Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E103: The Most Important Holiday Is Not Christmas w/ Fr. Ambrose Christe

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E103: The Most Important Holiday Is Not Christmas w/ Fr. Ambrose Christe · The Lila Rose Show

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  Easter is the most important one, much more important even
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  than Christmas, obviously, because it's about our
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  salvation, our redemption, Christ, his resurrection on the
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  third day and then his ascension into glory.
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  And I need to celebrate that for a whole season of Easter, 7
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  weeks. 50 days, 50 days. I've often heard, and I'm sure
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  you've heard this people say, well, Easter is a Pagan holiday.
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  It predates the whole Christian tradition.
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  What do you say? I say, well, that's not true.
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  That's wrong. But what about the Bunny
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  rabbits? What about the Easter eggs?
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  You know, walk me through theologically.
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  What did Jesus actually do while he was in the tomb and Jesus
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  going into hell? And why does it matter?
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  Christ's death is the conquering of death, overcoming this
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  penalty for sin which all of us suffer.
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  Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Lila Rose
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  Podcast. Today we are talking with Father
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  Ambrose Christ, who is a big favorite on the show and we're
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  talking all things Easter Heaven and Hell.
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  Is Easter a Pagan holiday? And more.
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  As you guys know, we often talk about prayer on the podcast and
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  how important prayer is. Prayer is scientifically proven
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  to extend your life. Prayer is how we deepen our
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  relationship with God. Prayer is how we discover what
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  we're meant to do with our lives.
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  Prayer is everything and that's why I love prayer apps, tools
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  that can help us to pray in the busyness of our lives.
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  Last Advent, we partnered with Halo, which is the number one
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  prayer app in the world. I love the Halo app.
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  It helps millions of people to pray and has the best features
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  in the market. From meditations to guided
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  prayers to stories to sleep stories to children's content,
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  you'll find everything on the Halo app.
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  As you might remember, we made an announcement last Advent that
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  we were going to pause our partnership with Halo because of
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  some decisions that were made to have a lead person in one of
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  their Advent prayer campaigns be someone involved in pro abortion
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  activism. Over the last few months, I've
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  been able to have some heart to hearts and conversations with
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  leadership at Hollow, and they have shared that they have
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  improved their discernment and vetting processes so they won't
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  be making the same mistake again.
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  What this means is that I'm thrilled that we are now
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  partnering with Hollow again. We will be promoting them on the
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  show and I'm confident that their content and their app will
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  help you pray as it has helped me pray.
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  So you can download the Halo app today if you haven't already.
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  Use the link in the bio and you will get three months free.
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  And I'm looking forward to a long partnership with Halo to
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  help them in their mission to help more people pray.
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  Father Ambrose. Chris, welcome back to the
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  podcast. Thanks.
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  For having me back, Lila. You are a popular one, so I'm so
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  glad you're back and it's always awesome getting to talk to you
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  well. Thanks.
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  I was really glad for the another invitation.
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  It's always nice to come into your studio and to have these
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  marvelous conversations. Awesome.
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  Well, I also love talking with your I don't know can I call him
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  your prodigy? Is that is that going to offend
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  someone? But Father Peter?
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  Father Peter Adrian was also awesome talking about fasting
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  recently. Great episode with him.
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  Well done on forming him. Thank you very much.
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  And, you know, you might say that you could tap into probably
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  Eddie Norbertine in our community, in our Canonry, and
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  you'll find a vigorous and lively interlocutor.
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  So there's. You're all awesome.
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  I haven't met a bad Norbertine yet, so that is why.
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  Yeah, wonderful. So for those that haven't met
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  you yet, through the show we've talked about Halloween, you've
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  worked as an exorcist, we've talked about demons and angels.
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  Give folks who are learning about you for the first time a
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  little bit of the background on Father Ambrose Crist.
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  So I've I joined the Abbey in the year 2000.
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  I come from a Catholic family in the state of Colorado where I
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  grew up, and my priesthood up until just relatively recently
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  was working for the formation of future priests in our Abbey
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  here, St. Michael's Abbey here in Southern
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  California. Forming young men welcomed them
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  into the community, serving as what we call the novice master
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  and the director of the House of Formation.
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  Just recently in the last couple years, our community has sent
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  out a group of us to the Midwest, to Springfield, IL to
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  start a new Priory of our order there.
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  Springfield, IL, so right in the heart in the heartland of our
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  country. And I'm one of those seven
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  Norbertines who's out there in Springfield.
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  And my work now is a new project called the Evermode Institute,
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  teaching the faith to all the people who teach the faith to
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  others. So Catholic school teachers,
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  catechists and parishes, parents and families were growing out.
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  This new Norbertine company, New Apostolic Ministry of
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  Evangelizing those people who who teach others the faith.
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  So needed I I, you know, I, as we've talked about on the show,
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  I've talked about on the show, I became a Catholic in college.
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  But I've met obviously so many different Catholics different
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  people who were raised Catholic don't practice anymore.
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  And I've just seen there's so much, I think misunderstanding
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  or a lot of misunderstandings and assumptions about what the
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  Catholic Church actually teaches, what the faith is
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  versus what it's not. Yes, even from people who are
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  teaching our CIA. Absolutely.
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  There was a there was a horrifying statistic that came
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  out in 2019 that 2 birds of people who profess to be Roman
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  Catholics in our country don't believe what the Church teaches
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  about our Lord's real presence in the Holy Eucharist 2/3.
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  That's a very alarming statistic, and what that means
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  is that somehow we have failed as a church to communicate the
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  faith to the people who think that they know the faith and
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  often don't in fact know the faith, even it's in its most
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  basic beliefs and tenants. So, so we have a lot of work to
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  do. Lila and this project called the
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  Evermode Institute is one way, along with all the other things
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  that we, Norbertine Canon's regular are doing the Abbot
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  circle and our our digital ministry.
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  All the ways that we're collaborating, we're just trying
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  to get the good news of Jesus Christ out there and preach the
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  gospel. Amen.
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  Well, we're here to talk about Easter.
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  And I was going to start with, is Easter a Pagan holiday?
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  We're actually going to get to that in a moment, but I want to
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  start with something you just said, which is that 2/3, I think
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  you said of Roman Catholics don't believe in the True
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  Presence, is very connected to Easter of Jesus Christ.
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  What is the True Presence? What does that even mean, the
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  True Presence in the Eucharist? And why does it matter so much?
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  OK, so the the Holy Eucharist, which is the the Sacrament that
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  we celebrate and receive at Holy Mass.
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  The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass brings down upon the altars of
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  our Churches Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament that is His
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  gift to us in the Holy Eucharist.
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  And the The authentic Christian faith of this sacrament is that
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  it is the Body, blood, soul, and divinity really and
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  substantially present in that Sacrament.
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  The Holy Eucharist is not just a memorial.
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  It's not just a mere sign or symbol, but it contains Our Lord
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  Himself, Body, blood, Soul and divinity in this wonderful
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  sacrament. That doctrine is what I said is
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  the that that that is the Catholic Christian faith of the
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  sacrament, very, very briefly. And many Roman Catholics, many,
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  many Catholic believers don't understand that, or maybe they
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  haven't heard that, or they haven't learned that thoroughly.
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  So when we receive Holy Communion at Mass, we are
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  receiving the very substance, the very body, blood, soul and
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  divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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  That's not maybe an amazing thing.
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  You know every other kind of food that we eat.
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  When we eat food, a carrot or a hamburger, whatever, that food
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  becomes us. It becomes our flesh and blood
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  and bones. We turn the food into ourselves.
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  Metabolically, when we receive the Holy Eucharist, we become
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  the Lord Jesus. He transforms us into Him.
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  So the few days before the crucifixion and then before the
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  resurrection, Jesus is having his Last Supper with his
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  disciples and he says to them he kind of institutes to them or he
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  prefigures. I don't know if that's the
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  proper theological. World he He institutes the Holy
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  Eucharist. At the He institutes the Holy
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  Eucharist. He does this.
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  And he offers them bread and wine and says, you have to eat
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  this. Tell us how.
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  Explain how scripturally speaking, there's evidence for
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  what you're describing. Because a lot of evangelicals I
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  know and and just good people of faith read the Bible.
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  And they say, OK, Jesus is doing this beautiful symbolic gesture
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  to kind of pass on the baton to his disciples.
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  And, you know, they're doing this in memory of him as this
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  ritual to help them remember his sacrifice for them.
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  But this is not Jesus's actual body of blood, soul and divinity
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  like the Catholic Church teaches or the Orthodox teach.
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  So the the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy
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  Eucharist and the priesthood which happens at that Last
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  Supper on Holy Thursday in the Upper Room with the Apostles.
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  That institution of the Holy Eucharist and of the priesthood
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  is this gift, our Lord's gift to the Church so that he will
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  remain with His Church until he comes in glory at the end of
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  time. That Last Supper and the
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  institution of the Holy Eucharist there in the bread and
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  the wine which become his very body and blood.
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  Then that's ratified consummated in his death on the cross.
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  So it's it's almost like that sacrifice begins on Holy
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  Thursday night in the Upper Room.
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  It's consummated on the cross and His passion and death and
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  but because of the priesthood and because of our Lord's
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  institution of these amazing sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice
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  of the Mass in the Catholic churches from that moment until
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  the end of time is the representation of the sacrifice
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  of Calvary. Our Lord's death, saving death
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  for our salvation on the altar in an unbloody way, that's what
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  the Holy Eucharist is in the Mass.
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  And then we have the the gift, if we're disposed to, to receive
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  it. To receive that in Holy
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  Communion, I would recommend just briefly.
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  To sum this up, scripturally, I would recommend to all Christian
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  believers of all denominations read the 6th chapter of Saint
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  John's Gospel with all of this in mind.
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  In the 6th chapter of Saint John's Gospel is where we get
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  most explicitly our Lord teaching.
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  This is not merely a sign or a symbol or just merely a
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  memorial. It's all of those things.
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  But even more so, it is His very body and blood.
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  In that 6th chapter when he speaks about this, they say,
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  well, you, you can't mean I'm paraphrasing, of course you
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  can't mean that you want us to eat your flesh and drink your
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  blood. And he says no, that's exactly
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  what I mean. And some of them left.
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  And it says in the scripture some of them left, it says some
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  of the. Heart of a teaching.
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  If he didn't mean what he said, he would have gone running after
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  them and said no. No, I didn't.
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  Just a symbol. It's just a symbol.
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  He let them leave rather than try to convince them it was
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  merely a symbol so that they would stay with him.
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  So this is a this is an essential teaching of the
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  gospel, an essential scriptural teaching of the gospel that the
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  Holy Eucharist is our Lord's very body and blood, soul and
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  Divinity. So I would just encourage
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  everybody to read the 6th chapter, Saint John's Gospel
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  with that through that lens and you'll see it very obviously
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  there. Well, you look at the early
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  church and they believed it was really Jesus's body, blood, soul
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  and divinity. Many of the Christians and
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  certainly the Christian leaders, you know, the early bishops,
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  church fathers and doctors. But why?
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  Why do you think God set it up that way?
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  Why? What was our Lord's, you know,
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  strategy to to not just offer his entire self for our
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  salvation on the cross, but then to leave us this mystical, this
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  mystery of Yes, now go on Sundays, receive Holy Communion.
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  And it's really me. Or worship him in the Tabernacle
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  present there in our. Church and go worship me in the
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  Eucharist in adoration. You know, these might be code
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  speak to some people. It's like what is adoration?
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  It's like, well, the host, you know, the body, blood, soul,
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  indebting in the host is kept in the Tabernacle.
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  You can go and pray there and you're in the presence always.
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  We're in the presence of God, but physically in the presence
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  of our Lord in this special way. And my some of my most life
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  changing moments personally have been in front of the Tabernacle.
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  That's one of the greatest inspirations I've received in
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  prayer. Because I you you just know the
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  Lord's there. You cannot be any closer to him.
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  It's incredible. In the presence of God himself,
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  the very God himself, it's amazing.
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  The creator of the universe. And I also think, you know, it's
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  a, it's a, you know what, what we do to go see a celebrity or a
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  president or, you know, someone's coming to town that we
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  really care about. We dress and we like, we really
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  want to show up and be there and be there early.
