Latest / The Catholic Current / Are We Running Out of Time? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 9/18/26

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Are We Running Out of Time? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 9/18/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current with Father
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Robert Matague. Father, I listened and I read your book and I
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said, how could a sane person not want this?
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At the same time, the largest archdiocese in Ireland,
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the Archdiocese of Dublin, announced they're going to reduce
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from 199 parishes to 53.
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So I'm confused. Is this the new springtime or is this the second Pentecost
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or is this mercy? How do we hashtag this?
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I would say hashtag catacombs.
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Hashtag Holy Remnant. Praise be
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Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host
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for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to
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Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio
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station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth
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with clarity and charity. As always, let's start with prayer.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, through the
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intercession of Saint Ignatius Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon
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us, a spirit of discernment, might hear your voice and obey your command.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Here it
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is, friends. It is Friday. You know what that means here in the Catholic Current.
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Uh, you and me, let's talk about this. We walk through
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a controversial issue together. I asked the question,
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are we running out of time? Now, you know,
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I've been doing a series of Friday reflections called
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Novel Prophecies. We're looking at both Catholic
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and not Catholic, apocalyptic dystopian novels,
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preferably older books, to say, can they help us interpret
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the times that we live in? And I've been very clear, I haven't been talking
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about set your calendars, I figured out when our Lord
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is returning in glory. Only the Father knows that. But I
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want to talk about the, the passage of time and how we perceive time,
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because I have a lot of friends who look at what's going on in the
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world and say, man, this Our Lord has to
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be telling the Archangel Gabriel to warm up the trumpet because
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we got to be getting close. I have a dear friend down in Texas
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who likes to say, Father, if our Lord doesn't do something soon about all this,
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he's going to have to write an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Well, so let's talk about the passage of time.
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You know, I celebrated a significant birthday recently.
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I now qualify for senior citizen discounts
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and Medicare and Social Security and so on.
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So, as of the time of this recording, I have
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been alive for 23,759
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days. That, that seems like a lot to me. I am sorry
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to say I do not remember most of them. It concerns
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me that our Lord does, and when I run out of time
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and into eternity, He and I are going to have a talk about all those
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days and hours and minutes and seconds, because I was not
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always a really good steward of them. So I
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want to make good use of the time that I have,
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however much time I have. You know, my mentor
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lived to be 101, taught until his 90s, wrote books to the day
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he died. I, I think I'd like to go out that way. But even if
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I live to be 101, I'm definitely, uh,
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well past halftime at this point.
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I know there are people who talk about retirement,
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and they ask me about retiring. And I, I know that if I
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say the R-word, retirement, my, uh, my boss Jim Wright
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gets— starts to get to a panic attack. Don't worry, Jim, I'm not going to
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retire. Jesuits don't retire. Uh, they work until either they
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drop dead or they can't work anymore. So, and I, I plan to
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go out that way, please God. But I understand the appeal
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of retirement. People who've worked hard, very hard,
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all of their lives and, you know,
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want a bit of a break, want a respite.
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I understand that too, and I wonder, well, why didn't— if
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you had the option to do it all over, maybe you could have done some
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living for all those years? But that's another topic for
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another time. I want to talk about the idea that somehow we're
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entitled to a chunk of time,
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usually retirement and afterwards,
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where there's, there's no struggle,
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where you just get to do what you want and you are
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spared the ministry of interruptions.
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Well, I thought about that and I went through my
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collection of quotable curmudgeons, and one of
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them is Juan de Nostro Cortés. Latin American diplomat from the
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19th century, and listen to this. He says,
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don't tire yourself in seeking
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a place of security against the chances
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of war, for you tire yourself in
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vain. That war is extended
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as far as space and prolonged through all time.
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In eternity alone, the country of
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the just, can you find rest, because there alone
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there is no combat. So says Juan de Nosa Cortés.
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And if you think you can kind of hide in the back and say,
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well, I'm gonna just peel potatoes in God's army,
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Juan de Nosa Cortés says that's not an option. Listen to
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this. He says, but do not imagine that the gates of eternity
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shall be opened for you unless you first show
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the wounds you bear. Those gates are only open
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for those who gloriously fought here the battles
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of the Lord. Again, so says Juan de Noza Cortés.
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So while we live through time,
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we do have a fight on our hands.
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Like it, don't like it, those are just the facts on the ground.
