19 Jan 2021 – The Profession of Faith

[0] Welcome to the Bishop Strickland Hour.

[1] My name is Terry Barber on Virgin Most Powerful radio.

[2] I'm here with Bishop Strickland to do one thing, help you get to heaven.

[3] And how do we do that?

[4] Well, we're going through the catechism of the Catholic Church, these wonderful teachings that St. John Paul II put through back in, I think, 93 is when that first edition came out.

[5] And we're going to be covering the profession of faith part one, which is really basic teachings, which I believe.

[6] need to be done.

[7] Bishop Strickland, welcome back from your retreat, and I hope you're doing well.

[8] Thanks, Terry.

[9] Yeah.

[10] Good.

[11] Bishop Strickland, you've been tweeting, even though I see this last week, lots of good tweets.

[12] And I have to say this, it's refreshing to hear a bishop focus on his tweets on really a sacredness of life about how long eternity is and how short this life is and how we should be focused on heaven.

[13] And so I wanted to talk about one of your tweets, you just quoted Romans 12, too, which is a great quote from the Bible.

[14] It says, you point, do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that you may judge what is God's will, what is good, pleasing, and perfect.

[15] Let us resist the temptation to conform ourselves to this age, instead seek God's will.

[16] I think that seems like a home run for our culture in 2021.

[17] What made you quote that scripture verse, Bishop?

[18] Well, the world is really not on that path, certainly this nation, but really the world.

[19] It's a worldwide.

[20] Certainly there are a lot of good people and a lot of people of faith.

[21] and I really think we need to connect with each other as much as we can because I talk to so many people that feel alone in their faith and they want to hang on but they feel very lonely and they wonder we need to let people know that those who believe we should listen to the word of God read Romans and say okay I'm going to to do my best not to conform my life to this age and to this world.

[22] The world says exactly the opposite in so many ways.

[23] And when we conform to this world, we're cutting short our eternity, or at least the everlasting life that God wants to share with us.

[24] Hell won't be short.

[25] It'll be eternal too.

[26] But we're we always have that crossroads.

[27] in life to choose evil or to choose good.

[28] And the world is in too many ways telling us, oh, it's okay to choose evil and just go with it.

[29] And that is the path of destruction.

[30] It's interesting, you mentioned, you know, me as a bishop talking about eternal life.

[31] Yeah.

[32] And frankly, I've had others say, oh, you're too focused on that.

[33] But I think what we forget, if you read Thomas Aquinas, if you read the early church fathers, really, you read the scriptures, if we're focused on who we are, we're built for eternity.

[34] Amen.

[35] And staying focused on that will make every day of this life better.

[36] Won't make it perfect.

[37] This is never going to be heaven.

[38] And I think a lot of people forget that.

[39] oh we've we've got to make heaven on earth and that's never going to happen no this world is not heaven but it can be a world of peace a world of harmony a world of love in the father's son and spirit um so to me focusing on who we are what we're built for is the best way to make today good and tomorrow good and then when there isn't another tomorrow for you or me or for anyone then we're prepared to meet our maker well said bishop strickland i again i i appreciate you know life is short and eternity is forever so many of these tweets you just touched upon that i wanted to bring up but you know even at the end of the year now we're at the beginning of the year you know with 1st of January coming down, you point on your tweet even more profound and important at the end of this year that this is the gospel message for 2 ,000 years.

[40] It's repent and return to Jesus and pray that our broken world will do the same.

[41] We have salvation at our fingertips, but we must lay down our worldly ways and take up the way of the cross of Jesus, our Savior, without him all is lost man that's really a direct um teaching that says you know don't let the world distract you into things that are going to be comfortable you got material things that can distract you you got worldly titles that can distract you and you're saying it's the you know take up the way of the cross you know kind of like what bishop sheen says without good friday there's no easter sunday father bishop strickland you're calling it you're calling the gauntlet down and saying turn to jesus and i and i mean it you just saying that because we just finished a crazy year of of um not just the election year but with the covid 19 and there's been a lot of fear is this this this sounds to me very reassuring that i need to focus on heaven and not so much here absolutely and and that's what we're always called to um i was talking to a man and my drive back to the office.

[42] Chris Reynolds, he is with an apostolate called Gospa mission.

[43] Right.

[44] And he's developing an opportunity for people who want to to join in a time of prayer.