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  You go to your favorite concert. You're there, you know, 24 hours
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  early, camping outside, whatever.
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  Every Catholic Church in America there is a Tabernacle where
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  Jesus, the King of the universe, is waiting for you physically.
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  He is really there. That's an amazing thing.
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  And and you asked why? Why would he set it up this way?
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  It's such a tremendous gift from the heart of our Savior because
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  of his love for us. He did not.
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  He told us that he does not want to leave us orphans.
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  He said He sent his Spirit, of course, to be present with us
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  after he ascended into heaven. He also desires to remain with
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  us in his risen body, pertinent to Easter.
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  You know that the presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist
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  is his resurrected body. That's the body that's there as
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  it exists right now, sitting at the right hand of the Father in
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  glory. That's the body that is present
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  in the Holy Eucharist. He didn't want to leave us
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  orphans. He wants to remain with us until
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  he comes again in glory, to consummate all things at the end
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  of time. Why bread and wine?
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  And why bread and wine that we're also supposed to eat.
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  Yes, because it's so close to our nature to eat and to drink.
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  This is so it's. I think you spoke a little bit
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  about this with Father Peter Adrian and why do we fast?
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  It's because the nutritive faculty, that is the fact that
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  we are animals. Animal.
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  We have an animal nature and also a rational will and soul.
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  But eating is so close to us. It's something that we cannot
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  live without. So our Lord wants to be with us
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  right there at that place that is so close to our that that the
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  way that we can even live or die has to do with our eating,
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  doesn't it? So he wants to be with us right
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  at the very foundation of our nature, of our natural life here
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  in this world. And what does it mean that he
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  chose bread and wine? And how can it be still bread
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  and wine, but also Jesus? It's not still bread and wine,
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  and also Jesus. It's the in the Holy Eucharist
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  the bread and wine pass away. Their substance is no longer
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  there. The doctrine of
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  transubstantiation, the substance, the entire substance
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  of bread and wine, is replaced entirely with the substance of
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  our Lord's body and blood. So all that remains is what we
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  call. This is intimistic language.
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  In the philosophical language of Saint Thomas and the ones who
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  came before him, all that's left is the appearance of bread and
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  wine. The species is.
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  The word, the accidents, the accidents of bread and wine and
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  all that, That's all that's there.
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  The substance of bread and wine is no longer there.
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  It's a it's a mystery of faith. We even say that in the Holy
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  Mass. This is the mystery of faith.
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  There's so much to say about the Holy Eucharist.
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  It's it's a gift, it's a treasure.
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  And it's something that we we want every Christian to know and
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  understand and to believe, because that's what our Lord
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  wants to. And it's nourishing beyond all
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  belief. I mean, that's the thing.
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  And and and but but you can receive it unworthily.
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  I mean that's the thing. You can go and you can receive
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  with disbelief or receive with serious sin that's unrepented
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  and. That would be a sacrilege.
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  And that, alas, I I think it probably happens sometimes.
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  But yes, in a in a in a perfect world where where Christians
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  understand all of these things and live their lives in a with
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  an integral kind of faith, then someone would only approach Holy
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  Communion if they were not conscious of having any
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  unconfessed grave sin. That's the way things ought to
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  work. Which is why again, the
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  sacrament of reconciliation or confession is such an important
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  sacrament in this order of right worship and and faith as well.
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  So all of these things work together and everything focuses
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  in, leads to and flows from the Holy Eucharist.
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  As Saint John Paul the Second said, it's the source and summit
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  of our whole Christian faith. Which is who is the risen Lord,
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  So Easter. There's so much I want to talk
• 16:48
  about with Easter, but of course Easter's about Christ, so
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  starting with the talking about the Eucharist makes perfect
• 16:53
  sense and we'll probably end up back at the Eucharist towards
• 16:55
  the end. But I've often heard, and I'm
• 16:57
  sure you've heard this, that people say, well, Easter.
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  It's nice that the Christians are doing this.
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  Jesus died for sins and resurrected again.
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  But Easter's a Pagan holiday. It predates the whole Christian
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  tradition and it's a Pagan holiday.
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  What do you say? I say, well, that's not true.
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  That's wrong. And like many other things,
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  we've had conversations before about accusing Christians of
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  this paganism that then they sometimes or somehow baptize
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  into into a Christian worldview. It's another one of those
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  situations with Easter that people often accuse or recently
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  in the last couple centuries accuse us Christians of
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  baptizing A Pagan holiday because of the name Easter.
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  And most of the Catholic and Christian world uses a word that
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  refers to the Passover for this feast, the the Pasqua, the
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  Pasca. Greek and Latin cognate so that
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  the holiday is more closely affiliated with the Passover
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  because that's when it happened. Our Lord died on the cross that
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  Last Supper, Holy Week, happened in conjunction with the Jewish
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  Passover. That's why they all went up to
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  Jerusalem. As you'll recall, they went up
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  to celebrate the Passover, remembering of course from
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  Exodus when the Lord passed over the houses of those who had
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  marked the lentil and the doorposts with blood.
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  So the Angel of death would Passover and then they could be
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  liberated from Egypt across the Red Sea, right through the Red
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  Sea. Our Lord, His Passover for our
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  salvation happened in conjunction with that Jewish
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  holiday of the Passover. And in fact they had to take him
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  down off the cross before at the end of the day so that he could
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  be late in the tomb and they wouldn't violate the Sabbath
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  that Saturday. And then he rose from the dead
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  early in the morning, the first day of the week, Sunday.
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  All of these other languages call this festival, this
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  holiday, the pasque or the Passover.
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  It's only in the English words and Germanic languages.
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  So a small little portion of European languages say Easter
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  instead of Pasqua, Pasca, Passover, Pasque.
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  Why? Well, that word in the old High
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  German and then it's cognate language.
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  So the roots of English, basically Northumbrian and and
• 19:17
  these Northern European language cousins that that became English
• 19:22
  that we speak. Now that word Easter refers to
• 19:26
  this word ustern or something like that.
• 19:28
  It's the same word that we use for the East.
• 19:30
  Why do we refer to the east as the east?
• 19:32
  It's the place where the sun rises.
• 19:34
  It it that word about the dawn, or about the breaking of the
• 19:38
  dawn, about the sunrise. That word E for us also refers
• 19:43
  to this festival, because in those ancient languages the
• 19:46
  month that this, that the feast usually happens is April.
• 19:51
  The month of this E the Eastern month.
• 19:56
  There's a long linguistic. When the sun rises earlier or
• 19:59
  well. The day the days start to
• 20:00
  lengthen after the early equinox so so the the the days are
• 20:03
  growing. And that month April, which is
• 20:06
  most of the time when Easter occurs in this month.
• 20:09
  In our language family of English, German, the Nordic
• 20:14
  languages, we refer to the feast by this time of the year the the
• 20:20
  month of the rising sun, the month of the lengthening day,
• 20:24
  East Easter. Now, there's also the reason why
• 20:27
  there's some confusion about the paganism.
• 20:28
  There's sometimes people associate this sun goddess that
• 20:34
  has a similar name, this eastern goddess.
• 20:39
  Of course, that's just a coincidental thing.
• 20:41
  That's a linguistic coincidence. You know, we we still talk about
• 20:44
  days like Thursday or Wednesday, which are references in our
• 20:50
  language to Nordic gods. Thursday is the day of Thor.
• 20:54
  Wednesday is the day of Woden. You know, so.
• 20:56
  But we don't live our lives thinking that because I'm going
• 20:59
  to do something on Thursday, that means it's somehow in
• 21:01
  reference to the God Thor. It's just a linguistic
• 21:04
  coincidence. And there's this linguistic
• 21:06
  coincidence also in Our Calling this festival Easter.
• 21:11
  That's it. It's a simple it's.
• 21:13
  A so and you could say before the Christian tradition started
• 21:16
  to celebrate Easter, there were certainly could be Pagan
• 21:19
  cultures which had sort of like when the Suns, you know, the
• 21:21
  days start to stretch in the springtime.
• 21:23
  We do springtime rituals and holidays, but you don't get
• 21:26
  fertility. Festival.
• 21:27
  You don't get to own the calendar just because you did
• 21:29
  something right. I mean, that's what it comes
• 21:31
  down to. Just because you do something at
• 21:33
  the same time of the year that we do it.
• 21:35
  Doesn't mean we're copying you, nor does it mean that we're, you
• 21:38
  know, we This originated from what you're doing.
• 21:40
  That's right. And by the way there I think
• 21:42
  that the anthropological, the little bit of anthropological
• 21:45
  research, I've looked into this in preference in in preparation
• 21:48
  for this conversation. I didn't find anybody who
• 21:50
  scientifically thinks that it's actually a Pagan feast that
• 21:53
  somehow was Co opted by the Christians.
• 21:55
  No one actually believes that. It's an accusation that's made,
• 21:58
  but there's no. Well, there's no other.
• 22:00
  There's no sort of that, you know, what would be the Pagan
• 22:03
  myth or what would be the religion where God himself dies
• 22:07
  for others and that is. Resurrected.
• 22:09
  Right. The story, the the, the, the
• 22:11
  narrative, you could say, of the Christian faith is so.
• 22:15
  Uniquely ours. Uniquely ours.
• 22:17
  And it's so jarring, too, that God would do this for us out of
• 22:20
  love. Yes, absolutely.
• 22:22
  Now there is a coincidence with the Passover.
• 22:24
  I mean, the reason why we celebrate Easter when we do is
• 22:27
  because it happens in in conjunction in some way with the
• 22:33
  solar lunar calendar that the Jewish community follows.
• 22:38
  You know, they follow a lunar calendar.
• 22:39
  And so because our Lord died and rose from the dead in
• 22:43
  conjunction with the Passover festival that the Jews
• 22:46
  celebrate, Easter is always going to be around that time.
• 22:49
  And now that's there's a whole long wonderful history about how
• 22:54
  we reckon the date of Easter and how that that became to be a
• 22:57
  settled. But that was all intentional
• 23:00
  design of our Lord. I mean, He came to the world as
• 23:02
  a Jew, and he came as the Messiah that the Jewish people
• 23:05
  were long awaiting. Yes.
• 23:06
  Oh, and by the way, the Passover lamb which is sacrificed.
• 23:11
  And we learn that from the 12th chapter of Exodus, right?
• 23:14
  The Passover lamb is a prefiguration.
• 23:16
  We come to find out in as a prefiguration of the Lamb of God
• 23:21
  who was slain. When Saint John the Baptist
• 23:24
  pointed to Christ at his baptism at the river Jordan said, behold
• 23:28
  the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the
• 23:30
  sins of the world. He was making it obvious that
• 23:33
  this is the fulfillment of that Passover lamb from the Old
• 23:37
  Covenant. And Christ is the new Lamb who
• 23:40
  is slain for our salvation. He's the Lamb of God.
• 23:44
  Which is also why the Eucharist comes back into the story,
• 23:47
  because that is the the the reference to eating and the
• 23:51
  sacrifice that has to be consummated and also consumed.
• 23:54
  Because they they actually had to eat the Passover.
• 23:56
  Lamb. They couldn't leave any of it
• 23:58
  for the next. Day Wow.
• 23:59
  And Jesus is the Passover lamb. It is.
• 24:01
  And look at the Book of Revelation, for example, the 5th
• 24:03
  chapter of Revelation where the heavenly liturgy where Saint
• 24:07
  John in that mystical vision sees the angels, Mary's of
• 24:10
  angels and the four creatures and all the elders worshipping
• 24:14
  the Lamb who was slain and yet is alive.
• 24:17
  That's what it says. And they say Worthy is the Lamb
• 24:20
  who was slain to receive power and wealth, wisdom and and
• 24:26
  grace. I can't remember all the words,
• 24:27
  right? Dineus Asanus Worthy is the
• 24:30
  Lamb. So the heavenly liturgy that
• 24:32
  Saint John sees in his Revelation in the Apocalypse is
• 24:36
  the heavenly worship of this Lamb who was slain and yet
• 24:41
  remains alive. Wow.
