Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 86: Can We Obtain Perfect Happiness on Earth?
Transcript
- 0:51A Hey, y'all, I'm welcome today's show boy. It's uh yeah,
- 1:04it's been a week since I last talked to you, and it's probably been
- 1:07one of the toughest weeks of my life. Imagine. Okay, So I
- 1:14had COVID a few years ago. It was rough. You know, I've
- 1:18had worse viruses. Actually, I had the swine flu what twenty years ago?
- 1:26Now, fifteen years ago? Fifteen I'm gonna deal with fifteen. That
- 1:30is like so much more deadly than COVID. On that day, I woke
- 1:37up and found that something or someone had cut my brake line in my car.
- 1:42Yeah, who knows why. I was able to coast down to a
- 1:47service station and went in there, and of course the old guy's given me
- 1:51a hard time, saying I'd probably been running around with somebody's wife or something.
- 1:55If you're from the South, you know how that is. If a
- 1:57man respects you, he will give you the will. He will pick on
- 2:00you mercilessly. If he doesn't like you, he won't say much of all,
- 2:06if anything, to you. So that's that's part of our Southern way
- 2:08of life. And I love it, you know. Anyway, he's given
- 2:13me a hard time, and I'm you know, giving it back to him.
- 2:15That's what you do. That's how a young man earns respect of an
- 2:19old man, both through work and being good to his family and responsible,
- 2:24but sticking up for himself and you know, giving it back as hard as
- 2:30you get it. And suddenly something came over me and I was like,
- 2:34oh, I'm not right, I'm not good. And he fixed my car.
- 2:38I got home and I was spiking, like gosh, I don't even
- 2:43know ten hundred and twenty degree fever. I mean literally should have been going
- 2:46to the hospital, could not because I was so sick, and just got
- 2:52in bed, covered up a blanket, sweating and freezing and shaking all over,
- 2:57thinking I was going to die. Literally I was. I was saying
- 3:00my last prayers. I thought I was going to die, got up,
- 3:06threw up and had a tremendous nosebleed like a hemorrhagic bleed, and the fever
- 3:12broke. Now that's how bad a flu can be. That was the swine
- 3:16flu. I survived it. When it came around around nineteen twenty. It
- 3:21actually killed about a third of the population of the United States. In Europe,
- 3:25you know, COVID is not the worst thing I've had COVID. I
- 3:30survived COVID. I had it twice, No big deal, really, it
- 3:34just went on forever. Whatever hit me. I don't know if I said
- 3:38it was probably the last show I did Last Monday, I said I think
- 3:42I'm hitting bronchitis. It turned into pneumonia and pleurisy in the blink of an
- 3:49eye, and I really couldn't do a show last week after Monday. So
- 3:55you know, I said I was going to try to do one every day.
- 3:58Boom best laid plans of mice and men, right, I should have
- 4:01said, God willing, I will try to do one, because you know,
- 4:06once again I was reminded of one should be a little more humble in
- 4:14one's pronouncements. And yeah, I had a real rough week. I had
- 4:18a really really rough week, and I'm still pretty bad right now. I've
- 4:24taken musin X, I got a little drink to sip on. Believe it
- 4:28or not, a couple puffs on a cigar work better as a broncho dilator
- 4:32for me than do any prescription medication. So before doing this podcast, as
- 4:40sick as I am, I stepped out back and had a few puffs on
- 4:43a cigar and coughed up along as they say, I'm going to try to
- 4:48get through this thing. So you know, I had the cough button close
- 4:53by, you know, a fall off a ladder. I get Bronchitas was
- 4:58like, yeah, I've had a a rough month. And then of course,
- 5:02you know, Pope Francis has showed us once again that he's a really,
- 5:09really bad pope. You know, I'm not a set of acandists.
- 5:13I do believe he's a valid pope. Presumably most you know, most people
- 5:17I know, don't. They say that Pope Benedict was a valid pope and
- 5:23that Pope Francis was never validly or elected or ordained or whatever you want say
- 5:28Pope. Yeah, maybe they got a point. I don't know. All
- 5:31I can do is pray that the Holy Spirit will keep him from officially teaching
- 5:36error and pray that we get a better pope soon. And you know what
- 5:42is she going to do. He's a really bad pope. I mean for
- 5:46him to remove Bishop Strickland, one of the two best bishops we've got in
- 5:53the entire United States, one of the only people to stand up against the
- 5:58demonic transgendered movement. And abortion and all that just reinforces he's a horrible pope.