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I do know that as I get older, time passes very quickly.
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When I first went through the misery of, I think, kindergarten and
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then had a summer break, I was concerned
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about how much time I could spend watching cartoons on Saturday morning.
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And when I learned that there would be 12 Saturdays in
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the summertime, all of which I would fill with cartoons on Saturday
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morning, I was agog. Think of it,
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12, 12, 12 Saturdays. Well,
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now you blink. I mean, I remember it
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being January. Happy New Year. Now we're in the middle of September, the second
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half of September. How did that happen? I, I don't know.
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But I do know that people tend to have a very unhappy
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relationship with time. I found a quote recently
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from an author named Eric Hoffer. He said this: the feeling
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of being hurried is not usually
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the result of living a life and having no time. It is,
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on the contrary, born of a vague fear that
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we are wasting our life. When we
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do not do the one thing we ought to do,
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we have no time for anything else. So says
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Eric Hoffer. People who are happy and
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have a sense of fulfillment recognizing that
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they're living with a sense of purpose,
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they might be busy, but they don't feel rushed.
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So I think what Hoffer is saying that we
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feel hurried because we have this anxiety that we're very busy doing
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something less than, other than what
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we're supposed to be doing.
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And I want to talk about that as, as a Jesuit for a moment.
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You know, if you're a Star Trek fan, they talk about the Prime Directive.
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For Jesuits, there's something called the First Principle
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and Foundation. Saint Ignatius Loyola says this:
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Man is made for the praise, reverence, and service
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of God, and thereby save his soul.
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And Jesuits would go on to say it doesn't matter wealth
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or poverty, sickness or health. It doesn't matter
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your station or state in life. What matters is,
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are you living for the
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purpose that God gave you? Is what
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you're doing contributing to
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helping you attain the end for which you were made,
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namely living for the praise, reverence, and service of
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God? If the answer is yes, then you're in the clear.
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If the answer is no, get rid of it.
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And you see, that is the thing that I think is missing,
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is that we don't have that sense
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of clarity of purpose anymore.
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We've, uh, we've lost the map and
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we've burned the We've burned the library
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where the map is to be found. That image of,
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of maps and libraries that came upon me the other day because I,
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I found a quote from Chesterton. I just found it here.
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Chesterton says this: the modern world is
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a crowd of very rapid racing cars, all brought
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to a standstill and stuck in a block of traffic. The machine,
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the machine is perfected, but the man is prevented.
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The speed is there, but the direction is not there. And the why the
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direction is not there is that the modern man has lost the map,
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and he's lost the map because he's burned the library
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that contained it. So says Chesterton.
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Good news, there really is a map.
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It's that first principle and foundation.
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We're all dressed up with no place to go.
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We can move faster than ever, and don't seem to be going
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anywhere. And that's frustrating, and that's maddening.
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And one of the reasons it's maddening is because we don't know how
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to deal with time anymore. I'm going
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to speak in the next segment about a book that affected me very greatly called
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Against Fate: An Essay on Personal Dignity,
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written by a philosopher called Glenn Tinder— Glenn with
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2 N's— and he talked about Learning how
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to live lucidly through time.
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Nobody knows what that means anymore. Nobody knows how to do it.
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We're going to talk about that in the next segment. I'm Jesuit Father Robert
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McTeague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current. Remember, our rallying cry of
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The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo, Mundus Christo— bringing Christ to the world and
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the world to Christ. We do it because our Lord says so, for the greater
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After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
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Take this to your family and friends. Together we'll take it to the whole world.
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Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
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You're listening to The Catholic Current with Father Robert McTague
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
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your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
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the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
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your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim
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that defend our Catholic faith. Here we are on this Friday, another round
12:57
of Let's Talk About This, you and me going through a complex issue together.
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I'm asking, are we running out of time? Well, in a
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certain sense, the answer is yes, we're running out of time and
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into eternity. The question is,
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are we running towards disintegration,
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or are we running towards fulfillment?