• 24:44
  Beautiful. So all of it comes to all these
• 24:47
  things. From from the the beginning of
• 24:49
  the Holy Scriptures in in Genesis to the end of Revelation
• 24:53
  we have this wonderful arc of the prophecies and the
• 24:57
  prefigurations of Christ, the Messiah, His coming, his saving
• 25:01
  passion and death, his resurrection, and then the
• 25:03
  liturgy that flows out of that, and the the life of the
• 25:06
  Christian churches that then extends to the whole world, the
• 25:10
  whole known world. Amazing.
• 25:11
  It's amazing, and maybe it's not something that anyone could have
• 25:14
  exactly predicted in every detail, but certainly the
• 25:18
  prophets, you know, the Old Testament, because Jesus is the
• 25:21
  fulfillment of all of the Old Testament's yearnings and
• 25:24
  longings and, you know, needs and then prophecies, right?
• 25:29
  The sacrifice of Isaac. When?
• 25:31
  When, when, when Isaac was going to be sacrificed and the Angel
• 25:37
  stayed Abraham's hand Don't kill your son, says Well, where am I
• 25:40
  going to find the sacrifice? And the Lord himself will
• 25:43
  provide the Lamb for the sacrifice.
• 25:45
  And he found the ram there in the thicket, which then he he
• 25:50
  slayed upon the altar instead of his Son.
• 25:52
  Right? That's the Lord himself will
• 25:55
  provide the sacrifice. That's our Lord Jesus Christ in
• 25:59
  fulfillment, right? So that was prefiguring that
• 26:02
  story. The God himself coming and
• 26:04
  offering himself as the Lamb. Yes, God himself will provide
• 26:07
  the Lamb for the sacrifice. So.
• 26:10
  And just every, practically every page of the Holy
• 26:12
  Scriptures does this. Practically every page.
• 26:14
  Saint Jerome said that you will find Christ on every page of the
• 26:19
  Scriptures. Wow.
• 26:20
  In the Old Testament. Well, and the New.
• 26:22
  But in the old. Every Psalm refers to him in
• 26:24
  some way. Every page of the scriptures
• 26:26
  refers to him in some way. It's it's when I began to learn
• 26:31
  about it more over the years, you know?
• 26:33
  And one of the reasons I became Catholic was just seeing the
• 26:35
  beauty of the whole thing come into, yeah, maybe more of a
• 26:38
  blurry vision. I'm no expert on every detail,
• 26:41
  but to see just the beauty of the whole, the whole thing, it's
• 26:45
  just it's incredible how every detail God has.
• 26:49
  Created and shown to us scripturally, and through the
• 26:53
  whole beautiful history of our of the Old Covenant and the New
• 26:56
  Covenant, and even to the current day, the unfolding of
• 26:59
  all of these things. God attends to every detail.
• 27:01
  And we can read that. We can read that in the word of
• 27:04
  God, and we can read that in the life of the Church.
• 27:06
  What a gift. So I I feel confident you've
• 27:09
  debunked, you know, oh, it's just a Pagan holiday that's been
• 27:12
  taken over by the Christians. But what about the Bunny
• 27:14
  rabbits? What about the Easter eggs?
• 27:16
  You know, I think, you know, the the God of fertility stuff.
• 27:19
  You know, Bunny rabbits are so fertile and that's maybe why we
• 27:22
  now have them as Christians, because the pagans use them.
• 27:24
  I mean, these are all some I think I've heard misconceptions
• 27:27
  about. You know what these are
• 27:30
  culturally today, and they're stolen.
• 27:31
  They're stolen from the Pagan. Should we talk about Easter
• 27:33
  bunnies first? Yes, let's talk about Easter
• 27:35
  bunnies. Well, please.
• 27:36
  Do you? Know I was thinking about how we
• 27:37
  could talk about this and the the pre modern people read God's
• 27:44
  hand and everything. We don't really have a
• 27:46
  conception of that in the post. What do you mean by pre modern
• 27:49
  like? Before the before Descartes and
• 27:51
  before the so-called Enlightenment, before.
• 27:54
  So we were good up until 1600 or when?
• 27:56
  When does it fall apart? OK.
• 27:58
  But the the these philosophical errors that came in with the
• 28:00
  early modern period, where the world became all about me and
• 28:04
  the individual, and that we see ourselves as minds trapped in
• 28:07
  bodies, and that everything that's true.
• 28:10
  You are your brain. I think therefore I am, said
• 28:14
  Descartes famously. Right.
• 28:15
  So you are your brain all, and we see the the horrible, just
• 28:18
  horrific fallout from. That bloodshed, quite frankly.
• 28:23
  Yes, in the in the in the in these days that we live in now
• 28:25
  with transgenderism and abortion and all of these things that are
• 28:29
  these horrors to our human nature that stem from the idea
• 28:33
  that we're not actually bodies and souls together and the world
• 28:36
  is not integral anymore. In this beautiful pre modern
• 28:40
  vision of every God permeates all of nature and creation in a
• 28:46
  multiplicity of ways. So.
• 28:48
  OK, I want to get to the Easter bunnies with this I it begs the
• 28:50
  question I have to ask. I've heard even from some good
• 28:53
  Christians, typically you know, more in the evangelical world,
• 28:55
  but I've just heard this as a sentiment that I am not.
• 28:58
  I have a body and I am a soul. Have you heard this?
• 29:01
  We are composites, body and soul.
• 29:04
  We are halomorphic creatures with a body and a soul together.
• 29:08
  We don't have a body. We are our body and we are our
• 29:13
  soul. Both of those things are
• 29:15
  essential to our human nature. God gave us both.
• 29:18
  It's why we're going to rise from the dead in our bodies on
• 29:20
  the last day. Because if we're just souls, we
• 29:24
  don't need bodies. But we will be incomplete
• 29:26
  without them. We are incomplete without our
• 29:28
  bodies. So no, we're not, you know,
• 29:31
  spirits or souls trapped in this flesh, which we can change
• 29:35
  either in its sex or in its. Shake off, Destroy.
• 29:40
  Yeah, it's it. Just be the brain locked in this
• 29:44
  robot one day, or whatever it is.
• 29:45
  It's It makes no sense for someone to say I feel like or I
• 29:51
  am a man trapped in a woman's body.
• 29:53
  I am a woman trapped in a man's body.
• 29:54
  That makes zero sense according to our nature, because your body
• 29:59
  tells you something about who you are.
• 30:02
  We are not merely souls trapped in bodies.
• 30:04
  We are. We are our bodies and our souls.
• 30:08
  Our identity is tied up in both of those things, so that's a
• 30:12
  little bit of tangent. Thank you.
• 30:13
  Thanks for the tangent. No, it's it.
• 30:15
  That's such an important point. But yeah, Easter.
• 30:17
  Bunny that's Easter. So so in this pre pre modern
• 30:20
  world view everything like even the fertility and proliferation
• 30:24
  of rabbits in the springtime point to something more than
• 30:27
  just the proliferation of rabbits in the springtime.
• 30:29
  So you often see in in medieval manuscripts bunnies, rabbits,
• 30:34
  hares, especially with reference to the Virgin Mary.
• 30:37
  Because there was this wonderful misconception of the medieval
• 30:40
  people that where where did all of where do all of these little
• 30:44
  Bunny rabbits come from In the spring?
• 30:45
  They must reproduce without ordinary sexual intercourse.
• 30:50
  Really. They thought.
• 30:51
  That that was one one of the many one theory.
• 30:54
  So they must, they must be a sign of a virginal kind of
• 30:58
  reproduction. Interesting.
• 30:59
  So they tie that to Our Lady. And again, in the medieval mind,
• 31:01
  it's not that they think that somehow the little Bunny rabbit
• 31:05
  is like the mother of God, but it points to her in a way that
• 31:10
  makes sense to a medieval mind. Just like every time they see a
• 31:12
  tree, a medieval person sees not only the tree, the oak tree or
• 31:15
  whatever kind of tree they also think about.
• 31:17
  That's the wood of the cross upon which my saviour died from
• 31:20
  my salvation. Everything means something.
• 31:22
  OK, to regain that sensibility? Yes, wouldn't it be one?
• 31:26
  I mean that that's because the whole world comes alive with the
• 31:29
  story of God and the story of Christ, which it is alive with
• 31:31
  the story of God and the story of Christ.
• 31:33
  But the modern mind has just. And maybe we're.
• 31:36
  Just on our smartphone, we can't even pay attention to the tree
• 31:39
  anymore. Absolutely.
• 31:40
  And all the more reason then to have Easter bunnies as a symbol
• 31:44
  of our Lord's resurrection. Why not?
• 31:46
  Not because we think that we're we're not obviously worshipping
• 31:49
  the rabbit. We we we're not stupid enough to
• 31:52
  think that somehow bunnies reproduce virginally, but it's
• 31:57
  this wonderful sign to remind us that all of creation is alive
• 32:01
  with God's glory and returns to God's glory.
• 32:03
  So also, so that's just one one thing about that.
• 32:07
  The other thing is that medieval Christian Catholic people and
• 32:10
  ancient Catholic Christian people sacrificed tremendously
• 32:14
  during this, the holy season of Lent.
• 32:15
  Like you spoke about with with my Contra father, Peter Adrian,
• 32:18
  if you weren't eating eggs and you weren't eating any meat, you
• 32:21
  were really looking forward to eating eggs and returning to a
• 32:24
  consumption of meat at the Easter festival.
• 32:27
  So in a world in which the meat of rabbits was a very common
• 32:32
  food for poor people, maybe you couldn't afford to slay a lamb
• 32:37
  or a cow or a hog, but you could catch rabbits easily.
• 32:41
  They're all over the place in the springtime and you can eat.
• 32:43
  You can eat rabbits or hares for the Easter celebration after you
• 32:46
  haven't eaten meat for 46 days or more, right?
• 32:49
  So why not associate that with the festival?
• 32:52
  It makes perfect sense, doesn't it, To this kind of complete
• 32:56
  worldview. Same thing with the eggs.
• 32:57
  You know, ancient and medieval, pre modern Christian people.
• 33:03
  We didn't eat any animal products.
• 33:05
  No. Dairy, No.
• 33:06
  Eggs, No. The original vegans.
• 33:09
  The original vegans. So chickens continue to lay eggs
• 33:12
  through all of the season of Lent, and it's not like people
• 33:14
  are going to throw those away. So everybody had their eggs,
• 33:18
  waiting to consume them again. When Easter rolled around,
• 33:21
  trading them, painting them, decorating them, giving them as
• 33:24
  gifts, it became a sign of the resurrection, because this is
• 33:28
  one of the foods that we can return to eating, and we're
• 33:31
  looking forward to that, and we're going to make it part of
• 33:33
  our jubilant celebration. So decorating them is something
• 33:37
  that came out of Mesopotamia. Decorating them, especially red,
• 33:40
  then took on a meaning of the red around the shell looks like
• 33:44
  the blood of Christ. You break it open and the egg is
• 33:47
  white, a symbol of the resurrection in the very
• 33:50
  creature of this egg. Blessings of those things.
• 33:53
  So all of this has to do with this cohesive worldview and
• 33:57
  Christian life that involved 40 days and sometimes more of
• 34:01
  serious fasting, serious feasting, with the holiday
• 34:05
  rolling around and all of the food and symbols of nature and
• 34:09
  everything around that that reminds us of both of those
• 34:12
  factors of life, fasting and feasting.
• 34:14
  So we got to the eggs as well. Very good.
• 34:18
  Beautiful. Eggs and bunnies.
• 34:19
  Eggs and bunnies and. Of course, the whole chocolate,
• 34:22
  all of that's a much more modern thing.
• 34:23
  Well, who doesn't like chocolate?
• 34:25
  If you're going to celebrate after fasting, why would you not
• 34:27
  do chocolate? Eat the Bunny chocolate.
• 34:29
  Don't eat a real Bunny. Eat a chocolate.
• 34:31
  Bunny And it also is a good reason for the commerce of the
• 34:35
  postmodern western world. You can make some money on all
• 34:38
  of. This too, of course, less about
• 34:39
  a Pagan holiday than a holiday than a consumerism consumer's
• 34:43
  opportunity. But it's nice when you know,
• 34:46
  even big businesses, you know, get excited about your holiday.