- 6:10And all I can do is pray we get a much better pope soon.
- 6:14So now let's go back to when we had really good popes, and
- 6:17yes we will. I'll read a couple questions and answers out of radio replies
- 6:23written in the nineteen thirties, and then we'll get to some of Father Spiago's
- 6:27work from the eighteen nineties, back when we had popes who were truly Catholic,
- 6:33who taught the fullness of the truth, the Apostolic tradition unchanging and unchangeable
- 6:43for two thousand years so far and until Christ comes again. That's what he
- 6:48guaranteed. You either believe what Jesus said that he would prevent his shirts from
- 6:54error, or Jesus lied. And if Jesus led, he's not God,
- 6:58because the word of God is you know, if Jesus were to say this
- 7:03stone is now a dog, the stone would become a dog because he's the
- 7:10author of creation. He's the word of God. So when he says this
- 7:15is my body, this bread and wine is my body and blood, it
- 7:19is whether we understand it or not. And that's why I'm not a set
- 7:24of acantists because I believe that Jesus and through the Holy Spirit, will prevent
- 7:30his church from teaching error. But we have had bad popes. That's nothing
- 7:36to be scandalized by. A lot of people are saying, I can't be
- 7:40Catholic anymore. Well, just remember Jesus shows twelve people to be as apostles,
- 7:45and one of them was Judas. Sometimes and father Sparago will actually get
- 7:49into this pretty soon next couple of weeks will be talking about how God allows
- 7:56evil, evil people and evil actions, evil words and deeds for the greater
- 8:03good, as when he allowed Judas to betray him. Without that betrayal,
- 8:09we have no resurrected savior. We have no we have no religion. So
- 8:18you know, pray, keep the faith and pray. That's all. You
- 8:22know, those who endure to the end will be saved. Don't allow a
- 8:26bad pope to drive you from the church. The church is your mother.
- 8:31Yeah, well, we got a bad brother. Okay, we got a
- 8:35bad father. Whatever pope is, you know, it means papa, it
- 8:41means father. We got a bad one. Well, in my lifetime,
- 8:43I've had a very very bad father. I have if you read my book,
- 8:48you will get an idea of just how really bad my father is.
- 8:54That doesn't mean I don't love my family. Jesus forgive your brother seventy times
- 9:01seven, right, it was an infinite number of times. Yeah, if
- 9:09I met Pope Francis tomorrow, I would absolutely be glad to receive his blessing,
- 9:15kiss his ring, whatever. Just because he's a bad pope doesn't mean
- 9:20he's not the pope. The Pope is an office, not the man,
- 9:24and the office deserves respect even when the man I'm biting my tongue ared I
- 9:35even when the man does not live up to the office. So let's get
- 9:41into radio replies. Yeah, things are pretty bad right now. I'm not
- 9:46gonna say they're not. I'm not going to say they're not. Things are
- 9:48really bad right now, but those who endure to the end will be saved.
- 9:52The person asked the priest. I believe in the New Testament, but
- 9:58not in the Old Testament. A lot of people say that, And you
- 10:00know, the lot of the Old Testament is allegorical and stories. How would
- 10:07I put it? They don't go into a great detail, and the detail
- 10:11they do go into is more not necessarily historical. The point is the point
- 10:20of the story. You know. It's like Paul Harvey, you say,
- 10:22now you know the rest of the story, that the point of the story
- 10:28is, there's there's actually a word for it. It's not coming to me
- 10:35the meaning, not necessarily the words. I guess there is a word,
- 10:39it's just not coming to me. The Ah forget it anyway, the presansor
- 10:46there are things in the New Testament just as hard to believe as many things
- 10:48in the Old Testament. And on your principle you should reject much of the
- 10:52New Testament itself, Yet you act on your admission that you do accept the
- 10:58New Testament. Christ in the Apostostels had the same Old Testament as we have
- 11:01today. They treat it always as the inspired word of God in its totality.
