Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 82: The Explanation of the Catechism, part 1

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Show 82: The Explanation of the Catechism, part 1 · The Uncensored Catholic

0:41
The f A. Hey, y'all, welcome today's show. I'm gonna get
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into a whole new series today. This is gonna probably set the tone for
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what we do for about the next year. I'm looking I'm excited about it.
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I'm looking forward to this. You know. It's it's I'm been trying
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to be a lot more consistent. You know, if you if you've been
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following the show for a while, you know I usually do one a podcast
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at least four days a week, like Monday through Thursday, and sometimes a
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Friday, occasionally even a Saturday. Past couple of weeks, I have been
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a little hit and miss, and well I had the flu and then I
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fell off a ladder. Now you may think, why is falling off a
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ladder prevent you from doing a podcast? Oh? Man, I do some
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damage to my knee. I didn't break anything, but I mean I'm walking
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around with the cane. My knee swells up about the size of volleyball.
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Not fun, uh in tints, pain, definitely exhausting. And I just
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really haven't had it in me to do much. I haven't. I haven't
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done much except sit in a chair with my leg propped up, and you
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know, just try to deal with the pain for several days now, but
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you know, I'm ready to embark on something new and yeah again, if
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you've been listening to the show for a while, you know I really enjoy
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Father Spirago's exhaustive explanation of the Catechisms, written in approximately eighteen nineties. You
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know, I love the Modern Catechism is very formative for me when I began
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exploring Catholicism. It would have been very hard for me become Catholic without the
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Catechism, I have to say, I mean, you have to know what
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the tenants are, the doctrine of the faith you're going to embrace. And
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the Catechism, our modern one is fantastic. It's approachable, it's easy to
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find in online, it's inexpensive to buy a paperbook paperback copy in a used
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bookstore, and it's really good. It's very I want to say approachable.
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I think most people, most any level of Christian education or you know,
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I mean of average intellectual ability can pick out the Catechism, the Modern Catechism
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and the Boston Catechism. It was fantastic as well, in some ways even
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better in my opinion, but certain matters of doctrine have been clarified, okay,
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but it is always best to have someone explain to you what you're reading,
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especially when it comes to complex doctrinal issues. Look, no one's going
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to be able to understand the nature of the trinity. Bottom line, it's
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a mystery. Right. We will never understand how one God can exist in
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three persons until we're actually in heaven sharing in the divinity of that God,
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part of the same body of Christ. Now, how can you put that
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into words words that a child can understand? Or well, maybe a child
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actually has an easier task in understanding it, because you know, they're not
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up to that level of intellectual curiosity and logic where they say, well,
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wait a minute, I don't quite understand this. They just accept things as
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they are, as they're told by someone who they trust. And when we're
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taking our doctrine and moral education, we have to have trust in the One
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Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that it's guaranteed to be free from error by Jesus
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Christ, God Incarnate, who founded it. If we lack that, we
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literally have no basis on which to believe the Catechism obviously, or the Bible,
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because the Bible was compiled, translated, written in terms of the entire
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New Testament, and published by the Catholic Church. If you do not believe
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in the apostles and the authority given to them by Christ, you have no
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reason to believe the Bible whatsoever. It would actually be quite foolish to believe
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the words of the Bible without believing in the credibility and authority of its authors,
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who only have that credibility and authority through Jesus Christ, who is the
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Word of God. So Jesus speaking through the prophets and Jesus speaking through the
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apostles gives us some whole of the authority and credibility of the Bible. Sacred
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tradition has passed on through the Catholic Church. The oral tradition of the apostles
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is given equal authority, because it was given that authority to bind and loose
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he who hears you, hears me, who rejects me, or rejects him
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who sent me by Jesus Christ, in his own words, if we do
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not believe in Jesus, we have no reason to believe in the Bible or
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the Church. I think that's a big mistake. Many modern thinkers or modern
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people. Modern religious people make in saying I believe in Jesus because I had
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an emotional experience, or because my parents taught me to and therefore I believe
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in His church and or in the Bible. You know, whether you're a
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Protestant or Catholic or Protestant, I should have said, I think it's a
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big mistake that modern people make, whether they're Catholic or Protestant, to say
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I believe in Jesus because I believe in the Bible or the Church. You
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know, usually it really is more a prize of a thing. I believe
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in the Bible because my parents taught me to read the Bible, my parents
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taught me to pray. But it could easily be for a Catholic. My
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parents took me in to Mass I was, you know, I went through
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Catechism classes and all that. Therefore I believe. Now, actually, you
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believe in the Bible in the Church because you believe that Jesus is God.