• 34:50
  Sure, why not? Yeah, let's go go Baker, go
• 34:52
  home. I mean, obviously there's some
• 34:54
  defects there too or issues with that.
• 34:55
  But overall, I think the more, the merrier, the more we can
• 34:58
  celebrate, the merrier. You said the festival of Easter,
• 35:02
  I think you used the term. This is the word term festival.
• 35:05
  I think that's another word that is sometimes confusing for
• 35:09
  people because typically festival, you know, you kind of
• 35:11
  Harkins back, OK, these Pagan festivals, even the word ritual,
• 35:16
  you could say that for that word too.
• 35:18
  So the idea that Christians who are just 2000 years old here,
• 35:21
  you know, Christianity has festivals and rituals, it's
• 35:26
  really just our version of what the pagans were doing or you
• 35:29
  know, whatever religions were doing before and we just did our
• 35:32
  our new interpretation. It doesn't make it true, it just
• 35:35
  makes it our interpretation well.
• 35:37
  I would, I would respond to that in a more kind of generic way.
• 35:41
  Human nature being what it is, even the pagans are going to
• 35:44
  point to something that's true about our nature, that is, that
• 35:46
  we need to celebrate and we need to worship.
• 35:49
  And we need to do that in reference to the things around
• 35:50
  us that the nature that God gave us.
• 35:52
  And they might be wrong about the contents of how they're
• 35:54
  doing that, but this is so consonant with our human nature
• 35:58
  that we follow a calendar and that we have periods of the year
• 36:02
  devoted to different kinds of worship, whether it's fasting or
• 36:06
  feasting, or that we're going to prolong a a festival of feast
• 36:10
  for more than just simply one event.
• 36:12
  Again, this is about our human nature.
• 36:14
  We're not disembodied minds trapped in bodies or something
• 36:18
  like that, where we can just think that my Lord rose from the
• 36:21
  dead. And that's enough for me.
• 36:23
  No, I need to think about that. And I need to celebrate that for
• 36:25
  70 days, a whole season of Easter. 70 days.
• 36:31
  Yes, it's seven weeks. It was 7, not 7/7.
• 36:34
  Weeks 50. Days well, first until the
• 36:37
  Ascension, which is 40 days later, and then the Ascension
• 36:40
  tied between the Ascension and the 50th day, which is
• 36:43
  Pentecost. That's all the Easter season,
• 36:45
  Easter season. So where did that calendar come
• 36:47
  from? Because I, I, I, I mean, you
• 36:50
  have 40 days of Lent and you can look at all these 40 days
• 36:53
  segments in the Holy Scripture and then you can look at sort of
• 36:57
  the trajectory of Christendom developing more and more of
• 37:00
  these. I don't know if you can call
• 37:02
  them customs or these, if you know, festivals or whatever
• 37:04
  around these different dates. I'm talking about the
• 37:06
  development of the liturgical calendar here.
• 37:09
  For a lot of Christians in the West today, the liturgical
• 37:11
  calendar does not really make sense or they don't even know
• 37:14
  about it. It's like a Catholic thing for
• 37:16
  some of the hardcore Catholic or Orthodox people.
• 37:19
  Tell me a little bit about what is this liturgical calendar and
• 37:21
  what does it mean that we celebrate not just one day of
• 37:24
  Easter, but you. We celebrate multiple weeks of
• 37:26
  Easter. There's a well, I would say the
• 37:29
  calendar is something that we share with also our Jewish
• 37:34
  forbearers. There's a feast of Pentecost in
• 37:36
  the Jewish calendar and as you said, the 40 day sections are
• 37:39
  something that we take from Moses on Mount Sinai.
• 37:42
  Our Lord's fast in the desert. So 40 days is an important, even
• 37:46
  pre Christian biblical idea that comes from Judaism of course.
• 37:50
  So it makes perfect sense that 40 days after his resurrection
• 37:53
  is when our Lord ascends into heaven because of that very
• 37:56
  important biblical number of 40 days.
• 37:59
  And then the festival of Pentecost is something that
• 38:02
  comes from Judaism, which then obviously is going to be
• 38:05
  fulfilled in Christianity. That's the whole point.
• 38:08
  Judaism is awaiting for the Messiah, whom we know to be
• 38:12
  Jesus Christ. And Christianity is the
• 38:16
  celebration, the fulfillment of all of Judaism in this man, this
• 38:20
  God man who died for our salvation and rose again on the
• 38:23
  third day and ascended his glory 40 days after his resurrection.
• 38:27
  And who sent us the Holy Spirit, the Consoler on Pentecost.
• 38:31
  So of course that's going to match what came before in the
• 38:35
  Jewish prefigurement of all of it.
• 38:37
  Of course that's going to be true again.
• 38:40
  I would say that the difference between that worldview and a
• 38:45
  calendar and the post enlightenment, which is also
• 38:50
  sadly in many ways the Protestant view kind of
• 38:53
  evacuates all of that history and culture from the religion of
• 38:58
  Christianity and makes it merely an intellectual exercise.
• 39:01
  Or an emotional one, No. Yeah, also.
• 39:03
  So I think recapturing well, the ancient Apostolic churches all
• 39:07
  have this sense of a liturgical calendar and seasons of the year
• 39:11
  and celebrations that. Extend beyond.
• 39:13
  Feast days and festivals and seasons, as I said.
• 39:16
  So Easter is the most important one.
• 39:18
  It's it's much more important even than Christmas, obviously,
• 39:23
  because it's about our salvation, our redemption,
• 39:26
  Christ dying for us on His saving passion and death, His
• 39:30
  resurrection on the third day, and then his ascension into
• 39:32
  glory and his sending of the Holy Ghost Pentecost.
• 39:35
  So that whole cycle obviously is something that's very important
• 39:39
  for us to celebrate and remember.
• 39:41
  So Easter is the most important. Absolutely.
• 39:44
  The sacred tribulum. So the end of Holy Week,
• 39:46
  beginning with Holy Thursday. Before Good Friday.
• 39:50
  Before Good Friday. So we call this the Paschal
• 39:53
  Mystery. The the, the, the Paschal
• 39:55
  Triduum. Triduum means three days so
• 39:57
  beginning with holy Thursday evening, the Mass of the Lord's
• 40:00
  Supper institution of the Holy Eucharist as we already spoke
• 40:03
  about, and the priesthood and the washing of the feet of the
• 40:07
  disciples there the mandatum, we call it Mondi Thursday for that
• 40:10
  the the washing of their feet that begins this sacred triduum.
• 40:15
  This these three days it's the center of the Church's year.
• 40:17
  The Paschal Mystery. Good Friday, his death on the
• 40:20
  cross and and and burial in the tomb.
• 40:25
  Holy Saturday when he descended into hell.
• 40:28
  Amazing ancient homilies from the 2nd century of reflecting on
• 40:33
  this Christ going down in harrowing hell, bringing out the
• 40:36
  souls of the just, starting with Adam and Eve and all of the just
• 40:40
  of the old covenant and then rising again early on the
• 40:42
  morning on the third day. This is the center of the
• 40:45
  Christian life and worship, culminating obviously in the
• 40:49
  Lord's resurrection, so that it's the most important.
• 40:52
  It's the reason he came into the world as a.
• 40:54
  Baby and and we celebrate that in the most solemn way in those
• 40:58
  three days, culminating with His resurrection on on Easter.
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• 41:42
  I want to dive into it a little more what these three days mean
• 41:46
  so it's not a Pagan holiday. I have.
• 41:48
  I'm I'm I'm convinced father. You convinced me.
• 41:51
  Yes. Well people will still accuse us
• 41:52
  of that Lila but we can take it. We can take it But you know
• 41:55
  enjoy your Easter Bunny knowing fully you can celebrate Jesus
• 41:58
  Christ with your chocolate Bunny.
• 42:00
  But on Saturday you mentioned so Good Friday.
• 42:03
  I think you know, I know many people, even non Catholic,
• 42:05
  certainly the orthodox, certainly many evangelicals who
• 42:08
  acknowledge Good Friday and it, you know obviously are deeply,
• 42:11
  deeply connected to remembering at minimum you know the the
• 42:14
  sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.
• 42:15
  I mean that is that is why in every Catholic Church you have
• 42:18
  Jesus Christ on the cross and you physically see Jesus on the
• 42:21
  cross. It's not just a cross, you see
• 42:23
  the corpse, you see the crucifix, you see Jesus on
• 42:24
  there. But this thing of good of
• 42:28
  Saturday and Jesus going into hell, walk me through
• 42:32
  theologically what did Jesus actually do while he was in the
• 42:35
  tomb? I mean, he was just in the tomb
• 42:37
  and why does it matter? And how do we know that that's
• 42:40
  true that that's happened is where's is there scriptural base
• 42:43
  backing for that? You know, is there a biblical
• 42:45
  backing for that? Well, we know that Christ,
• 42:48
  certainly you know Saint Paul and Saint Peter the the New
• 42:51
  Testament refers often to the fact that Christ is victorious
• 42:54
  over death. Death was a punishment for sin
• 42:58
  and Christ is victorious over death by his own saving death on
• 43:01
  the cross. That's part of the essence, the
• 43:04
  nucleus the core of Christianity that dying he destroyed our
• 43:09
  death. Rising he restored our life.
• 43:11
  Lord Jesus come and glory we prayed holy mass.
• 43:13
  That's the memorial acclamation. The the that that scriptural
• 43:16
  idea that comes you know reflected on by Saint Paul and
• 43:19
  by Saint Peter and their epistles that Christ's death.
• 43:25
  Saint Paul says death where is your victory?
• 43:27
  Oh death where is your sting? Right.
• 43:31
  Christ's death is the conquering of death and overcoming this
• 43:35
  penalty for sin which all of us suffer because of original sin
• 43:40
  in Adam and Eve. So Christ descended to the to
• 43:44
  the dead. We say in all of our Creed's the
• 43:47
  the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed.
• 43:48
  We say that he died and descended into hell and rose
• 43:53
  again. All the On the third day that
• 43:54
  descend into hell is part of his victory over death.
• 43:59
  What did he do in hell? Yes, he the just of the old
• 44:03
  Covenant. So all the just men and women
• 44:06
  from Adam and all the way until Saint John the Baptist and Saint
• 44:11
  Joseph the the the last prophets, the last Jews before
• 44:16
  salvation, was affected by our Lord's death on a Good Friday.
• 44:21
  All of those people were not able to enter heaven because
• 44:25
  they had not yet been saved by being, by being washed through
• 44:28
  the butt of blood of Christ Salvation.
• 44:30
  That victory had not yet been won on Calvary.
• 44:34
  They were waiting. The ancient fathers of the
• 44:36
  Church called this the Limbo of the just that, that that middle
• 44:40
  place between heaven and hell. It's not heaven because it's not
• 44:44
  the vision of glory of God and glory.
• 44:46
  It's not the sight of the Father, but it's not eternal
• 44:49
  damnation in hell. These were good people.
• 44:52
  But it's like hell and that you're not in heaven, you're
• 44:54
  separated. So is that why it's called hell
• 44:57
  when Jesus goes there? Exactly.
• 44:59
  It's not. It's not hell in the permanent
• 45:00
  sense. Because, of course, it wasn't
• 45:02
  permanent for them. Because he's a.
• 45:03
  Separation from beatific vision. The the vision of God in.
• 45:06
  Heaven. So were they in pain?
• 45:07
  They were not in pain. They were waiting.
• 45:09
  They were waiting for the Messiah to fulfill.
• 45:12
  Maybe longing if not. Longing, longing for heavenly
• 45:15
  glory. And there's this amazing ancient
• 45:18
  homily for Holy Saturday. You can just Google that.
• 45:21
  And ancient homily on Holy Saturday, Google that and read
• 45:24
  it. It's from the 2nd century.