- 11:09That's you know, that's the point. It's the inspired word of God.
- 11:11It's not necessarily a newspaper. It's not a history book. We believe
- 11:18the Old Testament even if we don't understand. I mean, you know,
- 11:20did God create the world in seven days? Well it says also in the
- 11:24Bible to God one day is as a thousand days. Well, you know,
- 11:28a thousand years. Actually, did God create the world in seven days
- 11:31or seven thousand years? Or is that just a number that represents the totality,
- 11:39or did it happen in an instant With God, things could happen in
- 11:41you know, quicker though the blink of an eye. Who knows right Christ
- 11:48is the Son of God would have been the first to declare that if it
- 11:50was a fraudulent invention claiming to be the word of God, as people believed,
- 11:56if it were not really the word of God. Instead, Christ quoted
- 12:00it, giving it full authority. Do not think that I have come to
- 12:03destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but
- 12:09to fulfill. Not one jot or title shall pass of the law till it
- 12:13be fulfilled. Just from Gospel of Matthew in Luke we read, and the
- 12:18beginning at Moses, and all the prophets he expounded to them, in all
- 12:24the scriptures the things that were concerning him. Yet you, beginning at Moses,
- 12:28would reject all scriptures. Christ's sanction good point. And John Christ says,
- 12:35search the scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting.
- 12:43And the same are they which give testimony to me. But Christ did not
- 12:48add yet, while searching the scriptures, watch out for the parts not inspired.
- 12:52No, the whole thing's inspired, without a doubt. It's just not
- 12:56always written in day by day historical, blow by blow events. It's not
- 13:03a newspaper, it's not a history book, especially the Book of Genesis.
- 13:07Let's just go with that. But from Moses on, yeah, you can
- 13:11pretty much say, well, this year they did this, and in this
- 13:16day they did that. That does get a little more historical. But anyway,
- 13:22but Christ did not add. Okay that not to believe in the Old
- 13:28Testament gives the lie direct to the New Testament, insults the wisdom of God
- 13:33in Christ, and makes a shipwreck of the faith. The person asking Christians
- 13:39believe everything in the Old Testament, they say, a Christian must believe that
- 13:41the Old Testament, with all its canonical books, is the inspired word of
- 13:46God. But one has only to believe in the correct interpretation of what is
- 13:52there written as evident. If you rejecting a genuine part of the Old Testament
- 13:56is not inspired, you violate the Christian faith. It is strange that Protestants
- 14:01began by charging the Catholic Church with not giving the scriptures to the laity,
- 14:05and now the Catholic Church has to defend those same scriptures from the efforts of
- 14:09Protestants to tear them to pieces. And that is incredibly true, starting with
- 14:16Martin Luther, who cut books of the Bible and changed the words of Jesus,
- 14:20to all the horrible translations of the Bible that have come about in the
- 14:26past few decades from all the ridiculous was it seven a admentists or was it
- 14:33Jehovah's Witness Bible? I cannot remember the one that people who did not either
- 14:43comprehend have a knowledge of Latin or Greek simply took the original Greek version of
- 14:50the Bible and a dictionary, a Greek to English dictionary, and came up
- 14:54with some of the most convoluted, idiotic ways interpreting the Bible that made no
- 15:01sense whatsoever. I mean, gosh, and so many hymns were written on
- 15:07that. You think about the Great roy a Cuff's Great Speckled Bird, it's
- 15:16it's based on that translation and compared to an actual translation of the Bible where
- 15:22people actually understand what the words. People who spoke both Latin and Greek,
- 15:28Saint Jerome I E understood what was being said, makes a whole lot of
- 15:33difference all these crazy ideas about the apocalypse. Well, the good News Bible
- 15:41of the seventies, which was like you know, Chiech and Chong read the
- 15:45Bible like, hey man, you know Jesus when it came from Nazareth,
- 15:48you know, I mean. And then this new ridiculous translation that apparently Pope
- 15:56Francis has signed off on, that takes out the sentences saying that homosexuality is
- 16:03sinful several points in the Bible. It says that the effeminate and those who
- 16:08abuse themselves with men, homosexuals, men who lie with men are committing a
- 16:14grave, mortal sin when they practice that. They took it out, and
- 16:18Pope Francis signed off on it, once again proving he is a very bad
- 16:22pope. But he's still the Pope. Just because he signed off on it
- 16:30doesn't make it authoritative. I'll stick with my dewey rms. I'll stick with
- 16:33my ignacious Catholic Bible. I'll stick with my biblios sacravogatta, as Saint Jerome
- 16:41translated, Yeah, that's the real Bible. We'll stick with the real Bible.