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How do you know Jesus God? Well, because the Bible tells you so,
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because the Church tells you so. That's they're in. I mean,
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if you want to give the atheists and the agnostics there due that is a
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circular argument. Without the instruction of our elders, we don't come to believe,
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you can't. Y know, some people pick up a Bible in a
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motel room, right and they start reading it and something happens and they're moved
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to believe that. You know, this Christian religion is real. Okay,
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some people wander into a church and attend a midnight Mass or something, and
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you know, they have this conversion experience that's actually supernatural. Now you could
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say it's based on the hope of that person. It's based on the hope
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of someone wanting something greater than they have at their disposal. But you remember
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what Jesus said, no one believes in Him as God unless moved by the
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Holy Spirit. You will generally find, probably ninety nine point nine percent of
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the time that people who have those experiences were given that example and instruction earlier
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on in life by their parents, by their grandparents, by their great grandparents.
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You know, I got to know three pre generations of my family incredibly
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devout Christians. And so whereas we may wander astray and we may become agnostic
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ly then atheistic, or in my case Buddhist for a while, certainly Taoist.
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When that time came and the spirit moved. You know, I've told
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you before. In my case, I was severely injured and paralyzed, and
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through the word of a Pentecostal televangelist who out of the clear blue said there
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was a young man in North Carolina who had a severe back injury and couldn't
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walk, and through the power of God, this moment he will be healed.
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Boom. Something happened big time in my life, and I became to
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believe in God and believe, you know, I became to embrace Christianity.
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It was not a question of whether I chose to believe or not. It
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was a supernatural experience. I might as well have been hitting the head with
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a board. I mean, that's how powerful the Holy Spirit was in my
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life. I had no choice. I am very grateful for that, because
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knowing me and as stubborn and arrogant as I am, I wouldn't have gotten
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there on my own, I mean seriously. But for most people, that
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openness, and for certainly the case in my life, came through the religious
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education and example of my ancestors, of my mother, of my grandparents of
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my great grandparents. You know, that's a big part of you know,
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that really hard teaching, especially in what is the Presbyterian Church. I think
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Calvin or Knox maybe was knocks. Knocks said about predestination. The Bible says,
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you know, you were brought here because you're predestined. Well, in
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his wackadoo mind, I'm sorry if that offends somebody, he was a freaking
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lunatic. He said, only one hundred thousand people in the entire history of
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mankind will be saved and go to heaven, and they were predestined before they
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were born. Didn't matter if they were good people, bad people, believe
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in God, didn't believe in God, were murders, adulters, or whatever.
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That one hundred thousand people was predestined for heaven and nobody else was going
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to get there. Well, obviously that's just a load of crap. I
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mean, why would you even be a Christian if your beliefs and morals and
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everything didn't matter. Why would you even want to be a Christian? If
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you know, Charles Manson in the worst of or Adolph Hitler at his worst,
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if he was predestined was going to heaven. And no matter how much
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to herd you try, you weren't so. The entire Presbyterian Church is built
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upon a Maronic fable of a lunatic mind, truly, truly and very much
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manipulated and influenced by the Protestant government of England. Watch the movie Mary,
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Queen of Scott's, Who'll kind of get the idea. But what I'm trying
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to tell you is the real aspect of predestination is that we are given that
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example and instruction by our ancestors. I can trace my Christian ancestry at least
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as far back to the House of Wessex in England, King Edward the Confessor,
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Richard the Lionheart, a lot of guys whose name I can't pronounce,
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like ale With and Aerrowiden, you know that kind of thing. I can
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probably trace it even a little bit further than that. What a great gift
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was given to me by my grandparents and great grandparents who founded churches. By
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my great great great uncle, I guess, the first Catholic Bishop of the
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United States, Charles Carroll, the many Irish Catholics who fought and died for
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their church for their religious beliefs, The French I mean, I can go
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on on the Spanish. I have you know Spanish who were quite religious,
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very small percentage of Spanish actually, and at least one pole out there.
