Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 87: He who follows Christ will have to endure persecution; but these persecutions can do him no harm

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Show 87: He who follows Christ will have to endure persecution; but these persecutions can do him no harm · The Uncensored Catholic

0:51
A Hey, y'all, welcome to today's show. As promised, I am
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back to I bought another podcast this week, god willing. I'm on the
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end. Just got actually back in from the post office. And you know,
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it's that time a year when things start getting pretty pretty crazy, people
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sending all kinds of cards and everything. And you know, I never mind
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the what would you call it hustle and bustle of the holidays. I always
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think it's nice, it's festive. I like to see families getting together,
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you know, and it's it's always a good time of year. You know,
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if you've got a few extra bucks you can put in somebody's hand that
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needs it, you know, especially in this economy. Starting to see that
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more and more. I definitely understand that, and it actually kind of leads
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me to the point of I am so grateful for each of you who listen
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to my podcasts and who buy my books and such. I mean, y'all
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are what I am very thankful for this year, because you enable me to
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do what I enjoy doing, whether it's my herb books and writing and teaching
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about herbal medicine, or my Catholic writing and speaking, or you know,
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I have. I don't think I've actually mentioned this on on this show.
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I've talked about it on my My Herbal podcast. Some I I am a
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woodworker, carve mostly spoons and other kitchen where salad sets, bowls I make
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some baskets are all handmade. And you know I'd love to be under your
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Christmas tree this year, unique one of a kind, handmade gifts for your
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family members and your friends and loved ones. The all my books are available
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in Amazon. You know I've got I've written all. I've got eleven published
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a twelve just about to come out. My Catholic book, Confirmation on Biocray
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of Faith is when we discuss mostly on here. You know, I've written
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several books in an erbal medicine and a cookbook. So everybody loves my cookbook.
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Check that out. It's called The Omnivor's Guide to Home Cooking. If
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there's someone in your life that enjoys cooking or needs to learn how to cook
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or do erbal medicine. I take everything from a very from scratch, you
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know, homemade in the kitchen, emphasizing technique more than recipes. So you
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know, if you get somebody in your life that's getting married or going up
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to college. It's a great cookbook to give them because you know, we
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really teach a person to cook. Cooking has been a passion of my entire
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life. And the herbal medicine books great for you know, young families.
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People need to learn to use home remedies, you know when they wake up
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in the middle of the night and the kid's sick and it's a blizzard and
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they can't get the emergency room. Really good to know how to care for
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yourself, especially in uncertain economic times. The spoons and everything that's become a
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real passion of mine, their airline quality, artistic, somewhat but very usable
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utensils as well. I harvest them from trees that are storm damaged or need
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to be thinned. Everything's very responsible and sustainably harvested. And I use the
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old greenwood tradition. I don't use any power tools. I use an axe,
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small acts to shape out the wood every now and then, handsaw if
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there's a tricky corner or something, and mostly just a couple of knives,
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a gouge every now and then if it's appropriate. But this is the real
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old greenwood tradition. I call greenwood, and these really unique items. H
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one's one of the kind takes me hours to make, and when it comes
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to the baskets, I mean those take all a very long time. You
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can check those out on my other substack site. It's Judson Carrol Woodcraft dot
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substack dot com. Very reasonably priced and would make really nice gifts for people
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in your family, your friends, your loved ones, whomever you're buying for.
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No one's going to be able to find any It's not the kind of
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spoon you buy it, you know, or bowl or anything that you might
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buy at Walmart. This is, you know, this is a craftsman artisan
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peace and I take a lot of pride in it, even though I was
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shocked more than anyone to find out I actually had any talent at it,
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because I never thought I had any artistic ability whatsoever. But you know,
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really blending that practicality of something you can use in the kitchen is really a
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driving force for me. Just got back to the post office. As I
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said, I mailed four spoons to a couple of ladies in California, a
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big They didn't coordinate the buy I mean, they were just individuals that to
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them happened to order from me yesterday from California sent one a beautiful cooking spoon
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set, a large, a large one, and well smaller one of them
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to kind of nest out of wild cherry that just turned out just so beautiful.