- 16:51The King James is not a real Bible. It's a very very very
- 16:53bad Bible, but any it's no worse than the one that the Pope just
- 17:00signed off on that says that it's okay to be gay anyway you look at
- 17:07it. It's sinful to have extramarital sex, right, pre marital, extramarital
- 17:15whatever fornication as Saint Paul would call it. And because there's no such thing
- 17:19as gay marriage, homosexuals cannot practice sex in a way that is not sinful,
- 17:27you know, not a personal judgment. I'm not saying they're bad people.
- 17:32I'm just saying what they're doing according to the Bible. The actual word
- 17:36of God is a sin. You can't make it otherwise. You can't ignore
- 17:41it, you can't overlook it. You can't go along to get along,
- 17:44which is what Pope Francis always seems to want to do. And you know
- 17:48whatever, the word of God doesn't change it actually says, And the Bible
- 17:56is the same. God is the same you know, yesterday as today and
- 17:59will be for a thousand years in the past, a thousand years in the
- 18:02future, or a million years whatever. So let's get to Father Sparago.
- 18:08He asked the question, can we attain perfect happiness on earth. Wow wooden
- 18:19ow repositioning myself in my big squeaky leather chair because my knee is still trash
- 18:30from falling off a ladder. Oh boy does that hurt? Okay, offer
- 18:34up my sufferings? Right, Everything, every political philosophy, every human philosophy,
- 18:47from the beginning of time to now, has been away for man to
- 18:55try to achieve happiness on earth. Perfect happiness on Earth. I don't care
- 18:59if it's stoicism, Yeah, the old philosophy of stoicism, or hedonism,
- 19:07or democracy or communism. Every one of these systems of thought, whether it
- 19:14be a religion, a philosophy, a political system, has claimed to be
- 19:19able to alleviate man's suffering. None ever has. Buddhism, you know.
- 19:29Buddhism says non attachment. If we don't actually want anything, then we're never
- 19:33disappointed by not having it, right, we don't miss what we never had.
- 19:38Doesn't work, it's it's delusion. Actually. You can delude yourself into
- 19:45thinking I don't need to eat, but eventually you'll starve to death. You
- 19:51can delude yourself into thinking I don't need to be loved or to love or
- 19:53to love and Eventually you know it's going to catch up with you and you're
- 19:59going to I depressed and miserable and cut off from everything got intended. You
- 20:07can take a lot of drugs, drake heavily to try to stay happy,
- 20:12and eventually that's only going to go so far. I cannot tell you,
- 20:18as a musician how many drug addicts have known, and hardcore alcoholics as well.
- 20:26But eventually they get to a point where the drugs don't make them happy,
- 20:32the alcohol doesn't make them happy anymore, and it doesn't dull the pain
- 20:37anymore. But when they stop taking it, the pain gets worse and they
- 20:42and in that vicious cycle of addiction. Well, apparently, according to recent
- 20:49something I saw in the news recently, which is never a good way to
- 20:53be happy to watch the news, Americans are on some form of psychiatric drug,
- 21:00whether it's kids taking Rittlin pre add or whatever, or antidepressants or valuume
- 21:06or you name it right, uppers, downers and everything in between, because
- 21:14they're not happy. Well, yeah, they're not happy. And people no
- 21:19longer look for happiness in God. They look for happiness in pharmaceuticals or in
- 21:25pornography or whatever. And our Lord told us that we would always suffer,
- 21:34and the better Christians we try to be, the more will suffer. We
- 21:38have to embrace that. But instead people are just you know, medicated,
- 21:45medicated, and you know, our society's falling apart. There has not been
- 21:52a school shooter. You know, these kids, these you know, loser
- 21:56kids, and they're just losers. You know, they have bad parents.