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I got one pole and one North African somewhere floating around in the family tree.
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But all of these were great devout Christian people. And I was predestined
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because I was born into a family where I was given that example. I
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mean, I've told you before. My grandfather, traditional southern man, grew
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up. His best friend was the son of a man who worked on his
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father's farm. His father had worked on his father's farm, and his father
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had worked on his father's farm, and most likely five generations back had been
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a slave. And his best friend was a black man who became an AM's
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ion preacher. And when my grandfather learned to lay brick and build houses,
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he was he also worked in timber and it was an architect and all that.
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One of the first things he did was build a church for his best
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friend in you know, rural North Carolina, a black man. That's you
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know, that's an example. But why not because he was friends with a
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black man. Everybody should be friends with anybody, any race. Because he
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did it out of his own pocket in his own time as an act of
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charity. To walk in my grandfather's shoes is something I will aspired to for
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my entire life. And his mother founded a church and his grandfather failed to
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a church. You know, that's predestination in this instance. Well, we're
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also predestined having come into this world at this time, with all these great
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books to which we have access, we really don't have the excuse. I
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mean, ten thousand years ago, our ancestors, wandering around the wilderness,
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illiterate, with no instruction, came up with all kinds of odd ideas,
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you know, cannibalism and you know, human sacrifice and all kinds of fun
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stuff like that. We cannot look at them and blame them for their ignorance,
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But how much would they look at us and blame us for our wilful
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ignorance of not exploring the faith they gave us as an inheritance. I mean,
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it's we are so privileged to be alive at this time, even with
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all problems, even with all the problems this world has. So y'all,
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Okay, let's kick it off, as I always do, with just a
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couple of questions and answers from radio replies, and then we're going to get
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into Father Sparago. And I tell you it's going to take a while,
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probably about a year, to get through the exhausted explanation of the Catechism.
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It's over a seven hundred page book. Okay, But Father Sparago, I
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believe was check. He had a great sense of humor, he had a
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good way of writing. His book is so much more readable and enjoyable than
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any Catechism I know of. I mean, I literally put him up there
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with like you know, Aquinas, you know, throw him up there with
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a couple of saints, even though he's never been categorized, canonized, but
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I put him in the same category as some of the greatest writers on morals
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and doctrine of all time. I think you're gonna love it, and you
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know, stick with me. It's going to take a while to get through.
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But I got more out of this book. Look then, just about
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any Catholic book I've written, I would literally put it in the same category
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as the Bible and the Catechism. Seriously, as Aquinas in Augustine as you
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know, you name it the doctors, and you know it's a shame he
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hasn't been canonized, but you know that's that's not as it's a complex process.
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Who knows, maybe someday he will be. So let's get into the
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radio replies. Remember this is where atheists and Protestants ask two priests questions in
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the nineteen thirties, basically challenging them to prove Christianity, religion and Catholicism and
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well they can support Well, some of these real English ones were like,
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you're a traitor to England because you're Catholic. So they actually hadn't defend themselves
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on that as well. Uh, the questioner says, where are the original
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records? He's talking about the records that give you would give you one insight
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into Christianity. I guess I would say, well, they answer quite obviously,
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the original documents have long since perished. The earliest copy of the Bible
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is about the fourth century, but sixteen hundred years have had their effect upon
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that copy. Even parchment perishes with time. A person says, you admit
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no original documents in existence and therefore no real evidence. Where are your claims?