• 45:25
  It's unbelievably beautiful. And we we pray this homily as
• 45:29
  part of our Matins, the office of readings in Roman Catholicism
• 45:33
  on Holy Saturday. We read that 2nd century ancient
• 45:37
  homily again as part of our liturgy, of this very solemn
• 45:41
  liturgy. And it's this beautiful
• 45:43
  reflection on Christ going and and welcoming being welcomed
• 45:49
  into hell by Adam and Eve, who say the Lord be with you and
• 45:54
  with your spirit that uses liturgical language like we do
• 45:56
  now. And Christ saying that you
• 45:59
  basically you've been waiting and now you will be able to
• 46:01
  enter heaven with me because I'm victorious over death.
• 46:04
  The gates of heaven are now open to you.
• 46:07
  That's what was happening on Holy Saturday.
• 46:10
  The liberation of all of the souls of the just from the time
• 46:14
  of Adam until the last just person before Christ so that he
• 46:18
  could take them with him to heaven in his resurrection.
• 46:21
  Isn't that amazing? It is amazing.
• 46:23
  So they could rise from the dead with him in his resurrection.
• 46:26
  So the the the hell that is the other hell or beneath this hell
• 46:33
  that is the waiting space for Adam and Eve and the the souls
• 46:36
  of the just while they're awaiting the resurrection of
• 46:38
  Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
• 46:41
  That is something different. That's.
• 46:44
  Eternal. It's eternal damnation, eternal
• 46:47
  separation from God. And Jesus is not going into the
• 46:50
  place where people have effectively damned themselves in
• 46:53
  terms of their unrepentance, like their lack of trust.
• 46:57
  I mean, what I guess what I'm asking here is what is the
• 46:59
  teaching then, on all the souls before Jesus's sacrifice and
• 47:03
  resurrection? What?
• 47:05
  And the souls that went to hell? Well, presumably not that.
• 47:08
  Not the not the limbo hell, but the other.
• 47:10
  Hell, the hell of the damned, the the eternal one.
• 47:13
  That the the presumption there is that we would presume that
• 47:18
  there were also people who were not just not the just of the Old
• 47:22
  Covenant people who were not worthy of they did not.
• 47:26
  They were not waiting for the Messiah, so they died in their
• 47:29
  sin. Remember the Old Covenant
• 47:33
  conferred grace that that you know when Abraham and Moses and
• 47:37
  Isaac and Jacob and and Sarah and all of the holy ones of the
• 47:42
  Old Covenant, they had access to the grace of God.
• 47:44
  They were part of God's people, but they were not able to be
• 47:49
  victorious over death because Christ had not yet died on the
• 47:51
  cross for them. They were looking forward to
• 47:53
  that day. They're waiting for him.
• 47:54
  It's certainly possible. Would you say, theologically
• 47:57
  speaking, that there are souls and there are people that before
• 48:00
  Jesus's coming, first coming, that were not Jewish, you know,
• 48:05
  they were not the souls of the just in terms of their, you
• 48:09
  know, connection to the faith, to Jewish faith and, you know,
• 48:11
  part of Israel and trying to seek, you know, wait for the
• 48:13
  Messiah And maybe they were Gentiles, but they had purity of
• 48:18
  heart and intention and they they longed for God as they knew
• 48:23
  how. We would hope that, but we.
• 48:25
  Don't know. I guess we don't know that.
• 48:26
  Wrapped up in the mystery of God.
• 48:27
  That that if. There's a way that he could have
• 48:29
  somehow touched their their souls.
• 48:32
  Maybe he was doing that on Holy Saturday, there, amongst the
• 48:35
  souls of the dead. It's a mystery.
• 48:38
  It's a mystery to us. And it's a mystery.
• 48:39
  We don't know who's in hell. I mean we know some people that
• 48:42
  are in heaven this, you know, the canonized, right.
• 48:44
  But and and of course. We know that there exists, we
• 48:46
  know that people can go there, and the church has never
• 48:50
  officially damned anybody. Even Judas Iscariot.
• 48:52
  Right. Well, we're pretty sure that
• 48:53
  he's there and all the fathers of the Church are are are
• 48:57
  universal in their consent that that that Judas is among the
• 49:00
  damp. It's interesting, actually.
• 49:01
  I was just doing a little bit of reading in the history of my own
• 49:03
  order, the medieval, some of the medieval texts, and there's a
• 49:06
  wonderful this is a real tangent, but it's a fun one.
• 49:09
  There's a fun medieval 12th century document treatise from
• 49:13
  one of our Norbertine brothers, Philip of Bone, Esperance, this
• 49:18
  Abbot about the damnation of the damnation of Solomon.
• 49:21
  And so most of the Father of the Church, except for Saint Ambrose
• 49:25
  and Saint Jerome believe that even Solomon was damned so
• 49:29
  ancient and and we don't need to get into why they thought that.
• 49:32
  But but he lost. He lost God's favor through his
• 49:35
  womanizing and through his abuse, his rejection of God, of
• 49:39
  God. And it's it's a modern
• 49:44
  sensitivity we have to speaking freely about hell and damnation.
• 49:50
  Every other Christian age ahead of ours was not anxious about
• 49:53
  this, other than we don't want to be among those people.
• 49:57
  But but it was a a salutary reminder that hell is real and
• 50:03
  you can go there if you reject God or if you die in your sin.
• 50:06
  And that's that's something that I think is not a horrible thing
• 50:10
  for us to think about once in a while sometimes think.
• 50:14
  About death, think about what happens after.
• 50:16
  Death, we're going to, we're each of us is going to die.
• 50:18
  We're going to meet our judge and we're going to have to
• 50:20
  account for every word and deed and omission.
• 50:22
  And that's that can be kind of scary to think about, but it's
• 50:25
  also very salutary. We don't want to be among the
• 50:28
  damned. We want to be among the elect.
• 50:30
  We want to be Saints. And if we think sometimes that,
• 50:33
  you know what? Left to my own devices, I'm a
• 50:34
  poor Sinner. If it's left up to me, I will
• 50:38
  wind up in hell. But because of God's saving
• 50:41
  grace and the salvation come that comes from my Savior, Jesus
• 50:44
  Christ, I don't have to expect to be there.
• 50:48
  I can hope and expect to be with him in heaven, but without the
• 50:52
  reality of hell, what's the point of salvation?
• 50:56
  I think a lot of people hear the word damned.
• 50:59
  And, you know, it's kind of like a curse, curse word, you know,
• 51:03
  damn this, damn that. But they hear the word damned
• 51:05
  and they think, OK, that's a harsh God you got going on here.
• 51:08
  Who would damn someone to hell? And you know, obviously I've
• 51:11
  heard lots of explanations that are very beautiful that give me,
• 51:15
  you know, consolation about what that really means.
• 51:17
  But can you explain that? Like, what does it mean?
• 51:20
  You know, you mentioned Solomon. Solomon was damned.
• 51:23
  Well, of course, the Church has never taught that.
• 51:24
  Like I said, the fathers of the Church almost universally agree
• 51:27
  that he was. They think about that.
• 51:29
  You know, but is it is it not true that in a sense in in the
• 51:32
  in the truest sense we choose it?
• 51:34
  Yes, that's the point. We do it to our, you know.
• 51:36
  Absolutely no one finds him or herself in hell without having
• 51:40
  chosen to go there and to be there.
• 51:41
  That it's our rejection of God. It's each individual's free
• 51:45
  choice to reject God and his gifts of grace and salvation.
• 51:48
  That's why someone finds him or herself in hell.
• 51:50
  You can't be surprised by that. The lives that we live our our
• 51:55
  demonstration to ourselves and to God, our judge that we're
• 51:58
  choosing him or not, and. Like basically some people don't
• 52:02
  want to go to heaven. Is that is is that?
• 52:06
  That's pretty fair to say. I suppose I mean, I don't.
• 52:09
  I suppose you and I I can't understand what that would
• 52:11
  possibly mean. But but I mean is it?
• 52:13
  Maybe this is the question then is it possible to long for
• 52:16
  heaven and and by longing for heaven I don't just mean longing
• 52:21
  for comfort and escaping damnation, but longing for just
• 52:25
  the beatific vision. Like love God's love love like
• 52:28
  the the best of what the human experience is Is love right and
• 52:33
  not make it. I can't imagine that being a
• 52:37
  possibility, no. Like I can imagine.
• 52:39
  God is because God is all loving and merciful.
• 52:42
  He's also just so when when someone chooses for their own
• 52:46
  damnation, God and his justice is not going to force them
• 52:53
  against their will to be with him in heaven.
• 52:56
  So that's the the the beautiful mystery of our free choice of
• 52:59
  the will. We see that also in the angels.
• 53:01
  You know, Satan and those demons that followed him, that third of
• 53:04
  the angels who fell with him, they freely chose knowing what
• 53:08
  it meant, chose against God's plan in their pride and chose
• 53:12
  their own damnation. And God is not going to force
• 53:15
  them against that. So.
• 53:18
  So God permits it in His justice.
• 53:20
  OK, you chose that. That's what you're going to end
• 53:22
  up receiving and experiencing. But now if someone has that
• 53:27
  glimmer of longing and hope for the reality of heaven, which is
• 53:32
  the vision of God, beatitude, how could God possibly deny them
• 53:35
  that grace? He's so generous.
• 53:38
  He's so generous. That what what always gives me
• 53:40
  comfort when I think about how and I think about souls and my
• 53:44
  own soul and other souls that I care about is that God cares
• 53:48
  about this soul, including my own, far more than I do, more
• 53:52
  than I can possibly fathom. And so and he has the power and
• 53:56
  the love to draw that soul to him.
• 53:58
  And he wants me to use my little efforts and, you know, use our
• 54:00
  little meager efforts, but that you can rest assured that God's
• 54:04
  plan is ultimately going to be the maximally loving plan.
• 54:07
  Absolutely, absolutely. You know, we we, when we, when
• 54:11
  we dig into these realities of our Lord saving passion and
• 54:14
  death and his resurrection on the third day and all of these
• 54:16
  amazing, beautiful mysteries, all of that, God would have done
• 54:20
  all of that, even if it were just for one person.
• 54:25
  That's how valuable the human soul and life is.
• 54:28
  God would have done that just for you or just for me.
• 54:31
  That's. The crucifixion.
• 54:33
  And and his death and his burial and his resurrection on the
• 54:36
  third day, all of that. That's the value of in human
• 54:39
  life and soul. That's an amazing thing.
• 54:41
  And yes, when when you were speaking about that beautiful
• 54:46
  idea that this loving God so longs for our salvation and to
• 54:52
  be with him in glory, he he wants that more than we do.
• 54:55
  Of course he does. He's an infinitely good God.
• 54:57
  That reminded me of this beautiful image that St.
• 54:59
  Therese, St. Therese, the little flower, St.
• 55:01
  Therese of Lessum from the 19th century, French Carmelite
• 55:05
  cloistered nun who died. I think she was 24 of
• 55:09
  consumption. Amazing.
• 55:11
  Doctor of the Church read her autobiography.
• 55:13
  It's so beautiful. She has this wonderful image of
• 55:15
  a little child at the bottom of a flight of stairs trying to
• 55:18
  crawl up into the arms of its father at the top of the stairs.
• 55:22
  And the baby can't do it. It can't crawl the stairs.
• 55:24
  It can just put his little foot trying to get up that first
• 55:26
  step. And God the Father comes rushing
• 55:28
  down, picks up the child and carries it up the stairs.
• 55:32
  I love that image. That's each of our lives.
• 55:36
  We just have to show the slightest little inclination
• 55:40
  toward this good God who loves us so immensely, and he does all
• 55:44
  the rest, comes and runs down and picks us up.
• 55:48
  And that's the power of his death on the cross, his
• 55:51
  resurrection. His power of his.
• 55:52
  He did the work. That's right.
• 55:54
  That's right. He was the He's giving us that
• 55:56
  same loving grace right now, in every moment, rushing down the
• 55:59
  stairs to us. As if we just open a little bit
• 56:02
  of our heart to it. That's all we got to do.
• 56:04
  Which is such a relief because it's so easy in the spiritual
• 56:06
  life to get into despair or discouragement.
• 56:09
  Especially if you're like, you know, you have generally big
• 56:12
  goals about I want to be good and do good and then you fail.
• 56:15
  Which we fail. I fail every day.
• 56:17
  Seven. Times a day the just man falls,
• 56:20
  right? Yes and but then the the secret
• 56:23
  to the spiritual life and then this is you're going to correct
• 56:25
  me here because what do I know? No, no, let's hear it, Lila.