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And then the other lady bought a gumbo stir, which is sort of
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my own design, you know, I like, well, I actually really
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haven't talked a lot about cooking on this show. I talk about a lot
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on the other show. I have part creole and cage and heritage and gumbo
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and John Bali and sauce, pecan and alacreole. I mean that is like,
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you know, I love that stuff. And I had to cook with
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all cast iron and everything from scratch in the old fashioned way. So what
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I actually did was combined a Scandinavian traditional style ladel or scoop, actually an
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open faced label. They put a little hook on the back of it kind
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of looks like a horsehead. You can hang it on the side of the
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pot. And I thought, well, that's just perfect for gumbo, and
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may one for myself. And it works so well that I may carve this
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one out of paper birch, and that's just classic for that style. It
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looks. The grain is just gorgeous, and a really unique cooking spoon made
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out of American holly, which is a wood I love to use. I'm
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very fortunate to get to use. Holly's are just so abundant in North Carolina,
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and it is a smooth, fine grain, very strong, even flexible
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wood. This is about as white as ivory. I mean, it has
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almost no discernible grain whatsoever. It's just really neat to work with. And
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I seal everything with walnut oil. So you know, that's like the most
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expensive way to do it, but I think it's also the best way to
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do it. It's the off flavors in your food. So you know,
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if you're interested in that, I'm going to get onto the Catholic stuff now,
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but you know, check me out my books on Amazon, or my
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woodcraft and baskets on Judson Carroll Woodcraft dot substack dot com. Basket making is
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a very long tradition in my family. I've got some couple of really pretty
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pine needle baskets on the site right now. These cans take hours. I
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mean sometimes you can easily put twenty thirty hours into weaving just a simple basket.
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And that's if you know what you're doing. You know, so you'll
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be pretty surprised how inexpensively I sell things, comparable handmade items. I know
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a great carver up in Virginia. Later I might sell for thirty bucks,
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include shipping. By the way, I pay the shipping out of my own
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pocket. He sells for around two hundred dollars. But it's worth it.
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You know, these baskets. You go to a gallery in North Carolina where
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people do a lot of basket weaving in the traditional style, and bill costs
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a small piece would be anywhere from Wow, I don't even know one ten,
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one hundred and fifty bucks up to thousands. And again mine are very
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very reasonable because I just I like, I want to I want you to
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have something in your home that is it's it's sort of part of my way
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of showing gratitude to you. It's really makes me feel good to think someone's
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going to actually use this, someone's going to actually appreciate it. They're going
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to pass it down to their grandkids. Three or four generations are going to
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be using this spoon, and you know, some day it's going to be
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a valuable antique it's just I like it. I like doing this. It's
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very enriching for me, not monetarily obviously, but it's just something I I
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enjoy a lot. And I think these there's old traditions, you know,
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the things I learned from my grandparents that most people don't know anymore. Really,
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preserving tradition is what my life's all about, whether it's Catholicism or cooking
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from scratch or homesteading and gardening and herbal medicine and making things, you know,
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with my hands with old tools, the same really the same kind of
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tools and the same kind of stuff you know, Jesus would have been making
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with Joseph in. I mean it was a tool maker. They think,
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you know, it's always got a carpenter, but actually he was making more
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practical, useful household items and probably farm tools. And to be part of
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that tradition is like so cool. I mean, it really is. But
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let's go ahead and get into this. The We'll start with radio replies as
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usual. The person asked the priests Old Testament teaching is barbaric in parts,
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not in keeping with the New Testament, nor would God inspire such a record
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of outrageous crimes. And you know I've said before so many times people say,
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oh, I get so much comfort and peace from reading the Bible,
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And I always say to him, you pretty much stick with the New Testament,
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don't you? Because the Old Testament is the chronicle of just how bad
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man is without God, and how often even the chosen people, even the
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ones that had the closest relationship with God failed. Man on his own is
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not capable of being good. The answer things were permitted in old law,
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not in keeping with the more perfect new law. But the change is in
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the law. There is nothing in the Old Testament which violates any attribute of
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God, save of course, the sins of men described in the Old Testament.
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These latter are recorded not with a proof, but as evil to be
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reprehended, and as motives of repentance. It is a fallacy to measure the
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simple, blunt standards of more primitive times by modern standards. Boy, how
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true is that? I can't stand these people that want to go around tearing
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down statues and erasing history. Everything has everything has to be seen in context.
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And as the saying goes, if you don't learn from history, you
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are doomed to repeat it. You will the same horrors that we saw in
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especially the twentieth century will happen again. In many ways already are happening again.