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The answer, I never admitted that there is no real evidence, nor
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that there are no original documents in existence. There are thousands of original documents
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in existence. The particular original documents, the copies of which we now possess
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in the Gospels, have perished, but copies are perfectly reliable and has been
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as has been established by comparisons of hundreds of independent transcripts researching back to the
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times when the originals were certainly in existence. Well, and actually since this
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time, you know, we have found this is nineteen thirties, there have
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been found earlier copies of the books of the Bible, both the Old and
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New Testament, and well, one of the most significant discoveries, you know,
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since the nineteen thirties, of course, was the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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And even though there is some controversy existing around the Dead Sea Scrolls, there
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were some odd terms of phrase, shall we say, and some inclusions in
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there that were not part of the canon. The full Bible as we know
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it, dating back to late three hundreds when Saint Jerome, you know,
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really did the translations and put everything together. You know, it took it
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was a period time the entire church had to decide on what was whole you
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know, sacred scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit, and what wasn't. And
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of course we had all the Nosta care acies. We had all that,
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and all that goes into the shaping of what we know as the Bible,
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which is, you know, basically the sacra biblical Biblica. Volgada states about
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to you know, four hundred eight, I mean basically in its shall we
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say, current form. You could pick up an old version of the Dewey
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Rams, well, current version of the Dewey Rams. It's I mean,
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it's a Bible that dates from what the early eighteen hundreds, late seventeen hundreds,
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and usually the English if you get you know, the more expensive copy,
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and they, you know, unfortunately they can run kind of high because
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it's a big book expensive to print. The English will be right beside the
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Latin. I have taken the Latin and compared it to the Bibliosacra, and
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I mean it's essentially identical. You could see where a couple of sentences have
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been made a little more readable. Just it matters of grammar, not content.
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But the Dead Sea Scrolls do it contain a few confusing works, we
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shall say, which were worked out over time. But that became one of
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our if not the oldest one of the oldest copies of the scriptures we have,
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and my aunt actually worked on that project with Smithsonian. And I had
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a good friend, doctor Charles Hostler, who's well he was actually a NASA
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scientist, but he was also a theologian and a pretty interesting guy. And
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between their works, I have a very good understanding of the Dead Sea scrolls.
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And for this guy to be saying in nineteen thirties that there weren't any
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earlier copies of the Bible than what they knew to be in existence at the
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time, well that was ignorance. It was later proved wrong, as we
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have found much older works. But it's not really the point. He says,
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you admit no original documents in existence and therefore no real evidence. Where
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are your claims? Well, first of all, we know all the books
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of the Old Testament are in the Talmud, and you know the Torah,
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and they are the sacred works of Jewish of the Jewish faith, and they
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have been preserved for a very very long time. The name escapes me.
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I believe it was was it ancient Greece that the king at the time,
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the emperor, whatever they had in Greece, I don't really remember the details
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decided that all the published works of all the people under the empire needed to
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be collected. And you know this is going back to what three thousand years
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ago or so maybe further. And he was told to him, well,
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wait a minute. You know the Hebrews they have their own sacred works that
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we know of through the Egyptians. We actually know a lot through the Egyptians.
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In fact, much of the Greek alphabet comes from ancient Egypt. We
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need a copy of their sacred scriptures. And he said, well, where
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can we find them. You know, Jerusalem has been destroyed, the temple's
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gone. They said, well, they passed down these works, essentially the
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books of the Old Testament through oral tradition. And he said, well,
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go get all the leading scholars of the Jewish oral tradition. I think it
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was like seventy five. You know, doctors of the law essentially were brought
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and they were kept separate from each other. They were putting like different cubicles,
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not allowed to communicate, not allowed to eat together, sleep in the
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same room, socialized anything until they had all written their copy, until they'd
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all written their copy of essentially the Old Testament, and essentially miraculously because you
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wouldn't you remember playing the telephone game as a kid, everybody, you know,
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you pass the message onto one, it gets changed a little and changed
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a little. Well, they all wrote the almost the exact same thing when
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it was all said and done, like all seventy five of these Hebraic scholars
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wrote the same thing. And that's actually where our most reliable and oldest copies
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of you know, the tour of the town that the Old Testament come from.
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So that's about as reliable as you can get. That shows both actually
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a scholarly approach to preserving the knowledge. It shows a what do you call
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synopter synthetic in agreement that these people actually coming from different towns and regions,
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had been taught the same thing for some four thousand years and committed to memory,
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and then probably you know, a divine influence that it all came out
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alike. You know. So we do actually have old examples. And also
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since the nineteen thirties, you know, there have been various versions of the
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New Testament that have been discovered. And yeah, we can definitely say with
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surety who wrote the books of the New Testament and who translated the books of
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the Old Testament, mostly you know Saint Jerome. And when the Bible was
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put together, and the first version of the Bible is right around four hundred
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a d. At the church said, this is truly the word of God.