• 56:29
  Let's hear it. A secret I'll just say is you
• 56:31
  know the getting up again is is hope and trust is trust really
• 56:35
  is even the better word than hope.
• 56:36
  And isn't that what the some of the the fathers say about Judas?
• 56:40
  Why they say Judas isn't hell because it it's he killed
• 56:43
  himself. He's hung himself.
• 56:44
  He despaired. He didn't have hope.
• 56:45
  It wasn't that he betrayed Christ, because we all betrayed
• 56:48
  we've all. Betrayed Christ.
• 56:49
  Saint Peter did famously right and return to him right.
• 56:53
  We all betray Christ, absolutely.
• 56:54
  But Judas despaired that that power of hope and trust.
• 56:59
  Hope is maybe one of the big gifts of the celebration of
• 57:04
  Easter and of our Lord's resurrection.
• 57:06
  It gives us so much hope because of course, his passion and death
• 57:09
  on the cross, that's what did the work, as you said, of
• 57:13
  winning our salvation, giving us the possibility of
• 57:16
  justification, salvation, incorporation into His Mystical
• 57:19
  Body, all of these amazing things, and his resurrection.
• 57:23
  St. Thomas Aquinas elucidates this
• 57:24
  beautifully in his Summa. It gives us hope for our own new
• 57:29
  life and our own resurrected life in glory with Him.
• 57:32
  So in his death we find the victory over our death.
• 57:37
  In his resurrection, we find the hope for our own new life with
• 57:41
  him. But hope is maybe the the gift
• 57:45
  of the resurrection par excellence.
• 57:47
  It's just so sad, too, because Judas, if he had just said, oh
• 57:50
  Lord, I'm so sorry, you know, not even to his face because he
• 57:53
  was in the tomb at this point, but just like, you know,
• 57:55
  weeping. I'm so sorry, you know, Peter
• 57:57
  was so sorry. He was ashamed.
• 57:58
  But Peter didn't go and hang himself, you know, And then he
• 58:01
  got to see him on the beach and Jesus gave him that, you know,
• 58:05
  that threefold. Yeah.
• 58:06
  Like love, you know? Do you love me?
• 58:08
  Do you love me giving him the chance to really say no, I, I,
• 58:10
  I'm we're going to make it right here together because of Jesus's
• 58:14
  Jesus. Not because of Peter's strength,
• 58:16
  Jesus's strength. But Judas couldn't he he just he
• 58:19
  he he hung himself. I mean it's just it's tragic.
• 58:22
  But that's what that's what I think we often tend to do.
• 58:25
  We can do personally and then I think human you know our human
• 58:29
  nature we can do. And that's just like the, you
• 58:31
  know, the, the, the sad part of people rejecting the Easter
• 58:34
  story is that we, we either reject that it's possible for us
• 58:39
  to be saved. But I think the modern man, it's
• 58:41
  almost that we've just gotten apathetic.
• 58:44
  And we're sort of we're we're sort of, I guess the word would
• 58:47
  be we've desensitized ourselves or lulled ourselves into sleep
• 58:51
  through like material things, consumerism.
• 58:54
  I don't know where we're not even awake to these realities
• 58:57
  And like, yeah, we're going to die.
• 58:58
  There was this quote that I saw recently.
• 59:00
  I think it was Seth Rogen, the comedian, and he, I don't know,
• 59:04
  he saw this, but he was saying, I'm so glad we don't have kids
• 59:07
  because he and his wife, because I can sleep and, you know, wake
• 59:10
  up on Saturday morning and be in bed naked smoking pot.
• 59:12
  And I'm so happy. And it's like his life.
• 59:15
  Like, the pinnacle for him is, is this comfort of being in bed,
• 59:19
  smoking weed and watching movies.
• 59:22
  And that's what he's happy with. That's like, that's it for.
• 59:25
  I mean, yeah, he's a great comedian too, but like, in terms
• 59:27
  of like the personal stuff, like family life, God, that's.
• 59:29
  What you're aspiring after the, right, That's.
• 59:31
  But, but that sounds like hell to me.
• 59:33
  I mean, yeah, in some ways there's comfort to it in the
• 59:36
  moment, but like, imagine your entire world is watching a
• 59:39
  screen inebriated or high, and that's that's your.
• 59:45
  All of these pleasures. That's the height.
• 59:46
  All of these pleasures cloy the the, the, the good things of
• 59:49
  this world, and these bodily pleasures, which are good things
• 59:52
  that God gives us, not necessarily.
• 59:53
  Right. In in moderation, Yeah.
• 59:55
  It's nice to do a. Case we know this, you can only
• 59:57
  get that that that that experience of enjoyment ends or
• 1:00:03
  has to be surpassed by the next best thing.
• 1:00:05
  That's not at all what the vision of God is going to be
• 1:00:08
  like. And and there that's a that's an
• 1:00:12
  enjoyment. Fulfillment of our nature and
• 1:00:18
  that, aha, that this is what I was created for, that is
• 1:00:21
  bottomless, witless, endless. It's eternal and it's fully
• 1:00:28
  satisfying. Beyond our wildest.
• 1:00:31
  No eye has seen, no ears heard, nor has it even entered into the
• 1:00:33
  heart of man. What God has prepared for those
• 1:00:35
  who love him. Right back to what I think you
• 1:00:38
  said that kind of sad the reason why we're sort of anesthetized
• 1:00:42
  by all of these. Words.
• 1:00:44
  Part of it is because precisely because we have forgotten the
• 1:00:47
  reality of death and hell. And so even as hard as that is
• 1:00:51
  to sometimes preach about or speak about, sometimes that's
• 1:00:54
  what can wake people out of their lethargy, the realization.
• 1:00:58
  And this happens that. You're gonna die that you like.
• 1:01:00
  Seth Rogen is gonna get sick at some point or he's gonna, you
• 1:01:04
  know, he's gonna get old at some point and then he's gonna die.
• 1:01:06
  I'm gonna die. We're all gonna die.
• 1:01:08
  And but but what I see is this kind of curious, OK, I don't
• 1:01:11
  care. Like, all right, I'll give it a
• 1:01:13
  give it a ride. And that seems like despair to
• 1:01:15
  me. That does sound like that's that
• 1:01:16
  feels and sounds an awful like like a lot like despair, doesn't
• 1:01:19
  it? And sometimes I think we we want
• 1:01:23
  to emphasize the the message of hope and salvation and love,
• 1:01:28
  which is the core of Christianity, obviously.
• 1:01:31
  And we also don't want to be afraid to lean into when it's
• 1:01:34
  useful for people's waking up these realities.
• 1:01:38
  The four last things is what the Church calls that death,
• 1:01:40
  Judgement, Heaven, and Hell. These four last things are
• 1:01:44
  inevitable truths that each of us has to confront, no matter
• 1:01:49
  how you think about it or feel about it, Death, your judgement,
• 1:01:52
  and the choice of either heaven and hell.
• 1:01:55
  So that can sometimes be the entry into the much richer, much
• 1:02:01
  more beautiful, much more hopeful full reality of our holy
• 1:02:05
  faith. OO sometimes we need to be
• 1:02:09
  shaken UA little bit and woken U.
• 1:02:11
  We need to be woken U to the realities that we often want to
• 1:02:15
  forget in this material comfort that we live in.
• 1:02:19
  Well, and life has a way of offering that occasionally to
• 1:02:21
  all of us, you know, meant most of us.
• 1:02:23
  That would say at least that there's going to be those
• 1:02:25
  moments where it's an opportunity to hit a rock bottom
• 1:02:28
  and then what are you going to do with your rock bottom?
• 1:02:29
  Some tragedy, these horrible things that happen in in human
• 1:02:33
  life and family life and deaths and sicknesses and tragedies and
• 1:02:38
  all of this, this part of that mystery of of iniquity and also
• 1:02:42
  of evil by God's permissive will.
• 1:02:44
  Sometimes that was just the thing.
• 1:02:46
  That cancer diagnosis was just the thing to wake up the spouse
• 1:02:50
  or wake up the children, right? All things work together for the
• 1:02:54
  good for those who love him. That is, that is the that is
• 1:02:57
  another part of the hope we have, right?
• 1:02:59
  Anything that happens in this life for the person that's
• 1:03:01
  oriented towards love of God, it's you can anything, no matter
• 1:03:04
  what comes at you, you can say I bless the Lord.
• 1:03:07
  And. You're you can.
• 1:03:08
  He'll give you the grace for that, which is crazy.
• 1:03:10
  And you see these crazy stories of the Saints or, you know, you
• 1:03:12
  hear these stories of people that had the worst tragedies
• 1:03:14
  happen. And yeah, it's tough for them
• 1:03:17
  and they have their moments emotionally and psychologically
• 1:03:19
  just now that but there's this peace that they exhibit and they
• 1:03:22
  live and then there's joy that comes from the peace.
• 1:03:24
  And you see, wow, this is Supernatural.
• 1:03:27
  You see people transformed by God's grace and sometimes those
• 1:03:30
  moments of deepest struggle when they're doing that with our Lord
• 1:03:33
  and not resisting him in it, right?
• 1:03:36
  Everylife.com is the fastest growing baby product company in
• 1:03:40
  America, making diapers and wipes for your little one that
• 1:03:43
  are best in class and a company that supports your values.
• 1:03:47
  So when you order from everylife.com, you're not just
• 1:03:49
  ordering great products for your little one, you're also
• 1:03:52
  supporting the pro-life movement.
• 1:03:54
  Everylife donates part of the proceeds back to the pro-life
• 1:03:57
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• 1:04:03
  order for your diaper and your web subscription and use the
• 1:04:06
  code Lila at checkout for 10% off your order.
• 1:04:08
  That's everylife.com and you can use the code Lila at checkout
• 1:04:12
  for 10% off your order. There is, I think about heaven,
• 1:04:16
  a lot of misconceptions today about what heaven is.
• 1:04:18
  You've talked about it beautifully a little bit, but I
• 1:04:21
  think it's worth talking about more because it's the end game
• 1:04:24
  of Easter, right Is to be with our Lord resurrected ourselves
• 1:04:27
  in heaven. So I'd love to hear you share
• 1:04:29
  like what does it mean to be resurrected with Christ?
• 1:04:32
  And then where I want to get to you talking more about heaven
• 1:04:36
  because I think, you know, I was talking about like my son, what
• 1:04:38
  is heaven? You know, my 4 year old and I
• 1:04:41
  was trying to swim. Well, it's the it's you're with
• 1:04:43
  God who loves you and he you're just going to be the most happy
• 1:04:46
  you can imagine and it's going to be the best thing you can
• 1:04:48
  imagine. And you know, he he's thinking
• 1:04:50
  in terms of his toys, mom and pop, Mama and Papa, you know,
• 1:04:54
  and I just think everything that you experience in this world
• 1:04:57
  that is the best is going to be even more beyond what you can
• 1:05:01
  imagine, even better in heaven. It's pointing to all of those
• 1:05:04
  good things, you know, I think most of the time when we think
• 1:05:07
  about heaven, Lila, we think about it like your little child
• 1:05:11
  does, Like your your, your little son does.
• 1:05:13
  We think about it in terms of the good things that we already
• 1:05:15
  experienced here below, and we try to amplify that or project
• 1:05:19
  that into an infinite reception of such good things.
• 1:05:24
  Every good thing that we experience here below is a sign,
• 1:05:28
  a foretaste, a piece of the God, the giver of all good gifts, who
• 1:05:34
  is goodness himself. And it's helpful, I think
• 1:05:39
  especially for little children and those of us who remain
• 1:05:41
  little children in the way that we view spiritual realities.
• 1:05:44
  It's good to use some of those analogies, you know, the
• 1:05:47
  relationships of love in a family or a spousal
• 1:05:50
  relationship, how good that is. It's so good and it's obviously
• 1:05:54
  a sign of something bigger. And to think about how that
• 1:05:57
  points to this, this reality which is heavenly glory, which
• 1:06:01
  is that and so much more. So those analogies help us with
• 1:06:06
  hope and with with. Comfort, even because we're
• 1:06:10
  little creatures. And I think it's that's like,
• 1:06:12
  it's scary. I mean, I think my son, I don't
• 1:06:14
  know if scared is the right word exactly for what he was sort of
• 1:06:17
  wondering about, but it's this big concept.
