32
  But it's like, you know, are you putting them on a pedestal?
• 1:04:34
  Why would you do that? And then also, how do we know in
• 1:04:37
  the process of of the church's diligence, due diligence, that
• 1:04:41
  they actually are in heaven? In addition, I'm going to ask
• 1:04:44
  you about the change in the canonization process in the last
• 1:04:48
  few decades. I think it was under Pope John
• 1:04:50
  Paul the Second. I think that's right.
• 1:04:51
  And I'm, I'm not an expert in those changes, but the, in a
• 1:04:54
  nutshell, the the church elevates for the example of the
• 1:05:00
  whole body of Christ, those individuals whom she wants to
• 1:05:04
  share, show them as models to follow in some particular way.
• 1:05:07
  And usually those people, those holy people who have what we
• 1:05:12
  call a liturgical cult, that is, there are groups of people
• 1:05:15
  through the centuries who have honored them in some kind of a
• 1:05:17
  public and important way. So the early Saints before the
• 1:05:23
  12th century, if I'm not mistaken, they were usually
• 1:05:27
  those Saints who those people who, whom the Church had lifted
• 1:05:31
  up in some kind of a concrete way locally, you know, in a
• 1:05:34
  Diocese of North Africa or in France, particular people where
• 1:05:37
  they were so obviously holy, The church began to venerate them in
• 1:05:40
  this, in this kind of a way. And then the church ratified
• 1:05:43
  that with liturgical cults. And you can offer Mass in their
• 1:05:46
  honor. You can say that the Divine
• 1:05:48
  Office in their honor, you can pray to them.
• 1:05:49
  And with these prayers and the church blesses all of that.
• 1:05:53
  And then then there's the process that began that's a more
• 1:05:56
  kind of juridical process to say, well, there's so the church
• 1:05:58
  has spread so far around the whole world.
• 1:06:00
  How can we kind of regulate this in a more systematic way?
• 1:06:05
  And that's the process for canonization, which was then
• 1:06:07
  adopted by the church, which involves examining their lives,
• 1:06:11
  the the virtues of their lives. It involves the recognition of
• 1:06:15
  miracles that are favors that are granted through their
• 1:06:19
  intercessory power. And that's that's probably what
• 1:06:21
  you're talking about is controversial, but but two
• 1:06:25
  miracles necessary identified by the church and carefully
• 1:06:27
  studied. So that is, we're definitely in
• 1:06:30
  the tall grass here. And they need scientific proof
• 1:06:32
  for them too, right? These have to be miracles that
• 1:06:35
  are physical or can they put spiritual healing?
• 1:06:38
  Usually they're physical, but that not that's not exclusively
• 1:06:41
  necessary. So that's a very complicated
• 1:06:44
  question. But yes, there there's some
• 1:06:46
  astonishing miracles through the intercessory power of the
• 1:06:49
  Saints. So should one want to be a
• 1:06:51
  canonized St. I think we should all strive for
• 1:06:53
  holiness, we should all strive to be Saints because that means
• 1:06:56
  that we're just doing what what Christ and his Church has given
• 1:06:59
  us the power to do, and that is to conform our lives to to
• 1:07:02
  Christ. So that is no longer I live, but
• 1:07:05
  Christ who lives within me. As Saint Paul says, we should
• 1:07:08
  all desire that so ardently that all we want is to become Saints
• 1:07:13
  and to be with with our Savior in heaven.
• 1:07:15
  But I think about Saint Therese, you know, she had this, this
• 1:07:18
  she's the little Carmelite sister who wanted so badly to be
• 1:07:22
  a St. And she had very physical
• 1:07:24
  limitations. And she dreamed of these like,
• 1:07:26
  you know, incredible journeys to save souls and go in every
• 1:07:30
  continent and do all these amazing things.
• 1:07:31
  But she contented herself remembering that God made her as
• 1:07:34
  she was and she in heaven could perhaps do the great feats of
• 1:07:39
  soul supporting and and helping. Well, she was a St. in heaven,
• 1:07:44
  but you kind of want to be known that you're a St. in heaven so
• 1:07:47
  that you can people, you know, you can have a relation, that
• 1:07:50
  relationship to encourage them in their life on earth.
• 1:07:53
  And I and I also, you know, if you're a St. in Heaven and
• 1:07:56
  you're not canonized on Earth yet, are you helping the people
• 1:07:59
  Canon who's who are working on your canonization process?