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These books are in and those are out, And there were a lot
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that didn't make the cut. So this person, even though they would be
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very educated, were actually very ignorant, and went on to say, why
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did not God preserve the originals by a miracle? When they answered that was
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not necessary. That women in other contents we have true copies also, that
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would not have better things. Christ did not base his religion upon the reading
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of scripture. He established the infallible Catholic Church to teach in his name that
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church he has miraculously preserved. And that is a central point. The Bible
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alone is not the sole authority. The Bible is the work of the Catholic
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Church. The Bible is a book written by at least in the New Testament,
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compiled by and published by the Catholic Church. And only to the Catholic
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Church did Jesus give the power to infallibly interpret the words of the Bible and
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teach what he said. And as the Bible itself says the Bible is not
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complete. It says the words of Jesus would have filled many books. All
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that is written here so that you may believe. So I guess, as
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did I I come to full acceptance of Christianity through the examples of my ancestors,
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through a miracle, through the words of the Bible. It was only
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once I realized the authority of the Catholic Church did I come to whatever degree
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of understanding the fullness of the truth do I have now, and only that
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through confirmation, Because in confirmation one receives, through the power of God in
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the sacrament, the fullness of the Spirit. And if you're not confirmed in
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the Catholic Church, you will never understand. I'm sorry, you can be
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the most devout Christian on the face of the earth. Only through baptism,
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which can be both Protestant or Catholic, and confirmation does one receive the fullness
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of the Spirit. And only through the fullness of the Spirit does one come
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to understanding the fullness of the truth. And that is a lifetime journey.
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We will in our lifetimes only get a small like a drop from the ocean
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of understanding of the fullness of the truth. But we won't even get that
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much without the grace of God, which is given fully through confirmation. You
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know, go through your Bible. And when the apostles laid their hands on
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people said they had they had been baptized, but they had not yet received
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the spirit. When they said they believed in Jesus, they called themselves Christians,
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but they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. That is the same
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confirmation that every Catholic receives, you know, usually around nine years old in
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a Catholic church. And it took me a lot longer in life to get
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there, and God willing a lot more people. You know, you can
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receive it on your death bed at nine nine years old. You still will
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not have it unless you are confirmed by a validly ordained priest under the authority
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of Church. Going back to the apostles, one apostle confirmed someone, who
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confirmed someone who confirmed someone. And that's the power of God through the actual
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physical laying on the hands of the apostles, as spoken of in the New
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Testament, especially Acts and the epistles of Saint Paul, and well, various
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ones, various ones. All right, so now let's get into a little
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bit of Father Sparago, who will probably well certainly explain things a lot more
29:30
clearly than do I. So let's start with the very basics. I think
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anyone who went to Catholic school, you know, before the modern Catechism,
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who you know, was taught on the old Boston Catechism will recognize exactly where
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father Sparago is coming from in the first words. After forty some actually fifty
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pages or so of the te contents, it's a really long book, he
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finally gets to part one. Well, actually, he also had a lot
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of prayers and devotions at the beginning of the book, so we're definitely worth
30:11
getting a copy even for that. I mean a lot of really great prayers
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and devotions as such. But we will start actually on page sixty nine with
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what he calls the general Survey Part one. Now, this is the primary
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question everyone must ask themselves. What is man's purpose in life? Why are
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we here? Well, like I said, if you remember the old Boston
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Catechism, you already have the answer. Right. Well, let's see what
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fothers wet Spiago says, or it could be Spirago, you know, like
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I said, it's check, don't I don't I I'm not great with Slavic
30:51
languages. Let's put it that way. I'm great with Slavic food. Give
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me some perovis and sausage. I'm good to go, but I'm not great
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with Slavic languages. All right, He says, we are on earth for
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the purpose of giving glory to God and thereby working out our eternal salvation.
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We are to attain our end by the following means. We must strive to
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acquire the knowledge of God through faith and the truths which He has revealed.
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I guess that's what I was really trying to say earlier. You can be
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taught, you can pick up the Bible and read it right, but you
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have to say who is the authority behind this Bible. You can learn your
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religion from your parents and your grandparents, but again, who is the authority?