• 1:06:19
  It is a big concept. And what could it be like and
• 1:06:21
  where is it and how do I get there?
• 1:06:23
  These are these, these are mysteries far beyond our kin.
• 1:06:26
  They're so much bigger than our minds.
• 1:06:27
  Our little minds can wrap themselves around just
• 1:06:30
  providentially. A couple weeks ago I was giving
• 1:06:32
  a parish mission in the Midwest and a young man came up to me
• 1:06:34
  after one of the conferences of this parish mission teenager, a
• 1:06:39
  high school age teenager. He asked me.
• 1:06:41
  He said, Father, I have a lot of questions, he said.
• 1:06:45
  Sometimes the idea of eternity scares me.
• 1:06:48
  Can you help me with that? And you're kind of pointing to
• 1:06:50
  that. And even that little child's
• 1:06:51
  mind can recoil at those big big idea ideas we can't imagine
• 1:06:58
  outside of our own experience and what our mind is able to
• 1:07:01
  conceive. And eternity, Infinity is one of
• 1:07:04
  those things that our mind simply cannot conceive.
• 1:07:07
  And it can be scary when you think, well, I don't know if I
• 1:07:10
  want an endless life. That's can sound quite scary or
• 1:07:16
  inconceivable because it is inconceivable.
• 1:07:18
  So I think a better way to think about, well, better way, another
• 1:07:21
  way to think about heaven is the the truth that God created us
• 1:07:27
  for that the reason why he created us is to be with him for
• 1:07:31
  all eternity in the beatitude, the beatific glory of heaven.
• 1:07:34
  That's our end. That's the reason for our
• 1:07:38
  existence. Heaven is going to be our
• 1:07:43
  realization that we are fully living the life for which God
• 1:07:48
  created us. So we are truly, fully alive.
• 1:07:51
  Fully alive, we are not there. We are not that yet this side of
• 1:07:57
  heaven. We are only looking at it
• 1:08:00
  through a glass darkly, says Saint Paul.
• 1:08:03
  Right. And we're only experiencing it
• 1:08:06
  in this accommodated sense. We are created in, well, the
• 1:08:11
  first question of the old Baltimore Catechism.
• 1:08:12
  Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, to love
• 1:08:15
  Him, to serve Him in this life, and to be happy with him forever
• 1:08:18
  in the next. Why did God make us for that end
• 1:08:23
  of heavenly glory with Him beatitude?
• 1:08:24
  The Beatific Vision is what we call it, and that is a reality
• 1:08:29
  that is the full expression of our human nature, the vision.
• 1:08:35
  We can only use that analogy we we use the the analogy of our
• 1:08:39
  human sight. We will see God and know God for
• 1:08:44
  who He is. We will know Him as He is.
• 1:08:47
  That's amazing. And that's part of the wound of
• 1:08:50
  original sin that we didn't trust in.
• 1:08:55
  In the joy of knowing the Lord, you could say and we sort of.
• 1:09:00
  I mean Adam and Eve, right? They disobeyed, but they were
• 1:09:03
  seeking other things ultimately. They chose a lower good.
• 1:09:06
  A lower good. That they perceived to be a
• 1:09:08
  good. That they wanted more than that
• 1:09:09
  one. We do it all the time.
• 1:09:12
  That's what sin is. We do it all the time.
• 1:09:14
  We can only choose things under the aspect of good.
• 1:09:17
  So whatever I'm choosing to do, even it be sinful.
• 1:09:19
  I'm choosing that because something about that seems good
• 1:09:21
  to me right now. Meaning I think it's gonna make
• 1:09:23
  me happy, yeah. Right.
• 1:09:25
  And I'm wrong about that. And sometimes I even know I'm
• 1:09:27
  wrong about that. And I choose it anyway because I
• 1:09:29
  still want that good thing right now as I perceive it.
• 1:09:32
  But we're always choosing good. It's what we choose.
• 1:09:36
  We're just wrong about about the, the, the, the details of
• 1:09:39
  that. So the key, the key element
• 1:09:40
  that's missing there is the obedience and the trust in the
• 1:09:43
  Father that knows the ultimate good for us made us for the
• 1:09:46
  ultimate good. And we need to even in our short
• 1:09:49
  little vision, when we think or impulse, to still choose, 'cause
• 1:09:53
  we have the power to choose the greater good and to choose
• 1:09:55
  obedience. Just a little bit back to that
• 1:09:57
  reflection on what is heaven? And I think we need to dream
• 1:10:00
  bigger, Lila. You know, most of the time when
• 1:10:02
  we think about heaven, we think about it like the material goods
• 1:10:04
  of a little child, my toys and my family and my relationships
• 1:10:07
  and my things, my stuff. The best party?
• 1:10:09
  Ever. Yes, right.
• 1:10:10
  That's that's a it's a like I said, it's a useful analogy but
• 1:10:14
  it's kind of small. It's very small minded and God
• 1:10:16
  wants us to dream much, much bigger.
• 1:10:19
  He wants us to hope beyond our hope, and to and to ask for far
• 1:10:26
  more than we can think it's even possible.
• 1:10:30
  In this life too. Absolutely.
• 1:10:32
  He wants, he wants us to long to live the heavenly life in so far
• 1:10:38
  as we're able, this side of heaven.
• 1:10:40
  That's what holiness is. That's what sanctity is.
• 1:10:42
  He wants us to desire holiness. Most Catholic Christians, most
• 1:10:48
  Christians, most people forget that that God built us, He made
• 1:10:53
  us to be Saints, and that's what we should be striving after in
• 1:10:57
  this life. That's the the Lord's Prayer,
• 1:10:59
  right? Thy Kingdom come on earth.
• 1:11:01
  As it is in heaven, yes, like. Bring the Kingdom to Earth.
• 1:11:03
  Yes, we can taste it. We can have the foretaste of it.
• 1:11:06
  We can live it. We all know that.
• 1:11:08
  You know that when you meet somebody who is transformed by
• 1:11:10
  God's grace, you know it you that you're you're getting a
• 1:11:13
  little vision of heavenly glory. I'm sure you know people like
• 1:11:17
  that or relationships or it's it's more than possible.
• 1:11:22
  We have all the grace we need to achieve that.
• 1:11:25
  That's why the sacraments of the Catholic Church are so
• 1:11:26
  important, foundational, essential, that those sacraments
• 1:11:30
  give us all of that nourishing, sustaining grace to help us on
• 1:11:34
  that path to holiness and ultimately to heaven.
• 1:11:37
  So beautiful. But it it it's like you know
• 1:11:39
  they talk about like mindset management you know or you know
• 1:11:42
  think big dream big, you know live out your potential all
• 1:11:47
  these things kind of some degree modern.
• 1:11:50
  But it's actually profoundly if it's seen through the lens of
• 1:11:55
  Christianity it's actually profoundly Christian because
• 1:11:57
  it's we are made to be Saints. We're made to be these glorious
• 1:12:01
  sons and daughters of God and you know, royalty.
• 1:12:05
  And we are carrying the grace to effect change in this life and
• 1:12:11
  to do powerful of our own transformation and others and
• 1:12:15
  powerful transformation. The the the Eastern, the Eastern
• 1:12:19
  fathers speak about theosis transformation into God.
• 1:12:23
  We talked about this at the very beginning of our conversation
• 1:12:25
  about the Holy Eucharist, about how I mentioned that every other
• 1:12:28
  kind of food we eat, we make it into us.
• 1:12:30
  But when we receive the Holy Eucharist with deep faith, and
• 1:12:34
  when we receive that kind of food, that spiritual food, we
• 1:12:37
  become God, we become Jesus. That reality of the
• 1:12:41
  transformation of our whole nature all the way down to its
• 1:12:45
  very foundation, is one of the core truths of Christianity that
• 1:12:50
  I think much of postmodern and and and modern versions of
• 1:12:54
  Christianity don't really get. The Lord really does want us to.
• 1:12:59
  Trant wants to transform us thoroughly all the way down to
• 1:13:04
  the core of our being, into his daughters and sons, into Christ
• 1:13:09
  himself. We become members of this
• 1:13:11
  mystical body of Christ. We become Christ.
• 1:13:14
  It's daring. It's daring to say that we are
• 1:13:16
  deified. We are made into the sons and
• 1:13:21
  daughters of God. And in that way we are made into
• 1:13:24
  God because we participate in His very essence, His being.
• 1:13:29
  And that he gives us the grace in this life to do great things
• 1:13:32
  for Him. That's what that grace is, that
• 1:13:34
  grace. Grace sanctifying grace is His
• 1:13:37
  life in our souls. And of course that's going to
• 1:13:40
  been then bear fruit in our own lives with the people with whom
• 1:13:44
  we live, right in our projects, in our work and and things for
• 1:13:47
  building up this Kingdom. That grace is transformative of
• 1:13:50
  the lives around us as well. What are some practical things
• 1:13:54
  that people can do to really celebrate Easter and and what
• 1:13:59
  is? And also liturgically speaking,
• 1:14:00
  we talked about the multiple weeks.
• 1:14:01
  I think it's the 50 days 50. Days 7-7 weeks of Easter.
• 1:14:04
  Yes. What?
• 1:14:04
  What? What is what does that mean?
• 1:14:06
  What are you supposed to do? How do you live this thing that
• 1:14:09
  we're talking about? You know you, I know that Father
• 1:14:12
  Peter Adrian and you talked about the the, the Great Fast,
• 1:14:15
  the program that the Abbey put out, the Abbott Circle, about a
• 1:14:17
  great preparation for a serious preparation in Lent.
• 1:14:21
  And then he talked a bunch about the great, amazing meals he's
• 1:14:24
  gonna make during Easter. And I was like, OK, well, I'll,
• 1:14:27
  I'll just show up at the Abbey and have a meal with you.
• 1:14:30
  But what else can we do do if you're not around for Father
• 1:14:33
  Peter Adrian to? Yes, well first of all, Easter
• 1:14:36
  is not just one day, but it's an octave.
• 1:14:38
  It's an 8 day the the the festival itself is an 8 day long
• 1:14:43
  single celebration. Like 1 long day.
• 1:14:45
  As if every day is Easter again. Every day is Easter, Easter
• 1:14:48
  Monday, Easter Tuesday. We even call them that Easter
• 1:14:50
  Wednesday all the way up until the 1st Sunday after Easter.
• 1:14:54
  So celebrate like that as if. Easter basket every day or.
• 1:15:00
  Go to church, go to go to Holy Mass.
• 1:15:03
  There's a. There's a beautiful.
• 1:15:04
  If you're here in Southern California, go to the Abbey for
• 1:15:06
  Vespers in the evening at 5:00 PM.
• 1:15:08
  We have a special Paschal Vespers.
• 1:15:10
  We have a a way of celebrating the Evening Prayer, which has a
• 1:15:14
  procession to our baptismal font, to the font in the church.
• 1:15:17
  It's a very Norbertine thing. Our order is a is a Eucharistic,
• 1:15:20
  but it's also a very Easter order.
• 1:15:22
  We wear white because we're supposed to imitate the angels
• 1:15:25
  of the resurrection. When when they looked into the
• 1:15:27
  open tomb and they saw the two angels there, they were dressed
• 1:15:30
  in white. And that's part of the the kind
• 1:15:32
  of history about about our white habit.
• 1:15:34
  So it's a very Easter order. So you can go to Saint Michael's
• 1:15:38
  Abbey for Vespers. During the Easter Octave you can
• 1:15:41
  celebrate with your family, talk about the risen Lord, the the
• 1:15:45
  ancient Christians and medieval Christians.
• 1:15:47
  All the way up until I knew people, I've met people in
• 1:15:50
  Central Europe who, in the weeks after Easter say the Lord is
• 1:15:55
  risen. That's how they greet each other
• 1:15:56
  on the street. Christos Anesti in Greek.
• 1:15:59
  And the answer is He is truly risen.
• 1:16:00
  Alitos anesti, also in Latin. Sorexit, Domino's Verde.