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Also, these accounts prove the trustworthiness of the reports. They are not
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out to say only the best of Jewish heroes, but narrate the exploits far
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from flattering to the vanity of the Jews, though written by members of the
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race, not by enemies. Great point, if they wanted to say we're
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perfect people, they wouldn't have included all the bad stuff in your readings.
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You have either understood the correct sense or you have not. If you have,
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you had better change your ideas. Is the Bible, the inspired word
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of God, going to be true only when it suits your ideas? Or
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are your ideas going to be true when they are adjusted to God's revealed truth.
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Boy, that's not taught in universities these days, that everything's relativistic.
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If God says a thing not quite in accordance with your notions, then you
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can be sure that your notions are wrong, and you had better renounce them,
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as you have had to renounce so many other mistakes during your life.
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Men can be so easily mistaken. God cannot be mistaken. Such a good
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point. One of the things I really can't stand is when someone says this
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is my truth. It's true to me because I feel it and I believe
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it, even if it's faults, And you have to in our modern relativistic,
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so called tolerance society, you have to act like that person's thoughts are
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valid. When they may think they are an animal. They may think they're
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a cat or a dog. They may think their gender is something different than
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what their chromosomes and body parts dictate. They may think communism is good and
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capitalism is inherently evil, and we go on down the list. They may
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hate Christianity. I mean, look at all the homosexual groups out there protesting
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in favor of Palestine. I mean you want to say to them, do
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you know what they do to homosexuals in fundamentalist Islamic nations. They won't hear
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you. They don't want to hear you. That's not their truth. In
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their truth, Christians are bad and everybody else is a victim and therefore good.
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They don't care if you know in Iran, in Afghanistan they throw homosexuals
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off of buildings to their death. You know, it's penalized by death.
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I think was it that the former president of Iran who was giving a speech
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with the United Nations, what maybe ten fifteen years ago, and he took
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some questions and answers I think in a side event before like some college students,
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and they said, and one of them asked them, how are homosexuals
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treat in Iran? And he looked at him and said, we don't have
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homosexuals in Iran. And the person laughed and he said, do you know
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any tell me where they are? I mean, yeah, that that was
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essentially the gist of what was said. If not word for word, that's
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the actual truth. But when someone says that's not my truth, that's so
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so very dangerous. That's you know, someone walking toward a cliff and you're
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not supposed to warn them they're about to fall off. The person says,
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is the Book of Genesis to be taken literally or allegorically? And they answer,
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as I explained yesterday, each and every word of Genesis need not be
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taken literally, but the substance of all facts, which are fundamental in Christianity,
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are to be taken as literally true. All right, now, let's
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get into follows Farrago explanation to the Catechism. He's talking about how we may
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obtain happiness on earth and why we fail if we rely on material things and
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our own ideas as opposed to God and what he intends. And he states
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he who follows Christ will have to endure persecutions, but these persecutions can do
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him no harm. Saint Paul tells us that all who live godly in Christ
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Jesus shall suffer persecutions. The whole life of the Christian is a caring of
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the cross and a suffering of persecution. Christ themselves says, the servant is
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not above his master, that is, the servant of Christ has no claim
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to be a better lot than, no claim to a better lot than his
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master of Christ. We must expect the men of the world, that is,
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those who seek their happiness in this life, to regard us as erratic
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people and as fools, to condemn us, and to hate us. To
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be loved and praised by the world is to be the enemy of Christ.
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The principles of the world are in contradiction with those of Christ, and the
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world regards as a fool him whom Christ declares blessed, and he references Gospel
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Matthew. There Yet Christ tells us everyone that heareth my words and doeth them
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shall be likened to a wise man that builds his house upon a rock.
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Also from Matthew, he who trusts in God builds on solid ground. The
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patriarch Joseph derived advantage, not harm, from being persecuted. The pious David
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was persecuted first by Saul and then by his own son Absalom. From his
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own experience, he was able to say, many are the afflictions of the
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just, But out of them all the Lord will deliver them my words.
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Sometimes it's amazing what pops into your head when you're reading something on a completely
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different subject. Absalom was David's son. Just got the point of why that
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name was used in William faulkner book, the one in which he makes the
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famous statement the past isn't dead, It isn't even past. Falkner was a
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you know, people love him or hate him. Being Southerner and understanding his
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style speaking. I think he was one of America's greatest writers, without a
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doubt. A lot of people look at Thomas Wolfe as being the South's greatest
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writer. But I say without a doubt it was Faulkner actually not even that
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big a fan of Thomas Wolfe. I know, that's like heresy for a
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North Carolinian to say, But you know, he was ashamed of his roots.