[45] And he wants it to be across the nation.

[46] So I just wanted to mention that because I think it's important, anyone that is listening, maybe first time, or may they regularly listen.

[47] And I wonder, are we alone and is there anybody supporting us?

[48] There are many people of good faith and real believers in Jesus Christ that are rejecting this conformity with the world that we hear in so many corners.

[49] And even within the church, we are not, we're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world.

[50] And I would just encourage anyone who is feeling alone or weak in their faith.

[51] I'm weak in my faith.

[52] My faith needs to be stronger.

[53] That's true for all of us.

[54] I'd encourage them to, it'll be on Wednesday nights.

[55] It's just being developed.

[56] But we'll give them more information.

[57] And I'll share that information.

[58] But I'd encourage them to look for ways.

[59] And there are many good things, I mean, like your radio program.

[60] There are many ways to get that support.

[61] that people need.

[62] We're not meant to be alone.

[63] We're meant to be part of a community.

[64] And especially with COVID, there's been a lot of that distancing that people need to remember spiritually we can be together and we need that.

[65] We hunger for that.

[66] Yeah, Bishop Strickland, I always share this with people to ask Jesus Christ for more faith every single day.

[67] And when you do that, your faith will grow.

[68] I had that last night we pray for you and for all priests and bishops and the Holy Father on Thursdays here at our chapel for two hours before the Blessed Sacrament.

[69] And many of the ladies asked me after the service outside, Terry, look what's going on in the world.

[70] What can we do?

[71] And I just told them your daily duty.

[72] Holiness is consistent being faithful to your state in your life.

[73] So if you're a mother, you're a father, do your duty.

[74] If you're a kid that goes to school, you are doing the will of God by, fulfilling your duties and your state and life.

[75] And I think that sometimes people think, well, that can't be that simple.

[76] You know what, Bishop Strickland, I think we complicate too much being a follower of Christ by saying, oh, you got to get your PhD, you got to get this, you got to do that.

[77] That might be the case, but mostly it's living in the presence of God.

[78] And by doing that, your faith will grow.

[79] So I appreciate your comments.

[80] Bishop Strickland, here's another powerful quote, you've used it many times.

[81] I use it many times.

[82] Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, if this isn't appropriate for 2021, any time, I would say.

[83] Hey, you know what?

[84] I just realized Bishop Strickland.

[85] No, we can do this.

[86] It's a couple minutes here.

[87] This is what you tweeted, quoting Fulton Sheen.

[88] This was from 60, 70 years ago.

[89] The refusal to take sides on a great moral issue is itself a decision.

[90] it is a silent acquiescence to evil silence is an acquiescence to evil so we can't be quiet the tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack the fire and conviction while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction Bishop Strickland every time I read that I don't care if it was 20 years ago it applies we see many people who are atheists.

[91] We see people who are way off, but they have the zeal.

[92] And then we, is baptized Christians, Catholics and Protestants, we've been given the gift.

[93] And many of us have been sitting on our hands.

[94] And you know what, Bishop Strickham?

[95] I'm going to say it right now.

[96] I'm including myself.

[97] I'm including the bishops.

[98] I'm including priests.

[99] We have not done enough in the sense of standing up for the truth because I'm convinced if we as a church did bishops drinking, correct me if I'm wrong.

[100] We would not have abortion on demand if our church held the ground 46 years ago.

[101] Am I right or wrong on that?

[102] Absolutely.

[103] There's just too much compromise.

[104] And it's like we keep retreating, you know, from these basic principles.

[105] I mean, we probably talk about abortion every time we talk.

[106] But it is a critical issue.

[107] It's certainly not the only issue, but it is a foundational issue.

[108] And the church teaches it's an intrinsic evil.

[109] I think we really need to think about that.

[110] Intrinsic evil, that's pretty extreme.

[111] It is.

[112] It's not just, oh, it's not a nice thing to do.

[113] It's an intrinsic evil.

[114] That doesn't change.

[115] It doesn't, after a certain amount of time, oh, it's not evil anymore.

[116] Intrinsic evil is deeply rooted in evil.

[117] Amen to that.

[118] Boy, well said.

[119] We're listening to the Bishop Strickland Hour on Virgin Most Power.

[120] Radio.

[121] We're going to come back as soon as you take a quick break.

[122] Welcome back to the Bishop Strickland Hour.