- 22:00Uh, there's never been a school shooter who had an intact family. They're
- 22:03always from divorced families because their parents slightly be happier divorced. Right. Uh,
- 22:08there's never been one that wasn't on psychiatric medication, usually antidepressants, antipsychotics,
- 22:15and medication for add ADHD. Yeah, that's where that ends. That's
- 22:22where that ends. Check out the transgendered so called woman who shot up the
- 22:30elementary school in Nashville. Yeah, she was on a lot of drugs,
- 22:37prescription medication, and told that she'd be happier if she identified as a man.
- 22:45So she went and killed a bunch of kids. So that loser up
- 22:48at Sandy Hook. You know, maybe someone should have kicked their asses and
- 22:53taken them as church, you know, a parent. Seriously, I mean,
- 23:00spare the rod spoil the child. I mean someone should have literally physically
- 23:04smacked him around a little bit, said snap out of it. You're going
- 23:07to go to church and you're going to live a moral life, and there
- 23:10you're going to find happiness and meaning you're not going to a psychiatrist or a
- 23:15psychologist. You're not going to be drugged up and doped up and become a
- 23:19murderer. No is it wrong to spank a child. No, you know
- 23:23what's wrong is to put a child on drugs, pharmaceutical prescription drugs. Turn
- 23:32you back on them, let them play video games and dark comic books and
- 23:37I don't dungeons and dragons whatever. You know. That was in the eighties,
- 23:41you know that was big. I think it kind of had to come
- 23:42back in the last few years. Yeah, what's wrong is neglecting your kid
- 23:49and allowing the state to raise them through you know, public education, which
- 23:53is institutionalized child abuse, replacing God with psychology and pharmaceuticals and raising a not
- 24:06raising allowing the development of a sociopathic monster. How about you know tan that
- 24:17kids behind? Seriously, Yeah, I'm saying smack them around a little bit,
- 24:25don't abuse them, but discipline your child before they go kill other children.
- 24:32I mean, you know, once, at one point in time,
- 24:33this was actually common sense. Yeah. Well the imok, you're okay mentality
- 24:41has not getten us, gotten us very far. No, don't abuse a
- 24:45child. It's horrible to abuse a child. To spank, to discipline in
- 24:52whatever way it takes a child who is really dangerous so they don't hurt other
- 25:02people. I'm a little monster so they don't turn into a big monster,
- 25:07is absolutely right. And whatever form of discipline it requires, whatever form of
- 25:15And I don't again, I'm not saying abuse a child, don't you know,
- 25:18Starve them, lock them in a room, chain them up, beat
- 25:21them with things. No, no, no common sense. Your kid runs
- 25:26out in traffic, gonna get killed, what do you do? You talk
- 25:33harshly to them, spank their butt, right, so you're to save that
- 25:37kid's life so they don't get hurt. Well, your kid turns into a
- 25:41teenage school shooter because you didn't discipline them appropriately and love them appropriately. You
- 25:51know the only thing that you know, the only reason you discipline a child
- 25:56is because you love them. You don't hurt them. And I'm not talking
- 26:02about anything that would inflict a bruise or bleeding, or you know simple you
- 26:10know, like my grandmother would say, go get me a switch, and
- 26:14you didn't do it again. It's really that simple. But that takes a
- 26:21parent who actually cares, and we don't have many of them. Most of
- 26:26the parents are on drugs as well, usually you know, prescription drugs.
- 26:30A lot of are a legal drugs, but most of the parents are on
- 26:33drugs, and most of the parents never grew up in the first place.
- 26:37We need a lot of old fashioned church and old fashioned families and old fashion
- 26:45discipline or you know, the kids are going to kill us all. We
- 26:56are literally developing growing the next generation of homicidal maniacs because the parents don't care
- 27:03enough to discipline the kids. Well, anyway, now, let's actually get
- 27:11into what Polish Barrago said. He said, earthly goods deceive us. They
- 27:15are like soap bubbles, which reflect all the colors of the rainbow, but
- 27:19are really only drops of water. He wrote so beautifully, he really did.