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The ultimate authority has to be God for it to be valid religion,
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and Christianity is a revealed religion. In other words, we don't believe that
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our knowledge of Christianity comes through obscure visions and signs or even a philosophy.
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So not a pagan practice or a modern practice essentially a science even but through
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the actual revelation of God intervening in mankind and identifying himself and telling us how
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to get to Heaven. Essentially, he says, here we speak of the
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knowledge of God, of revelation of faith, the motives of faith, the
32:35
opposite of faith, the confession of faith, and finally, the sign of
32:38
the Cross. An explanation is given of the twelve articles of the Apostles Creed
32:45
Article one, the existence of God, his being, his attributes, his
32:49
triune nature, the creation of the world and divine providence, angels and men,
32:53
original sin, the promise of a redeemer, the expectation of a redeemer.
33:00
Article two. Seven, Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,
33:02
himself, God and our Lord. The incarnation of the life of Christ.
33:07
Article eight, the Holy Ghost and the doctrine of Grace. You know,
33:12
back then they said holy ghost is so holy Spirit. Yeah, it's the
33:15
same thing, just you know, a matter of difference, a change of
33:19
language over time. You remember, this book's over one hundred and thirty hundred
33:22
and forty years old. You know, Article nine. The Catholic Church,
33:29
it's the institution, development and divine maintenance. Divine maintenance. Now there's an
33:34
interesting concept the supreme head of the church, the hierarchy, the notes of
33:39
the church in the church alone is salvation church and state the Commune of Saints.
33:45
Now that is an old Catholic teaching. I probably goes back even as
33:51
far as a Choinas, if not further. Well, certainly, I mean
33:53
in the Bible it says that you know, salvation is found through the church.
33:59
They do in the Bible doesn't say Catholic Church, because there was no
34:02
other church but the Catholic Church. You could search the annals of history,
34:07
as they say, you will not find any archaeological evidence, any documentary evidence
34:14
for any church other than the Catholic Church, predating certain heresies which were still
34:22
in themselves based on Catholicism. If you take like Gnosticism, for instance,
34:28
it was formed by Simon the magician, who imitated the apostles and said that
34:35
he was Christ. Without the doctrine of Christianity, he would have had no
34:43
false teaching. I mean, he was basically a con man. You know,
34:46
he did magic tricks and tried to convince people he could do miracles,
34:53
fairly successful. There was actually a statue erected to him in ancient Samarian,
35:00
well, ancient of about two thousand years ago. But again, there was
35:05
no Christian Church, no Orthodoxy, no Orthodox Christian Church, no church agreed
35:10
with the Bible as that the Gnostics very much did not agree with the with
35:16
the Gospels or the Old Testament, as Saint Ironaeus made clear, et cetera.
35:23
Saint Justin Martyr what two hundred a d Was telling people what was wrong
35:30
with Simon Simon Magnus Simon the Magician's heresy. There was only one church.