[123] My name's Terry Barber with Virgin Most Powerful Radio.

[124] We have one more segment of taking Bishop Strickland's tweets, and then we're going to go right into the catechism, the profession of faith part one.

[125] You don't want to miss that.

[126] It's fundamental to our faith.

[127] Last week, Bishop Strickland, you talked about your love and devotion to St. Thomas Beckett.

[128] and you have a tweet right now from him saying remember the sufferings of christ the storms that were withered the crown that came from those suffering which gave new radiance to faith to the faith i like this line all saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort no one ever wins the crown so bishops strictly i i i'm I'm using the crown, meaning heaven.

[129] Is that, in other words, without effort, we can't get to heaven.

[130] Is that what he's saying?

[131] Sure.

[132] And of course, the effort means nothing without the grace of God, but it's cooperating with that grace and working to respond to that grace is what we have to do.

[133] And again, when I was reading that quote from Thomas A Beckett, a man who didn't compromise when I'm older, he gave me the impression for thinking about that quote was that salvation we have to will it like St. Thomas Aquinas says you want to be a saint?

[134] He said will it and so it takes effort to say no to ourselves to follow Christ and so it seems to me that sometimes we hear this conversation that oh everybody's going to go to heaven just be kind of a nice guy Terry don't worry about any of the other icings on the like God's such a generous God.

[135] He'll get you in with just very little effort because nobody's going to hell.

[136] Matter of fact, a lot of people don't even think that God would send somebody to hell or God would allow someone to go to hell.

[137] So I guess my question to you as a bishop, how do I give them the good news, that really is good news, that they need to not be presuming that they're going to go to heaven with little effort?

[138] well Terry the the son of God tells us the opposite that it is a narrow path to heaven and we must take up our cross if we want to be his disciples and being his disciples is our path to heaven I think it kind of echoes what we were talking about earlier that reality we don't like to suffer.

[139] That's just human nature.

[140] Little kids, one of the first things they learn is they don't like to hear no. They like to say no, but they don't like to hear no. We want our way.

[141] We want our will.

[142] But part of maturing as human beings is coming to recognize that real fulfillment is not about our will, but God's will.

[143] And that's what the saints show us, that they're people, whether it's Thomas A Beckett or Mother Teresa of Calcutta or whatever saint you want to name, they are saints because they said, I'm going to live the will of God.

[144] And sometimes that means die for the will of God.

[145] That's what the martyrs did.

[146] I think it's it's a it's living life as people of faith and when we do that every day is is the opportunity to use the grace that God has given us to be his instruments to to follow his truth and if we look at what God has commanded us to do I like to think of it as kind of an operator's manual we we live happier more fulfilling lives if we live the will of God.

[147] And if we avoid the empty promises of Satan, the sins that Satan's always trying to tempt us into.

[148] He tempted Jesus Christ.

[149] But as the Son of God, Jesus Christ models for us how we resist that temptation.

[150] It just comes to mind that what does Jesus do when Satan tempts him?

[151] He quotes scripture at him.

[152] He throws his father's word.

[153] He throws the word of God at him.

[154] That's what we need to do.

[155] When we're tempted, what does the word of God say about whatever that temptation is?

[156] And certainly, we're sinners.

[157] I'm a sinner.

[158] We fail.

[159] We stumble.

[160] No matter how much we resolve, we imperfectly cooperate with that grace of God.

[161] So that is God's abundant mercy.

[162] he gives us a chance and then another chance and then another chance and then another chance but if we start presuming oh god will always give me another chance right one day we're going to be surprised because god in his infinite mercy knows that at some point we have to use our free will to choose him to choose the light to choose the truth and if we refuse god is not going to force us and you know we we need to presume that tomorrow may not come so i need to get right with god today well said i think of what fulton sheen used to say the only value in saying yes to god is you have the freedom to say no free will so you know god's not going to force his will on us because there would be no value in us choosing god if we don't have a choice and so i think that that's beautiful i like that you tweeted a you congratulated cardinal dolan And he is the, for those who don't know who Cardinal Dolan is, he's the Archbishop of New York.

[163] And you said that Cardinal Dolan, thank you.

[164] We must speak to truth in the face of ugly attacks on the sacred each and every time they occur.

[165] We join you in concern for the wonderful lives of the faithful children of God who sacrificed so much decades ago.

[166] We cannot remain silent.