- 27:25Sometimes I'll read one of his sentences. I'm like, man, I
- 27:26wish I could write like that. Earthly joys are like artificial fruit, beautiful
- 27:32to behold, but disappointing to the taste. Earthly pleasures are like drops of
- 27:37water. They do not quench the fire of the passions, but only make
- 27:40it burn more fiercely. Man can no more be happy without God than a
- 27:45fish can live without water. Hence, Saint Augustine says, unquiet is the
- 27:55heart of man until it rests in God. No sensible or material goods will
- 28:00nourish or satisfy the soul. Hence our Lord says to the Samaritan woman,
- 28:07he who drinks of this water with thirst again, riches will no more satisfy
- 28:11the soul than salt will quench thirst. In the days of the early Empire
- 28:15of Rome, when riches and sensual pleasures abounded, and boy, how they
- 28:19did they. I've been reading a lot of Appecius and some of the old
- 28:22writers. Man, they ate well, okay, And he's talking a lot
- 28:26more than just good food. Here. There there were a lot of orgies
- 28:30and such. Or as you remember a Grady on San France, I always
- 28:33caught him orgies. There'll be no orgies will They were orgies abounding. But
- 28:41he makes the point. In the days of the early Empire of Rome,
- 28:45when riches and sensual pleasures abounded, suicide was most widely prevalent as it is
- 28:52now now, when like almost like eighty percent of Americans are addicted to drugs
- 28:59and pornography and fornication, who knows what else, we have the highest suicide
- 29:03rates this country has ever seen. The more people try to satisfy the true
- 29:11needs in their life with physical objects, the more they end up committing suicide
- 29:19or killing other people. As we were just discussing, he who rests in
- 29:26okay, here we go. Earthly possessions are a continual source of anxiety.
- 29:30He who rests in them is tormented by them, like a man who reposes
- 29:36on thorns. As the fresh waters of the river changed into the salt waters
- 29:40of the sea, so all earthly pleasures sooner or later turn to bitterness.
- 29:45Forbidden pleasures soon bring misery after them. Like forbidden fruit. They are like
- 29:51the bait that has a hook concealed within it. Earthly goods all forsake us
- 29:56when they die. When we die, we brought nothing into this world,
- 30:00and we certainly cannot carry anything out of it. When the pope is crowned,
- 30:06a handful of towel, towel or toe, what is that? That
- 30:11is straw? Yeah, tow, I believe that's German for straw interesting is
- 30:18kindled. Yes, it will be straw if it's kindled, and when it
- 30:22blazes up, the choir sings. Thus passes the glory of the world,
- 30:27so as quickly as straw burns. Symbolic as the spider spins a web out
- 30:33of its own bowels, and in a moment the broom sweeps it away.
- 30:37So man labors for long years to obtain some honor, or possession or office.
- 30:42Some obstacles come in the way, Death, sickness visits him, and
- 30:48all the labor is gone for naught. As the glowworm shines in the night,
- 30:52but in the light of day is but an ugly insect. So the
- 30:56delights of the earth are brilliant during the night of life life on earth,
- 31:00but under the day of judgment will show themselves vain and worthless. I'm telling
- 31:06you just fo sparago good, right, I mean, really earthly goods are
- 31:14given to us only that through them we may attain eternal happiness. Every creature
- 31:18on earth is intended as a step to bring us nearer to God. As
- 31:23in the workshop of the pain or brushes, colors oils are all destined to
- 31:27serve the completion of a picture. So all things in this world are intended
- 31:33to contribute to our eternal happiness in heaven. Not to use earthly things for
- 31:37this end is to lose hope and eternal happiness. But to make them our
- 31:42end, and to be dependent on them, no less, deprives us of
- 31:47the end for which we are created. Earthly goods are like the surgeon's instrument.
- 31:52If they are ill employed, they kill instead of curing. We must
- 31:56therefore use them only in so far as they help us toward the attainment of
- 32:01our last end. When they hinder us, we must cut ourselves free from
- 32:07them. We must not serve them, They must serve us only. The
- 32:14Gospel of Christ is capable of giving us a partial happiness on earth. For
- 32:19he who follows the teaching of Christ is certain to have peace in his soul.