• 1:08:02
  I think that if you're I think that we should want God's will
• 1:08:06
  to be affecting our lives so perfectly that if he desires
• 1:08:09
  that you Lila, become a canonized St. an example for the
• 1:08:12
  church that that that his will be done.
• 1:08:14
  I don't think we should have a whole lot to say about that for
• 1:08:17
  ourselves personally. I, I would, you know, St.
• 1:08:20
  Therese, she did say that she did she wants to spend her
• 1:08:22
  heaven doing good on earth. She would be doing that whether
• 1:08:24
  she were canonized or not. And I think all the Saints in
• 1:08:27
  heaven, whether they're canonized or not, that is where
• 1:08:29
  they're elevated by the church is an example like look to this
• 1:08:31
  one, pray to this one. Ask this one for those favors.
• 1:08:35
  So we can do as a St. in Heaven, we can do as much good on Earth
• 1:08:39
  regardless of our canonization. That's not going to affect
• 1:08:43
  necessarily our relationship with other people.
• 1:08:45
  I think. That's true if we make it.
• 1:08:47
  All of these things, all of these things are all up to God's
• 1:08:50
  good pleasure. He is the Lord of the universe.
• 1:08:54
  He's the one who determines which individual people become
• 1:08:57
  the canonized Saints that are elevated by the Church.
• 1:08:59
  He determines the ones who are in heaven right now, unknown to
• 1:09:02
  anybody, but whose intercessory power is making, keeping,
• 1:09:06
  keeping the the earth going around the sun.
• 1:09:09
  But I've noticed too, there's a lot of human will that he works
• 1:09:12
  through, of course, and he permits.
• 1:09:14
  Instrumental causality. Instrumental causality in the
• 1:09:16
  Saint making process. Yes.
• 1:09:18
  And I've talked to some of these guys who are talking about, you
• 1:09:20
  know, as an example, there's Mother Angelica, right, who's
• 1:09:23
  not sainted yet. And there's these other, you
• 1:09:24
  know, Archbishop Fulton Sheen and they're, you know, JK
• 1:09:28
  Chesterton. And there's a lot of talk about,
• 1:09:30
  you know, people have their favorite.
• 1:09:32
  They really want them for multiple reasons to be
• 1:09:35
  canonized. And then there's the little
• 1:09:37
  known soul, you know, father of seven 8-9 children who had a
• 1:09:41
  very quiet life and you know, someone maybe has the
• 1:09:45
  imagination to strike up his 'cause it's all in his
• 1:09:49
  Providence of. Course, it's all in his
• 1:09:50
  Providence and he. Probably works through people's
• 1:09:54
  good and maybe not so good intentions along the way.
• 1:09:56
  Absolutely, absolutely. You know that you just, I
• 1:10:00
  couldn't agree with you more that God's Providence descends
• 1:10:03
  even to all of those individual circumstantial decisions along
• 1:10:08
  the the process of canonization or the publication of books or
• 1:10:12
  all of those things. All of that is guided by God's
• 1:10:16
  marvelous providential care. And we'll only see how that all
• 1:10:19
  works out once we get to heaven. And we see, oh, now I understand
• 1:10:23
  why you use that person's desire for whatever to make this
• 1:10:29
  canonization process go along here and we'll see it all.
• 1:10:31
  That's going to be one of the marvelous joys of heaven, to see
• 1:10:34
  all of the threads of the tapestry, how they all work
• 1:10:37
  together. And it's only how many Saints
• 1:10:42
  are canonized we don't have. Them Oh gosh, I don't even know.
• 1:10:44
  That's a great. Question not much more than 1000
• 1:10:46
  as. I no, I think it's I think.
• 1:10:47
  It's much more than 1000. Is it much more?
• 1:10:49
  It's much more than 1000. It would be many thousands, we
• 1:10:52
  read in the martyrology of the church in my monastery.
• 1:10:54
  Read The Martyrs, yeah. So, so every, it's it's a long,
• 1:10:58
  long list. Beautiful.
• 1:10:59
  Long and if you're a martyr, you are go right to heaven.
• 1:11:03
  Correct, that's correct. That that's, that's the, that's
• 1:11:06
  the, the short, short cut, you know, the quick path, the.
• 1:11:11
  Tough the tough and quick one. OK, last question on Saints you
• 1:11:14
  said yeah, I I don't necessarily know all the details of what
• 1:11:16
  happened during this time, but John Paul the second did do some
• 1:11:19
  changes in the canonization process and my streamlined it.