[167] Now, this was somebody attacking in a sense of defacing St. Patrick's Cathedral.

[168] Is that the situation where they were doing that?

[169] What I like about this is one bishop complimenting another bishop publicly.

[170] I think we need to hear more of that when they do the right thing.

[171] Thank you, Bishop, thank you, Cardinal.

[172] And the other thing, Bishop Strickland, that I like, because I don't hear it enough, is where a Cardinal or a bishop, when something happens, like they knock a statue down in Southern California or wherever it is, Nipro -Sara, St. Knipro Serra, and we just act like it didn't happen, and we just keep our head in the sand, and we don't push back where, like, for example, in Los Angeles, we are now able to go back into the churches at 25 % of capacity, and that's a start.

[173] This Supreme Court said that it was unjust for the government to tell us we couldn't go to church when you could go to Walmart, things that you and I have been talking about.

[174] So thanks be to God.

[175] But my question, my point to you is this.

[176] It's nice when our bishops push back for us the sheep.

[177] The shepherd is saying, wait a minute, this isn't right like Archbishop Cordillione up in San Francisco.

[178] He said, wait a minute.

[179] We have a right to worship our God.

[180] And so I just want to thank Cardinal Dolan and all the bishops who have stood up to secular politicians who have said that, you know, our worship isn't any value and it's not essential to.

[181] the economy or to the world when we see it differently, and I thank our bishops when they speak out on that.

[182] And also, Cardinal Dolan, thank you for what you're doing also on this.

[183] So I just had to say that.

[184] And the other thing, Bishop Strickland, as a bishop, isn't it common for, and this is just you as an individual bishop, I want people to understand that your jurisdiction is in the Tyler Diocese, correct?

[185] And so they're really, and I'm just going to, I want to make a distinction here.

[186] The Bishop's Conference is the Bishop's Conference, and I know it was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, I think, in the report, the Cardinal, the Joseph Ratzinger report back in 85, correct me if I'm wrong, but you have the authority in Tyler, Texas, and that the Bishop's Conference, if they want to tell you, you need to do this or you need to do that, that's not how it was.

[187] works.

[188] Am I overstepping myself?

[189] No. The way the church is structured for the 33 counties of East Texas, I'm responsible, and I have the authority.

[190] The church gives the responsibility and the authority to use that responsibility to each bishop.

[191] So the Cardinal Archbishop of New York is in charge of New York.

[192] I think that's something important to emphasize.

[193] I do too.

[194] You know, the groupings of bishops and whether it's a state conference or a national conference that can be can serve a purpose but I think too often people think oh well what does the USCB say or what is this conference say yeah well they what they really need to do is look to their local bishop he is their pastor yes he's their shepherd but he is the successor of the apostles that is assigned to them and they need to respect him and to listen.

[195] And sometimes challenge if he's not speaking about the things that need to be spoken of, but always with respect because the bishop is a priest and then a bishop, he's a successor of the apostles.

[196] And it's my job to represent Christ and his truth.

[197] So respecting a bishop is disrespecting Christ.

[198] So absolutely.

[199] But, you know, it always has to be a balance of we're all called to be disciples from our baptism.

[200] We've talked about it before.

[201] Baptism is the doorway into life with Christ.

[202] All of us need to live our baptism.

[203] And then we live it in various other vocations, various secondary vocations.

[204] But our primary vocation is to live as the baptized.

[205] And we all need to challenge each other to do that respectfully, but to say, let us joyfully embrace the life of Christ, the cross and the graces and blessings, the joys and the hopes and the struggles.

[206] Amen.

[207] Now, I think that principle of subsidiarity that the catechism talks about is really applied with bishops.

[208] In other words, you're the local guy.

[209] Who better can handle the needs?

[210] of the community more than the local bishop in that diocese.

[211] So I think that's a principle that the church has looked at.

[212] And I would even apply that into big government, also, Bishop Strickland, that local politicians can handle the needs of people locally more than a big government 3 ,000 miles away telling you what your needs are.

[213] So I think this is something the church has always done.

[214] Before we get our break, I want to give a plug to the St. Philip Institute.

[215] One more plug for those who are brand new.

[216] Father, Bishop Strickland, what is this St. Philip Institute all about?

[217] Well, St. Philip Institute, St. Philip Institute .org is the website, is all about teaching the catechism, teaching the truth of the Catholic faith, and helping people to know what does it mean to be Catholic?