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He didn't like where he came from, you know, whereas Faulkner embraced
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everything good about the culture tradition again and was not afraid to point out what
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was bad. You know, he dealt with a lot of racial issues in
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his book, and there were a lot of bad characters who were among the
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you know, so called you know, the prominent, the wealthy, the
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powerful people in the book, or the you know, the outwardly pious.
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Might one might say, but no, I think he was a brilliant writer.
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Now I understand why he used the word the name absolom. Well.
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Anyway, moving on from his own experience, he was able to say many
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of the afflictions of the just, but out of them all the Lord would
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deliver them. All. The saints of Christ have been persecuted, but God
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has turned to good the evil that their enemies thought to do to them.
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If God is with us, who can be against us? Hence perfect happiness
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is impossible on earth? For no man can entirely avoid suffering. Yesterday we
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talked about the Buddhist ideal of non suffering through non attachment. It doesn't work.
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It's actually just well, you know, it's Thomas Merton would be very
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quick to point out, there's a great deal of wisdom and Buddhism, but
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ignoring the troubles of the world, ignoring one's personal emotional needs for fear of
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suffering or being hurt, Okay, that does not lead to will say,
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mental health or spiritual growth. Now it's it's it's wonderful. Uh. The
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saints who have had no interest in the things of this world, you know,
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they were totally focused on God. That's that's a great thing to do.
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And some very special people can do that. Uh. The de Hermits
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that lived in the desert and such. I mean, some of the greatest
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saints of all time were people who purposely detached themselves from any attachment to the
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world. They yes, they detached themselves from attachment. That wouldn't want to
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diagram that sentence, But they did not detach themselves from the need to love
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and be loved. They needed to love God and be loved by God more
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than they needed anything else. See in classical Buddhism, there there's no real
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concept of a deity. Well, as I always say, it depends on
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what school I mean. You know, Buddhism grew out of Hinduism. Some
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schools of Buddhism have many gods. Some actually worshiped the Buddha himself, who
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was just a man, a very great philosopher, very inspirational. But what
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was his name, Shakamuni Saidhartha, the actual you know, guy that came
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up with Buddhism. He sat meditating for gosh. I don't even remember how
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many years, just staring at a wall until his mind could go completely blank
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and he could be in perfect peace. There was no aspect in his actual
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Daboo to himself did not have an aspect of worshiping God. Certainly not a
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personal relationship of loving God and being loved by God. Now, there is
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a pure human need to be loved by your parents and your family, especially
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in our day and time. One of the reasons our culture, society is
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just shattered, is because the family's broken and our you know, you may
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have one or both parents that really don't care about you at all, try
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to abort you abuse you, you know, et cetera, et cetera,
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that denying of that need creates. I mean, you probably remember the films
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that the videos they show on the news, uh, the orphanages in Russia
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and Serbia and different places. And these these kids were how would you put
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it, They had been so neglected and so abused and unloved that they had
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no connection with another person. Essentially, they were making sociopaths. That's what
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we were talked about yesterday with the school shooters and such. There are always
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human needs, and to deny that is as ridiculous as deny the need for
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water, the need for food, the need for shelter, undergoing those great
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saints like especially the Desert Hermits and such that underwent incredible hardships and privation to
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be closer to God did so specifically because of their need. It's different,
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you know. That's that's what makes Christianity very different from really every other religion.
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The personal relationship, the love of God and love by God is very
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different in Christianity than the Jewish understanding of the same God. Similar concepts.
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You know, if you read the Old Testament and you know Moses and Noah
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and all that you know, God is this distant force. They never could
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see his face. He gave commands and demanded obedience, and then in return
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gave blessings. All the pagan religions, the pantheon of Gods, of the
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Greeks and the Egyptians and you know, all of them. Essentially, the
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person worshiped the God in return for favors, you know, seeking sacrificing and
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seeking blessing in return. Very primitive way of looking at things, but also
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very universal and not at all invalid, especially in terms of say, Judaism.