• 1:16:04
  He's truly risen. We can greet each other like
• 1:16:07
  that. The Lord is risen.
• 1:16:09
  Alleluia. You know, we can say that to
• 1:16:11
  each other. We're celebrating together as a
• 1:16:13
  Christian community. So make it a part of our lives.
• 1:16:17
  In the family, in the home, in the meals, in the liturgical
• 1:16:21
  worship and of course then that the church is very wise in this.
• 1:16:26
  She has us fast for 40 days, but she has to celebrate for 50.
• 1:16:31
  So because the the celebration is more important even than the
• 1:16:34
  preparation, it's such a great great holiday.
• 1:16:36
  So, and of course, every Sunday, the reason why we go to church
• 1:16:39
  on Sunday, the reason why we celebrate the Lord's
• 1:16:41
  resurrection on the the reason why Christians moved their
• 1:16:46
  worship of God from the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday is because
• 1:16:50
  the Lord rose again on Sunday. Amazing.
• 1:16:53
  So we we do this already. It's in our Christian bones and
• 1:16:56
  blood to celebrate his resurrection, not just on that
• 1:17:00
  day. Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  John Paul the second, I think you used the phrase we are an
• 1:17:04
  Easter people. Yes, we are an Easter people.
• 1:17:08
  Absolutely. That's the Paschal mystery that
• 1:17:10
  I I mentioned there. Those three days, the Triduum,
• 1:17:13
  culminating in the resurrection, this is who we are.
• 1:17:17
  This is our identity, more so than any other.
• 1:17:20
  Identity transcends all races, all nationalities, right?
• 1:17:26
  Neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free right.
• 1:17:29
  Even man or woman. Neither male nor female, right?
• 1:17:32
  It. This is our truest identity as
• 1:17:34
  people who are marked by this Paschal mystery and our Lord's
• 1:17:37
  resurrection. Yeah, such beautiful things.
• 1:17:42
  But it has to come from and this is the secret because I think
• 1:17:45
  there is, you know a version of Christianity modern speak,
• 1:17:47
  modern day Christianity that it that seems very sort of
• 1:17:50
  comfortable that looks a lot like the culture that's afraid
• 1:17:53
  to ruffle feathers that sort of self focused in a way.
• 1:17:57
  You know, I don't want to you know disparage anyone.
• 1:18:00
  We all can. We're all prone to this by the
• 1:18:01
  way. It's not just like, you know
• 1:18:03
  Christianity at larger aspects of it at large, but individuals.
• 1:18:06
  It's the air we breathe. It's the air we breathe, you
• 1:18:08
  know. Yeah.
• 1:18:09
  It's like, you know stay in bed on the Saturday morning don't
• 1:18:11
  have kids smoke pot and watch TVI mean it's like that
• 1:18:14
  whatever. Right.
• 1:18:15
  But but the the this, this, this Easter people idea.
• 1:18:20
  You can't be an Easter people without the crucifixion.
• 1:18:24
  You can't be an Easter people without the 40 days of Lent.
• 1:18:27
  You can't be an Easter people without the whole rest of the
• 1:18:30
  Christian life. And that's why we have this
• 1:18:33
  liturgical calendar to help us live it just against time,
• 1:18:37
  because we're made to live in time.
• 1:18:38
  I mean, as I mean, this is our our lot right now, before the
• 1:18:41
  next life, right? And it's all designed for our
• 1:18:44
  sanctification in the end. That's absolutely right.
• 1:18:47
  And the the Paschal mystery put the crucifixion and the Lord's
• 1:18:52
  Passion and death along with His resurrection.
• 1:18:55
  That's one mystery. It's one Paschal mystery.
• 1:18:57
  Those things, as you say, they are intimately connected
• 1:19:00
  together. You can't have the resurrection
• 1:19:01
  without the saving death. And our Lord would not design to
• 1:19:04
  die on the cross without rising again from the dead.
• 1:19:07
  He had to be victory, victorious over sin and death.
• 1:19:10
  And He also had to give us that hope for the glory that we will
• 1:19:13
  share with him at the end of the story, when we too rise from the
• 1:19:16
  dead in our bodies. I have one more question and
• 1:19:19
  it's kind of a down note to end on.
• 1:19:20
  So maybe we'll say one more positive thing about being the
• 1:19:22
  Easter people, but we talked about it earlier.
• 1:19:24
  But I think it's so important, especially for kind of the
• 1:19:27
  modern person, you know that the the world we're swimming in is
• 1:19:31
  this idea of sin. And you know, we talked about
• 1:19:34
  death being the punishment for sin, the wages of sin or death
• 1:19:37
  and you know, the original wound of sin and how it affects all
• 1:19:42
  people. And we're not free from it.
• 1:19:43
  Even the when we were born in, you know, there's this talk of
• 1:19:46
  being born into sin in Scripture, I think there's a lot
• 1:19:49
  of people who say think, OK, I'm I'm, I'm a good person.
• 1:19:53
  You know, I'm trying to be a good person.
• 1:19:54
  I'm trying to do what's right. I'm not trying to hurt anyone.
• 1:19:58
  And by and large, they maybe are good people in a sense, like
• 1:20:01
  they're trying to do their best. Why do I need to do all this
• 1:20:05
  Christian stuff we're talking about?
• 1:20:07
  Did not go to hell. Yes, well, you know, I think
• 1:20:11
  that this, you're right. This is a little bit of a a down
• 1:20:14
  note, but it's an important one. It's a salutary one.
• 1:20:16
  What's the point of our Lord becoming a man and dying on the
• 1:20:20
  cross if it weren't to save us from sin?
• 1:20:23
  Why would we need salvation if there's no such thing as sin?
• 1:20:29
  And I think to live our lives or to speak about our holy religion
• 1:20:33
  without that necessary first peace, that we in fact are
• 1:20:38
  subject to sin and without His saving grace, certain of
• 1:20:43
  damnation. Without that, what's the point?
• 1:20:47
  Why would we call ourselves Christian to begin with that if
• 1:20:50
  Christ, if we don't need salvation, why would we even
• 1:20:55
  look to him as our Savior? So what are we being saved from?
• 1:20:58
  And of course, you know this, Lila, but we're being saved from
• 1:21:01
  sin and death and damnation. And yes, that reality is the
• 1:21:05
  first piece of the whole story. Without that, there's no reason
• 1:21:10
  for a Savior. So those who say well.
• 1:21:14
  Well, then the person would say, yeah, well, then I don't need a
• 1:21:16
  savior, I mean. And then of course then a letter
• 1:21:19
  will say, well then you don't have one and that's.
• 1:21:22
  Kind of the person that in a way wants to go to hell, 'cause they
• 1:21:25
  don't want this whole project of the Beatific Vision.
• 1:21:28
  They they're kind of contented. I mean, I could be wrong here,
• 1:21:31
  but it seems this theoret, this hypothetical, they're kind of
• 1:21:35
  contented to sort of be, I'm going to do some good things,
• 1:21:38
  I'm going to watch my TV or whatever, you know, have my nice
• 1:21:40
  life and then I'm going to die and that's it.
• 1:21:43
  You know the how sad, right? That's a hopeless, sad waste of
• 1:21:49
  a life almost, isn't it? You think?
• 1:21:51
  Well, what? What is the point of any good
• 1:21:55
  thing if it's not animated, vivified by God's grace by
• 1:21:58
  sanctifying grace? Not much, to be honest.
• 1:22:02
  Someone could be the biggest philanthropist in the world, and
• 1:22:05
  if that's not sustained, motivated, affected by the
• 1:22:12
  saving grace of God that comes through salvation in Jesus
• 1:22:14
  Christ, it's worthless. It's worthless, eternally
• 1:22:20
  speaking. It'll turn to dust.
• 1:22:22
  It's. Turn to dust.
• 1:22:23
  Those are that that's that. Those are.
• 1:22:25
  Those are good things that have no eternal reality associated
• 1:22:30
  with them. But that very same good project
• 1:22:34
  of immense philanthropy, or of all of the loving things that
• 1:22:37
  people do here, The side of the veil, the good lives that they
• 1:22:40
  live, motivate, motivated, and vivified by sanctifying grace
• 1:22:45
  that comes through Jesus Christ, makes it eternally valuable.
• 1:22:48
  They store up a treasure in heaven and and the difference is
• 1:22:53
  everything. It is everything.
• 1:22:54
  It's everything. It's a life that has no
• 1:22:57
  supernatural value versus a life that has eternal, immense
• 1:23:02
  supernatural. Value well and the beauty of it
• 1:23:03
  is you can unlock the supernatural value in like that
• 1:23:06
  we were talking about earlier with one movement of the heart.
• 1:23:09
  Yes. Right, 'cause you could do that
• 1:23:10
  whole life of philanthropy and not really connect it to to God
• 1:23:14
  or something deeper. Just trying to be a good person,
• 1:23:16
  you know, as best you know how. But then in a moment of
• 1:23:20
  realization you can say I, I, I, I, I want to do this for you,
• 1:23:23
  God. Yes, or I realize that I'm just
• 1:23:26
  a poor Sinner left mind divisor. I see how weak.
• 1:23:29
  I am and I can only do good because of you.
• 1:23:31
  Yes, And that movement for the loving God who makes it all
• 1:23:35
  possible? That is the beginning, isn't it?
• 1:23:37
  It's basically saying I realize I'm a Sinner and I need a
• 1:23:40
  savior. Jesus, be my savior.
• 1:23:43
  Please. And that's the hope, right?
• 1:23:45
  That's, that's the Easter hope as like just one movement.
• 1:23:48
  So anyone listening right now, no matter where you are in your
• 1:23:51
  faith journey, or not even believe you're on a faith
• 1:23:53
  journey, it's one movement of the heart to say, God, I want, I
• 1:23:56
  want you. I want to.
• 1:23:57
  At least I want to want you. That's exactly right.
• 1:24:00
  I want to want you. That's the beginning, isn't?
• 1:24:02
  It and then discover a crazy, amazing, supernatural dimension
• 1:24:08
  that otherwise would have been unimaginable.
• 1:24:11
  Yes, why not? Why not do that in this Easter
• 1:24:13
  season for those who have not yet made that beautiful leap of
• 1:24:17
  faith? Faith.
• 1:24:19
  Thank you, Father. And thank you, Lila.
• 1:24:21
  So good, OK, How can people find the Abbey you mentioned?
• 1:24:23
  They can come to the Abbey. They come to the Abbey, of
• 1:24:25
  course. There's a few people showing up
• 1:24:26
  hopefully. Right.
• 1:24:27
  Or they can come to our new Priory in Springfield, IL,
• 1:24:29
  Corpus Christi Priory. Or they can find us online, our
• 1:24:34
  virtual monastery, which is called the Abbott Circle.
• 1:24:37
  Just put that in there. The abbottcircle.com.
• 1:24:40
  You'll find all kinds of wonderful programming and
• 1:24:42
  spiritual nourishment and novenas, all kinds of great
• 1:24:44
  things. They can also look up the
• 1:24:46
  Evermode Institute. This is this new catechetical
• 1:24:48
  program. Spread the good word about that.
• 1:24:50
  These are always to find us. And of course Jesus is waiting
• 1:24:53
  for everybody, whether they're looking for the Norbertine weigh
• 1:24:56
  in or not. Jesus is waiting for you in the
• 1:24:58
  Tabernacle in the Catholic Church down the street.
• 1:25:00
  Pop in there and tell him that you would like to know more
• 1:25:02
  about him. Amen.
• 1:25:04
  Christ has risen. Hallelujah.
• 1:25:07
  Thank you father. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:25:10
  this episode of the Lila Rose Podcast.
• 1:25:12
  Hope you enjoyed it. As always, feel free to reach
• 1:25:14
  out and e-mail us. You can e-mail us at
• 1:25:16
  lila@gtbmedia.com. You can also reach out to the
• 1:25:19
  NORB routines via the link in the bio.
• 1:25:21
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• 1:25:23
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• 1:25:25
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• 1:25:30
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• 1:25:33
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• 1:25:34
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• 1:25:38
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• 1:25:40
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• 1:25:43
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• 1:25:45
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