[218] What does it mean on a daily basis?

[219] Certainly, going to Mass on Sunday.

[220] Many people can't right now.

[221] But thankfully, in our diocese, people are able to go, and we encourage them to.

[222] Good.

[223] If you need to be quarantined or whatever, certainly follow that and use the streaming masses and the video masses as a second best.

[224] It never is a good substitute, but it may be the best you can do.

[225] Very good.

[226] We're going to take a quick break.

[227] Now we're going to jump into the profession of faith.

[228] I really want everybody to understand how important this catechism of the Catholic Church is.

[229] If you don't have a copy and you need one and you can't afford it, call me at 877 -5 -2 -26 -215, and I'll send you a catechism because it's that important.

[230] We're going to come right back with more on the Bishop Strickland Hour.

[231] Welcome back to the Bishop Strickland Hour.

[232] My name's Terry Barber with the Virgin Most Powerful Radio.

[233] We're going to get right into the catechism.

[234] We call it the profession of faith.

[235] But I want to give a plug many years ago, about 25 years.

[236] years ago when we had cassette tapes going.

[237] I produced with our team the Apostles Creed.

[238] It's on CD, but I'm going to give it away for free as a download because we don't do CDs anymore.

[239] And so it's on our website, Virgin Most Powerful Radio .org.

[240] And it's simple as just giving us your email and we'll send you a link and you can download the Apostles Creed.

[241] It's in one hour.

[242] We say it every Sunday.

[243] You know, what do we believe?

[244] And then this is going to help you have a better understanding of that, and I hope this show is going to do the same thing.

[245] So Bishop Strickland, I'm at the part one of the catechism, Section 1, I believe, we believe.

[246] It says, now paragraph 26, we begin our profession of faith by saying, I believe, or we believe, before expounding the church's faith, as confessed in the creed, celebrated in the liturgy, lived in an observance of God's commandments, and in prayer.

[247] must first ask what do what to believe means you know and here comes here's the cash value faith is man's response to god who reveals himself and gives himself to man at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life thus we shall consider first at search in chapter one then the divine revelation by which god comes to meet man chapter two and finally the response of the faith bishop strickland this to me is like groundwork if we don't understand who god is uh we're going to miss a lot even going to sunday mass so i wanted to get your take on how important it is for us to really realize that faith is man's response to god Absolutely.

[248] And I think the catechism really reminds us of what the purpose of life is.

[249] And I know that philosophers and others have said that the way we're built as human beings.

[250] And it makes sense for those of faith.

[251] But even if you have no faith, What the philosophers say is that we, if there were no God, as human beings, we will we, we will create one.

[252] Exactly.

[253] And I would encourage everyone to certainly probably the people listening to this believe in God.

[254] But probably all of us have people in our lives that maybe are sort of shaky on the issue, certainly have not made any great commitment to any faith.

[255] faith in God.

[256] And I think that we as a nation and as a world, really, need to really pay attention to that basic philosophical idea that we are built to need a higher power.

[257] Amen.

[258] That we believe is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[259] So to be very cautious about ignoring that, you know, to.

[260] Today, the popular thing for too many is to declare themselves atheist or maybe agnostic.

[261] But I would urge everyone.

[262] And if you know someone who is a younger person or an older person, whoever, that says, oh, I'm atheist, I don't believe in God, to really not confront them so much, but to have a friendly conversation, but to really encourage them to recognize that they're operating with something taking the place of God.

[263] Maybe their God is wealth, or maybe it's pleasure, or maybe it's leisure, or maybe it's just having a great circle of friends.

[264] But in it, so the things that people replace God with may not necessarily, I mean, It's not always evil, but if it's not God who is taking that godly place in your life, it's going to bring evil.

[265] It's going to bring harm and destruction.

[266] Because, as we've talked about before, all the wealth in the world ultimately is dead.

[267] It doesn't feed that need we have that St. Augustine says so beautifully.

[268] Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

[269] I think that's another way of saying what the philosophers say.

[270] We need God.

[271] We're built to have a higher power in our lives.

[272] And so paying attention to that.

[273] And really, I would encourage anyone who may be listening and said, just happened on this and doesn't really believe in God, or maybe someone that you talk to, maybe in the family or a coworker.

[274] This is, I don't know why you bother with this religious stuff.