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Right, God demanded that they follow the ten commandments and punish them when
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they didn't, and that's you know, that's one aspect of fatherhood, but
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it's not a loving personal relationship that could only come through Jesus. When we
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were no longer slaves, as he said, but adopted as brothers and sisters
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in Christ, he taught us to pray our father who are in heaven.
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You know, he gave us a completely different relationship to God, and that's
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utterly foreign to Islam. Again, it's the wrathful, angry God who demands
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certain things with the carrot and stick. While it's you know, not invalid
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God does reward answer prayers and reward good actions, and will bring eternal punishment,
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punishment in this life and a punishment in the afterlife when we violate His
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precepts. There's just just so different in terms of that actual relationship, that
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personal you know, God actually coming to dwell within your heart in the person
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of the Holy Spirit. You know. So I explained this just a what
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two weeks ago. Where is heaven? Well, Heaven's where God is.
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Where is God? God's in your heart? Where are the angels and saints?
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They're in heaven. Where are the angels and saints? They're right here
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with us now. We just cannot perceive it. And those saints who have
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written extensively about how you know, we're really blind to the true reality.
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That's our perception. Is our casting out of being cast out of the garden
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of Eden. It's like blinders are put on anyway, he says, as
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I said. Hence, perfect happiness is impossible on earth, where no man
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can entirely avoid suffering. The end of the Worldling is misery as we have
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seen, and the just man is persecuted. No one can escape sickness,
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suffering, and death. The world is a Valley of tears. It is
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a big hospital containing as many sick men as there are human beings. The
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world is a place of banishment, where we are far from our true country.
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In the world, good and ill fortune succeed each other like sunshine and
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storm. Prosperity is the sure forerunner of adversity in life. We are on
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the sea, now lifted up to heaven, now cast down to hell.
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Society is always sure to be full of all kinds of miseries. Whatever efforts
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may be made to improve the condition of mankind, vain indeed are the hopes
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of Those are the hopes of the modern school of socialist democrats, who dream
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of gradually abolishing all evil and misery from the world. This is one of
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the greatest things about Father Spiaga's book. Written in the eighteen nineties. This
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is before the communist revolutions, you know, but he was very, very
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aware of communism and socialism and the evils that it would lead to. And
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maybe someone really ought to take this book and go read it to Joe Biden
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and Nancy Pelosi. Of course, I don't think they actually care about the
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welfare of anyone. They care about making themselves very rich and powerful. Just
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my opinion. I could be wrong, but hey, maybe someone should read
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this passage to pute Francis, who tends to lean in the direction of socialism
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vain. Indeed are the hopes of the modern school of socialist democrats, who
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dream of gradually abolishing all evil and misery from the world. And that is
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indeed what Marxi Ingles and all their followers and all their associates, and even
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the philosophies that predated theirs, like going back to Robespear and Nietzsche and you
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know, different ones. They always promise an alternative to reality, to society,
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to religion as given to us by God, and are told that it
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will alleviate all the sufferings. And yet we look at the twentieth century and
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we see two hundred million people killed by communist and socialists and national socialists and
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fascist governments supposedly for their own good right. You know how the Soviets,
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when they were starving what half the population of Ukraine to death, kept saying
31:15
they were assisting them with their agricultural programs. You know, you think about
31:19
the horrors of communists China, and when the college students who were the vanguard
31:30
of the communist revolution went out and slaughtered all the farmers because the land was
31:37
supposed to belong to everyone. Well, then everyone started starving to death because
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the college students weren't farmers, and a farmer won't work that hard, and
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farm work is incredibly hard. They're not going to work that hard if there's
31:49
no reward. They ended up being forced to farm at the point of a
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gun, just like the wigers are, you know, the Muslim wiggers.
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And you would think, hey, maybe the left would stand up for them,
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but remember a liberal was a liberal first. Their ideology trumps everything,
32:07
including reality. In fact, I think I can't remember as Marx or Stalin.
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It may have been both of them that said all truth is subservient to
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the revolution, or I think in another case it was to the party message
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there's no truth, there's only what serves their ideology. So anyway, another
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reason, maybe you should do your shopping with American craftsman rather than buying Chinese
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slave labor made products at Walmart. You know, hey, it's a novel
32:44
concept. So anyway, y'all have a great evening. Talk to you morrow
32:50
again, God willing in the words of Saint Padre Pio, pray, hope
32:54
and don't worry.