- 32:22This is why Christ says to the Samaritan woman, he that shall drink
- 32:25of this water that I shall give him shall not thirst forever. And again
- 32:31he that cometh to me shall never hunger. The teaching of Christ alone can
- 32:36satisfy the heart of man. The reason of this is that earthly sufferings do
- 32:40not render unhappy the man who follows Christ. So good place to wrap it
- 32:51up today. We all have our earthly sufferings. You know, I'm complaining
- 32:59about my my knee that's all swollen and painful, and complaining about my lungs
- 33:02and coughing. It's no a big deal. It's nothing in the big,
- 33:07in the big scheme of things. I have a friend who was in a
- 33:10car accident about six months ago. He's lost his vision, has three daughters
- 33:15that depend on him, certainly suffering a lot more than I am. He's
- 33:22also has probably the strongest faith of anyone I've ever encountered. He's a Protestant.
- 33:30We agreed to disagree on many things, but he is totally looking forward
- 33:36to his eternal reward and spends his entire time making sure his daughters grow up
- 33:46to be good Christian ladies. Learn a lot, definitely learn a lot from
- 33:53Jim McDermott. So when you say your prayers tonight, please remember Jim McDermott.
- 34:02Pray that he'll recover from his injuries. If he doesn't, he would
- 34:07just turn it into more of a witness for the Lord. I mean,
- 34:13he literally, before he was injured, would go out and just you know,
- 34:16find people that were strangers, that look sad, or look lonely or
- 34:22depressed, or were poor, and he would hungry. Yeah, he does
- 34:30the actual work that Jesus commanded us to do. And because of that,
- 34:37of course the devil's going to come after him all the more. So remember
- 34:43Jim McDermott in your prayers. Another friend of mine, Alyssa, I won't
- 34:49say her last name, she's you know, she's actually been fighting the mafia
- 34:57in the Italian courts and they've taken her home and everything thing. And you
- 35:01know, the more they come after her, the stronger she gets. My
- 35:06friend Yulia in Odessa getting bombed every night by the Russians. You know,
- 35:13people are suffering far more than most of us can imagine. And it's just
- 35:21it's commonplace, just part of life. But in all three of those examples
- 35:28I see there, it's building their character, it's building their faith. Even
- 35:35when their faith waivers, when it falters, they come through the dark knight,
- 35:39they get to the other side. And you know, Jesus said,
- 35:46those who God loves he'll test, he will try in the fires. He
- 35:51will literally refine like a refiner does with metals. You know, to burn
- 35:57off the dross and make pure gold and silver. And you know a blacksmith
- 36:02with a forge will forge that person into an instrument that's useful. That's what
- 36:09we're promised. We're promised to suffer, and it's not fun. But those
- 36:15who endure unto the end will be saved. And if we have no happiness
- 36:23at all in this life, you know, this is really a good point.
- 36:28I cannot remember which saints said this. I cannot remember the saint had,
- 36:34you know, various conversations with angels and visions of heaven and all that.
- 36:39The angels in the our suffering, the angels in the our suffering,
- 36:47because the more we suffer on earth, the greater our happiness is in heaven.
- 36:52The last time we have to spend in purgatory, as long as we
- 36:57remain faithful and offer it, offer up your suffering as penance for your sins,
- 37:01for all poor sinners and for the holy souls in purgatory. Every moment
- 37:08that we are hurting, unhappy, sick in want, lonely, that's an
- 37:17opportunity for us to do penance for our own sins and to help those in
- 37:24purgatory. That's why the angels envy our suffering. It's an incredible and very
- 37:32difficult lesson and one that I forget all the time and will forget all the
- 37:38time. I was so miserable over the weekend. I was so unhappy.
- 37:44Most of this day. I have been just absolutely miserable. But you know,
- 37:54after doing this podcast and reading Father Sparago, my entire moods turned around.
- 38:00Actually, I won't say I'm rejoicing in my suffering, as Saint Paul
- 38:06calls just called us to do, but yeah, it's like a burden's been
- 38:10lifted. So anyway, y'all, and where words and the words of Saint
- 38:17Padre Pio, pray, hope and don't worry, and God willing, I
- 38:22will talk with you tomorrow. I said I would last week and I got
- 38:28hit with a sledgehammer in the chest essentially, But God willing, I will
- 38:34talk with you tomorrow. Have a good one.