[275] I don't believe in God.

[276] I would really encourage them to think about then, okay, if you don't believe in God, then what or who is taking the place of that?

[277] Right.

[278] Because something is.

[279] I think the philosophers, even though they're not really approaching it from the faith perspective, I think they're on to something.

[280] And certainly, as we approach that question, believers, yes, we are made in the image and likeness of God.

[281] And like St. Augustine says, there's a hunger in us.

[282] We need to know daddy.

[283] We need to know our creator.

[284] We need to know where we came from and where we're going.

[285] And that's the answer that God gives us.

[286] So I think just even for the secular world to just admit there is a godlike entity of some kind in your life.

[287] Be aware of that and do a little self -examination of what are you making God.

[288] And I think that open -hearted people will likely be drawn to God if they start acknowledging that something's God.

[289] For a lot of people, it's money or power or pleasure.

[290] It can take other forms as well.

[291] But if you don't really look to God, Father, Son, and Spirit, the truth.

[292] Prentitarian God that we know is God.

[293] If you don't really look to him, you're looking to something as God.

[294] And I think we all, as the people of the earth, we really need to be aware of that.

[295] And at least be honest with ourselves.

[296] If wealth is your God, it's going to leave you empty, ultimately, but at least acknowledge that and do a little examination of conscience on what are you making God and what is that doing to your life?

[297] Bishop Strickland, that's music to my ears.

[298] I found that people who are in their 40s and 50s relate to that because they spent many years trying to be successful in their mind with material things and then after this they never were happy.

[299] And I've seen people turn back to Christ because of the emptiness that the world offers.

[300] And eventually it comes, it might be 60 years old, but they do and i i just confirm what you said paragraph 27 said exactly that the desire for god is written in the human heart because man is created by god and for god and god never ceases to draw man to himself only in god we will find the truth and happiness and he never stops searching for us remember the hound of heaven you know the god is always reaching out and i say that to people because like you just said, if you're listening and you're kind of have one foot in and one foot out and you're like, I don't know if I want to get into this religion thing.

[301] I was meeting with a man the other day outside our chapel, inviting him in.

[302] And he said that to me. He said, I don't know if I really want this because I like what I'm doing right now.

[303] And I said, well, you're honest.

[304] I said, get down, just walk in and get down and tell Jesus that.

[305] Go ahead and pray.

[306] Because I think if you come in and you pray, you'll find that you're going to get an answer.

[307] So anyhow, that's my approach when I hear people tell me that they've tried to seek their happiness in this world, and they found out it failed them.

[308] And sometimes people have to go through that to get to our Lord.

[309] So Bishop Strickland, here's my other quote today from the catechism, paragraph 28, because a lot of what you're saying isn't just for our century, or our decade, or for our year.

[310] These are universal teachings that 500 years from now are going to be true.

[311] And I say that because I think we need that reassurance, what we call objective truth, that this is true today, tomorrow, and the future.

[312] Because right now we live in a world that says, well, you know that software you're using Bishop Strickland?

[313] In about a year, you can throw it away or two years because we got a new version 6 .5 or whatever.

[314] But with our Catholic faith, it's true today, tomorrow, and the next day.

[315] And that's reassuring for me and I think for you.

[316] But paragraph 29 has something to say about scandal and how that happens.

[317] But this intimate and vital bond of man to God can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. We're experiencing that in today's world.

[318] Such attitudes can have different causes.

[319] We have a revolt against evil in the world?

[320] Religious ignorance?

[321] Oh, do we have that?

[322] Indifference?

[323] Oh, we have that.

[324] The cares and riches of the world.

[325] You just talked about this.

[326] But here's what he said also.

[327] Scandal of bad example on part of believers.

[328] Bishop Foley used to be the guy that was in charge of evangelization in the 1990s in Rome.

[329] And he said the biggest scandal to evangelization, the biggest problem with evangelization is scandal.

[330] People use scandal as an excuse not to come to see Jesus and to practice their faith.

[331] So the scandal of bad example on part of believers, current thought of hostile to religion.

[332] Finally, the attitude of sinful man, which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.

[333] Bishop Strickland, tell me a little bit your own experience of seeing what the catechism just called, you know, the the call of like the fear of wanting to turn to God because they're living a life that they know isn't according to God.