• 1:11:21
  Yes, my understanding of it in part was to shorten the time
• 1:11:24
  before someone can be canonized, meaning, you know, there was
• 1:11:28
  maybe decades would pass or even hundreds of years before someone
• 1:11:31
  would be canonized after their death.
• 1:11:33
  And he was saying no, it it can be less time.
• 1:11:35
  So we have more modern Saints. And then he seemed to put an an
• 1:11:38
  additional emphasis not on the religious being canonized, but
• 1:11:42
  on lay people being canonized, including children, I mean
• 1:11:46
  teenagers. For example, recently, the just
• 1:11:50
  a couple years ago, wonderful Italian young man whose whose
• 1:11:53
  body is in Assisi in Italy in his hoodie with his with his
• 1:11:58
  soccer cleats on. And I don't think they're
• 1:12:00
  cleats, but. Is he incorrupt?
• 1:12:02
  He's also incorrupt. That's like another world.
• 1:12:05
  Yeah, that means that his, his flesh is not decaying.
• 1:12:09
  So that's a whole nother wonderful world that often makes
• 1:12:12
  our Protestant friends heads spin.
• 1:12:14
  But it's about the incarnational reality of the Christian life
• 1:12:17
  that sometimes God, God preserves the body of the
• 1:12:21
  deceased person on earth from the corruption of death.
• 1:12:24
  Saint Bernadette, St. Blessed Carlo Couti's Saint
• 1:12:27
  Padre Pio, There are many there, there are many incorrupt Saints.
• 1:12:31
  Their bodies are not rotting in the in the tomb, but you can go
• 1:12:33
  and look at them and say, yeah, the Catholic world is beautiful.
• 1:12:37
  To your point there about the there was an expedite expedition
• 1:12:40
  of the canonization process precisely so that John Paul the
• 1:12:44
  Second Pope, St. John Paul the Second, wanted to
• 1:12:45
  lift up some contemporary witnesses for us to look to and
• 1:12:49
  including lay people. It's not just for priests and
• 1:12:52
  consecrated religious, but holiness is for everybody.
• 1:12:55
  Everybody is called to holiness. Everyone's called to be a St.
• 1:12:59
  Correct. Wonderful.
• 1:13:00
  Well, Father, what are you doing to celebrate the Holy Days
• 1:13:04
  coming up? Halloween and All Saints and All
• 1:13:07
  Souls Day. For us consecrated religious and
• 1:13:10
  for priests, the liturgical life is supreme for us.
• 1:13:13
  So we'll begin our celebration of All Saints Day at the Vigil.
• 1:13:17
  The The High Holy Days begin the evening before.
• 1:13:20
  And so for us, Halloween begins with first Vespers of All Saints
• 1:13:22
  Day and of course, a very solemn Mass on All Saints Day.
• 1:13:27
  One of the great joys of priestly life is offering Masses
• 1:13:29
  for the dead. So All Souls Day.
• 1:13:32
  Uniquely, while there are two days of the year that the
• 1:13:34
  priests can offer three Masses in one day for the souls of the
• 1:13:37
  faithful departed. So we celebrate many Masses on
• 1:13:41
  All Souls Day and I often like to thank and of course we visit
• 1:13:45
  cemeteries. We bless the graves of our
• 1:13:47
  beloved dead and of our confreres.
• 1:13:50
  I often like to think that I pray that every November 2nd is
• 1:13:54
  like Christmas in purgatory. And that I always have this this
• 1:13:58
  intention in my in my mind that with our masses and the masses
• 1:14:01
  happening all over the world, the sacrifices of the Mass that
• 1:14:04
  the priests are offering three each all around the the
• 1:14:07
  universal Church, that purgatory is emptied on All Souls Day
• 1:14:12
  every. Week beautiful we'll.
• 1:14:13
  See if that happens. I love that, but no trick or
• 1:14:16
  treating for you. No trick or treating, No.
• 1:14:18
  And you've got your costume already.
• 1:14:20
  I've so you're all. I live in.
• 1:14:21
  I live in my Halloween. Costume, it's a good one.
• 1:14:25
  I might try to make one for my my 4 year old.
• 1:14:27
  So my almost 4 year old. Thank you so much Father
• 1:14:30
  Ambrose, this has been awesome. Thanks Lila, God bless you and
• 1:14:32
  your viewers. Thank you.
• 1:14:35
  Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lila Rose Podcast
• 1:14:38
  with Father Ambrose Christ. Don't forget to like this video.
• 1:14:42
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