35:37
And you can go back, like I said, throughout history, find me
35:40
a church that wasn't Catholic before the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church split over basically
35:46
language and just a few little things, always basically remaining pretty close, I
35:52
mean really close in teaching. And then you've got to get to the you
35:57
know, mid fourteen hundreds before anybody popped up and said, hey we got
36:00
a church's Christian that's not Catholic didn't exist, just plane didn't exist. And
36:07
you know, it's kind of hard to debate with people who maintain whether it's
36:15
a Mormon who says there were these great cities in North America and I guess
36:20
South America too, made by Native Americas. Is like metropoliss and Jesus after
36:24
his resurrection appeared here and preached, and you're like, okay, show me
36:28
the buildings. Where are the archaeological evidence. I mean yeah, you can
36:31
get to like maybe the pyramids down in the Yucatan, you know, the
36:35
Mayans or Aztecs or Toltec's whatever. I think it was the Mayans. But
36:40
that's just one kind of monument. There wasn't a great city there, like
36:46
some kind of New York City circa nineteen twenty sitting here for five six hundred,
36:54
two thousand years ago. It did not exist. So you can look
36:58
at that and say, well, basically the entire Mormon faith has to be
37:01
false because it's based on a why you can say the same thing about say,
37:07
oh, the Baptist Church or the Methodist Church, who say that there
37:10
was this remnant that was Christian but not Catholic, and you go back and
37:14
say, well, tell me where the church was, show me the books
37:16
they wrote. I mean, yeah, this was just made up. You
37:21
know, when the Baptist Church was founded about two hundred years ago. That
37:25
church did not exist two thousand years ago, but they like to pretend it
37:30
does. They teach that at you know certain Babtist universities that I attended,
37:36
well one anyway, I know it was very much talked about it, like
37:39
Bob Jones University, because they used to be on a radio and such when
37:44
I was a kid. It's total bs. You can't go to Turkey and
37:50
find an old you know, the ancient, most ancient churches on Earth,
37:53
Palestine, you name it, and you can't find a single one that is
37:59
a Catholic. We actually have churches where, you know, Saint Timothy painted
38:05
portraits of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the walls and taught people to pray to
38:08
her as a saint, an apostle given authority by Jesus Christ, certainly not
38:15
a Baptist or a Methodist or a Lutheran. You know, we actually had
38:21
the end Rome where they buried people into the city and we find some of
38:24
the oldest church, well the oldest church is in Rome because Christians had to
38:29
worship in secret, and they're full of images of saints and crosses and everything
38:34
you'll find in a Catholic church today and altars where they had the Eucharist.
38:38
You're not going to find anything that resembles a Protestant church, not a Pentecostal
38:44
church, not a Presbyterian church. None. There's I mean, you have
38:51
to look at the truth of history, or you're just lying to yourself and
38:57
you're not getting anywhere lying to yourself. You know. Article ten speaks of
39:01
the forgiveness of sins. Article eleven through twelve is death, the particular judgment
39:07
Heaven, Hell, purgatory, the resurrection of the dead, and the final
39:10
judgment. At the close of the Apostles, creed mention is made of the
39:14
good things which we hope for from God. The nature of Christian hope is
39:19
considered, its advantages, and what is and what is opposed to it.
39:25
Then let's see, Yes, we'll get through part two today. Part two
39:34
we must keep the commandments of God. These are the two precepts of charity,
39:38
the precepts of charity toward God, which is set forth more fully in
39:43
the first four Commandments of the Decalogue. It's ten commandments. In his character
39:46
of sovereign King, God requires from us in the first commandment worship and fidelity
39:52
in the second reverence, and in the third service. In the fourth respect
39:58
towards his representatives. The precept of charity toward one's neighbor. By this,
40:04
we are forbidden to injure our neighbor. In the fifth commandment, we are
40:07
forbidden to injure his life, in the sixth his innocence, and in the
40:12
seventh his property, in the eighth his reputation, and in the tenth,
40:16
ninth and tenth his household. You remember when Jesus was asked, what's the
40:21
heart of the commandments? Love God with all your heart, and love your
40:22
neighbors yourself by the Sparago is simply saying in five, six, seven,
40:29
eight, nine, and ten, all of these, of those of the
40:34
ten commandments, the first four are honor God with all your heart, and
40:38
next you know what five through ten, don't do to your neighbors something you
40:45
want't want done to you. That's what it comes down to, you know,
40:49
golden, golden rule. Right. We are also commanded to help him
40:52
in time of need by performance of works of mercy. The commandments of the
40:57
Church are an amplification of the third commandment of the Decalogue. After the consideration
41:01
of the love of God, the love of the world is spoken of.
41:05
After consideration of the love of one's neighbor, the love of one's friend of
41:08
one's enemies, and one's self is enlarged upon after consideration of the First Commandment,
41:15
the veneration of the saints, the oath born of religion and otherwise under
41:19
the Third Commandment of God, and the obligation of labor under the first Commandment
41:23
of the Church, the ecclesiastical year, the Fourth Commandment of God, the
41:27
Christian duty toward the Pope and chief Ruler, the obligation resting on those who
41:31
are in authority under the Fifth Commandment of God, the treatment of animals and
41:37
under the works of mercy, the right use of money, the duty of
41:40
gratitude, and the spirit of poverty. In other words, given insight into
41:45
the Ten Commandments, they can basically rule and regulate every aspect of a man's
41:51
life. And were they to do so, we would all live in peace
41:55
and harmony with each other and with the animals plants in the environment. That
42:04
was really the original goal of God when he knowing you know, of course,
42:08
they wouldn't live up to it, but that's what he offered the chosen
42:12
people, That's why he gave them the Ten Commandments. And if the world
42:15
would just simply live by them, you know, everything be okay. But
42:21
human nature is that we are more inclined to do wrong than to do right.