[334] Have you experienced that in your own ministry where people have said that to you where a bad example has happened or they just feel like they're going to not be comfortable turning back to Christ because they feel like they're not worthy?

[335] But when we come back from the break, I want to have your take on this paragraph 29.

[336] and how ignorance and indifference cares of the riches of the world, bad example, all these have affected us in the church.

[337] We'll be back with more on the Bishop Strickland Hour.

[338] Welcome back to the Bishop Strickland Hour.

[339] I wanted to give a plug to the Apostles Creed CD that we're giving away.

[340] It's something we did 20 years ago and summarizing what we teach on the Apostles' Creed, taken right from the Catechism, if you go to virgin most powerful radio .org, you'll see it on our homepage, and it's free.

[341] You just give us your email and we'll send you a link, and you'll get some good information on something we say every Sunday.

[342] Bishop Strickland and I, before the break, I was talking about paragraph 29 and just the bond of God to us and, you know, how scandal has been a problem with people.

[343] and also the fear that people have to even want to even talk to God.

[344] In other words, if they know they're living a wretched life, they want to run away.

[345] And the catechism is saying we need to reach out to these people.

[346] What's your thoughts?

[347] Yeah, absolutely.

[348] And I think there are a lot of people that say, my sins are too big for God to free.

[349] I've heard that many times.

[350] That's wrong.

[351] And thankful a lot of times people come to realize that God's mercy is there for all of us.

[352] We're all sinners.

[353] We need the mercy.

[354] God's mercy is abundant.

[355] It really is part of a relationship.

[356] And I think that that's what we tend to forget all of us, that mercy is good.

[357] God's gift, but it also calls something forth from us.

[358] It's a back and forth.

[359] It's a conversation of love, ultimately.

[360] If we really love God, we know God loves us.

[361] And I think a lot of times in our broken world, that's what people don't really, in a deep way, really believe that God does love them or than anyone loves them.

[362] And that we know from psychology is is really devastating to the human person.

[363] Once again, it's logical.

[364] God is love.

[365] John's gospel says that very clearly.

[366] God is love.

[367] Love is God.

[368] And I think that a lot of the brokenness in our world today hinges on the reality that a lot of people have never really felt human love.

[369] Their parents, it was a broken situation.

[370] And they've just never really felt that they were worth anything and that they were a lovable human being.

[371] And that, ironically, very often the human experience is what blocks people from knowing the supernatural relationship with God.

[372] Because none of our fathers were perfect.

[373] And I'm sure you as a father are not perfect.

[374] but you know if we have no and too many children grow up these days without any father good or bad it's just never knew a father and that is harmful to the human person and to the human family and it it handicaps people with being able to even know God as father I mean some people reject that image of God that his son revealed to us.

[375] He calls God Father and he teaches us the our father.

[376] So if you don't know a human father or a father figure of any kind, it really handicaps you with being able to know God.

[377] It's not impossible, but it does make it harder.

[378] And so we do need to reach out to those people and do our best.

[379] to help them come to know God's love for them as a loving father in that way they can begin to love themselves and live a happier life in this world and begin on that path to everlasting life with God the Father.

[380] Well said, I know Dr. Hahn and Father Don Calloway were telling me a similar thing about a conversation just two weeks ago about how St. Joseph is a great saint for those who have had let's just say a less than perfect fathers where their father was a missing in action and to look at St. Joseph as the model.

[381] So that might be also something to consider.

[382] Bishop Strickland, paragraph 31, ways of coming to know God.

[383] I thought this was really touching for me. Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him.

[384] These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of converging and convincing arguments which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.

[385] The ways of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure, the physical world and the human person.

[386] Give us your take on that.

[387] Well, I think what the catechism is referring to here is that, and you can look at virtually every natural group of people, whether it's an Indian tribe or Aboriginal group of people anywhere, there's a common discovery or search for God in some form or another.

[388] So even the next.

[389] nature religions come to a certain level of knowing God through looking at the beauty of nature, the power of nature, the wonder of nature, and just coming to recognize that I didn't make that.

[390] Yeah.

[391] And where did it come from?

[392] And people turn to a higher being.

[393] Yeah.

[394] And then, you know, the idea of coming to God through the human person.

[395] Yeah.

[396] Jesus Christ is ultimately that revelation.

[397] He becomes a human person so that we can know God through the human person.