42:25
We're more inclined to hurt others than to help others. No matter how
42:30
good we think we are, our own selfishness and short sightedness always causes harm
42:35
to others and to ourselves, even the best among us. The felling of
42:40
the commandments consists in the practice of good works and the exercise of virtue,
42:45
as well as the abandonment of sin and vice. Finally, in the avoidance
42:50
of everything that might lead to sin, temptation to sin, and the occasion
42:54
to sin. The most important virtues of those which are called the seven capital
42:59
verse shoes, the opposite to which are the seven deadly sins. In order
43:04
to obey the commandments strictly, we must make use of the means for attaining
43:07
perfection. The general means are attended for all this special means. The special
43:15
means the three evangelical councils, are only for individuals. By walking in this
43:20
way we show enjoy happiness even on earth. The precepts which Christ gave us
43:24
in the Sermon on the Mount which were called the Eight Beatitudes, in order
43:30
to believe the revealed truth and to keep the commandments, we require assistance of
43:35
divine grace, and this we can attain by the use of the means of
43:39
grace. Okay, actually this is about the most complex thing he wrote,
43:45
because it's using a bunch of terms that may not be you know, familiar
43:50
to everyone, Like the use of the means of grace? What is that?
43:55
What are the means of grace? There are the sacraments, the sacraments
43:59
of the church, baptism, confirmation, reconciliation or confession, marriage, priests,
44:08
the orders, healing the sick. I feel like I'm forgetting one somewhere,
44:14
but you know what I'm saying, those are the means of grace.
44:16
We also receive grace to other means for prayer, through study of the Bible,
44:19
through you know, practicing virtues. But that's what he means. So
44:25
see in this, you know, two pages I just read you. It
44:30
is actually a bit more complex than most of the rest of his book will
44:37
be. And you know, tomorrow we're going to pick up with making use
44:42
of the means of grace, which is the Eucharist. That was the one
44:45
I was forgetting, As he said, these are the holy sacrifice of Mass
44:49
the sacraments and the prayer. Okay, so I mean the Eucharist is like,
44:52
well, what did Jesus say? Unless you eat my flesh and drink
44:57
my blood, you have no life in you. We're going to get into
45:00
some just really basic catechises tomorrow, and you know, I'm going to present
45:07
the same way I do it. You know, I read something, I
45:08
reflect on it. Maybe it gives you a little insight, maybe it annoys
45:12
you. I can't help that, but I think you're really gonna enjoy this.
45:16
So you know, strap in join with me for the next year or
45:20
so as we work through this, and if well, it's enriched my life,
45:24
my faith and everything just exponentially. You know, I've written a couple
45:31
of Catholic books now, and I would not have had the certainly would not
45:37
have had the confidence to have done that had I not read Father Spiago's book.
45:43
And I've read the Bible all the way through I don't know several dozen
45:46
times. I usually do it about once in a year to start with Genesis
45:51
and read through Revelation a couple pages a day, five pages a day,
45:52
I guess, certainly read the Catechism, read Old Quiinas so many father Sparaga
46:02
really gave me that like common sense foundation where I felt like I could discuss
46:10
a subject, especially the more difficult subjects. And you know, it is
46:16
an older book, it's from the eighteen ninety. Some elements of doctrine have
46:20
been refined since then, such as limbo and you know, such as that.
46:22
We'll get into that when we get there. But I think you're going
46:24
to find it just really enjoyable and enlightening. And you know, give me
46:30
some feedback if there's something I didn't quite make clear, if you want to
46:34
ask me a question about something, do so you know, this is going
46:37
to be a journey we're going to be on together with for a while.
46:43
So anyway, y'all have a great evening, and I would talk to you tomorrow