[398] But we are, as human beings, I think we need to acknowledge that we are all full of mystery.

[399] There is something mysterious about the human being.

[400] We're apart from creation, whether people like that or not, or want to be, we are not just another aspect of creation.

[401] We're different.

[402] We are in our faith, of course, we're created in the image and likeness of God.

[403] That's what God is revealed to us.

[404] But I think there's what the Catechism is getting at is a, even from, you might say, just natural human ability to understand and to discern, you begin to disarm.

[405] You begin to discover something divine even as you see the wonder of another person and the love of a man and woman in marriage or the love of a father for their child or a mother for their child.

[406] There are things that move people to recognize that we're not just, you know, sort of an automaton's or people without, I guess the simplest way to say it is people can.

[407] naturally come to understand that we have a soul.

[408] There's something built into us that is beyond just the created world.

[409] There's something supernatural about the human person.

[410] And I think that's what the catechism is getting at.

[411] Wow, that's beautiful.

[412] Bishop Strickland, this is being broadcast the first part of January, 2021.

[413] I wanted to put you on the hot seat, and I've done this before, and that is goals for souls.

[414] In other words, 2021, how can we make this the best year in our spiritual life?

[415] What things would you recommend?

[416] I mean, I have people who want to say that, you know, you get the Augustine Institute, Mr. Tim Gray's book on studying the Bible.

[417] I have that for the year.

[418] But is there something, you know, there's two or three things that you would recommend for our listeners to help them fall deeper in love with.

[419] the person of Jesus Christ.

[420] What would you recommend?

[421] Well, I think I would recommend listening to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, our spiritual mother.

[422] Amen.

[423] What is she told us over and over?

[424] I mean, she's like most mothers.

[425] She repeats herself all the time.

[426] And she says, repent of your sins and grow in holiness.

[427] You mention the word of God.

[428] Absolutely.

[429] That's one thing to do, to be become better acquainted with God's Word.

[430] And to recognize there's a great intersection for us as Catholics, the sacraments and the Word really sort of merge into one in Jesus Christ.

[431] Yes.

[432] He is the eternal word.

[433] He is the word incarnate.

[434] And so when we read Scripture, and I think that this is something that we all need to do a better job of, it concerns me a lot of times and I try not to get you know confrontational about it but very often I'll ask the young people being confirmed what portion of the word of God was just proclaimed just a couple of minutes before in the first reading the second reading the gospel now a lot of times I get blank stairs sometimes they'll know oh it was the prophet Isaiah but I think that we need to do a much better job.

[435] And one of the fruits of the Second Vatican Council was really calling us to a deeper embrace of the Bible, the Word of God that is written, and to trust and to know that, like I said, the two converge.

[436] The sacraments are Christ acting in our world.

[437] There's signs that God is with us.

[438] The word of God is God's truth revealed to us and written down through the ages old and new testament so i guess that's what i would encourage people to do is to come to know the word both the written word of the bible and the word incarnate that is jesus christ more deeply and the path to do that is to repent of sin to clear the to clear the darkness out of our lives and to seek holiness through god's word well said i'm just going to add one more thing that I mentioned earlier on our show, the Terry and Jesse show on Virgin Most Powerful.

[439] And that is, if you're not praying your rosary daily, I really want to encourage the daily rosary.

[440] Our lady of Fatima said that this is the answer for world peace.

[441] And boy, we need peace in our world.

[442] And here's the thing about that rosary that you are going to pray.

[443] You can go right online and get meditations that are beautiful.

[444] So I want to just encourage you to pray that daily rosary.

[445] Bishop Strickland, can we get a final blessing we've got about a minute left in the show?

[446] Sure.

[447] The Lord be with you.

[448] And with your spirit.

[449] Almighty God, we ask your blessing for everyone listening, for all the families and members of the faith communities, for the people of this nation and throughout the world that we may, in this year 2021, grow in understanding the truth that God is revealed to us.

[450] And we ask this blessing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

[451] Amen.

[452] And thank you, Bishop Strickland.

[453] For those who are listening who want to hear the previous shows, they're all podcasted on virgin, most powerful radio .org.

[454] You can listen to all of our shows that we have there, Terry and Jesse, Jesus 9 -1 -1, the Bar of History, and many others.

[455] May God richly bless you in this new year.

[456] And until the next time, God love you and your family here.

[457] at Virgin Most Powerful Radio.