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Those are very different. Philosopher Thomas Nagel said
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that human life, whether it's my life, your life, or all
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of human life, is just an episode between
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2 oblivions. And that's a really miserable
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way to think about time. Now, when I wrote my
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book Real Philosophy for Real People, my, my specialty in training
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was in metaphysics. And the metaphysics chapter was actually relatively
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short, and I spent most of my metaphysical chapter
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talking about the nature of time. So I want to talk about
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that because I think if Christians don't have a clear sense of what time is,
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we're not going to live well,
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and eternity is going to be a really big disappointment if we don't live
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and die well. Remember what I said at the end of the last segment,
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that wonderful phrase from Glenn Tinder,
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learning how to live lucidly
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through time. Now there's basically 2 ways to
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view time. Now when I think of time,
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I think of— my mother used to watch the soap operas.
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Days of Our Lives was one of her soap operas that she would watch,
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and she would call— she referred to them as my stories. She'd be
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on the phone with my Aunt Rose and say, Rose, you gotta go, my stories
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are on. And so they would have an
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hourglass on the screen, and this voice would say,
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as so— as sands through the hourglass, so too the
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days of our lives. And they would have this melodramatic organ music.
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I was a preschooler, but my mother was captivated by her stories.
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All right, where do we go from here? There is a way of viewing
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time as just the hourglass. There is a finite number
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of grains of sand. And drip,
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drip, drip, and you run
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out of time, and eventually there's,
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there's nothing. There's nothing
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at all. Tick, and it's gone.
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Tick, and it's gone. Tick, and it's gone.
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So that the passage of time is the
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erosion of personal being. So A second
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goes by, you're closer to death. Another second goes
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by and you're closer to death, and so on and
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so on. It's miserable to live that way. Years ago, a student sent me a
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birthday card. He said, you know, people used to tell me, live every day as
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if it's your last, and I found myself running around saying, I'm gonna die,
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I'm gonna die, and people didn't like that. But if you imagine the passage
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of time as the erosion of personal being, that's not only true for
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you and for everyone, but also for the
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cosmos. A second goes by,
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we're closer to entropy. A second goes by, we're closer to entropy.
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Well, what does that do to you? Well, it doesn't help
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you relax, and it doesn't— put
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it this way, before my conversion, and people would ask me
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to be patient, I'd say patience, patience is a virtue only for
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people who don't die. So, if we see the passage
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of time primarily as erosion,
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then even sleep gets in the
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way, relaxation gets in the way,
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leisure gets in the way. And you
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say, well, it gets in the way of what? Because remember,
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on this view, the sand doesn't go
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anywhere. It just marks the
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erosion of passing through time.
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So, there's nothing that can be redeemed. There's nothing worth
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living or dying for. No matter what you do,
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no matter what you don't do,
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everybody ends the same way,
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which is annihilation.
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That's a pretty miserable way to live. It is an unbearable
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way to live. That's why existentialists were committing suicide in the '50s,
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because you couldn't answer the question, why bother?
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Let's go back to what I said with Nagel about human
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life is just an episode between 2 oblivions.
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So, in this view, you know, in the beginning there was nothing,
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Then there was an explosion, and then everything happened,
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time passed, and then everything returned to the nothing again.
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And there are people who hold that because, you know, science,
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or if you're one of the cool kids, you call it the Science,
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capital T, capital S. Looking at you, Dr. Fauci.
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And you say, well, but how can something come from nothing? Exactly.
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So, I'm going to ask Mr. Engineer to find a reference
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to a book by Mortimer Adler,
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and it's called How to
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Think About God: The Guide for the 20th Century Pagan.
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And he says that we can think of God
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as a sustaining cause that keeps us in existence,
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and then we can think about God as a creating cause that
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calls us into being. Now, why would God
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do that? Why? Now, remember, to call something
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into existence out of the nothing, that's an absolute
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act. You have to be infinite. You have to be a supreme
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being to pull that off.
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And why would you do that?
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You know, if you are the Supreme Being,
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you can't be benefited by the creation
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of finite entities.
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It wouldn't make sense.
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There's nothing in it for you if you're the Supreme Being.
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So, why would God make us?
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Well, If you're the Supreme Being, if you are
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of infinite goodness, then acting
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for the good of another without any self-seeking
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at all, that's a pretty good definition of love,
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isn't it? And so God
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called us into existence because
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he loved us. And love is wanting
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the best for the beloved.
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So if we are the beloved of God,
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rooted in a divine, excellent origin,
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that kind of reflects rather nicely on us.
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And we are the beloved of God, and what he wants
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for us is what is best for us. And what is
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best for us is, quite candidly,
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God. I mean, once you realize that
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you want to know truth, you don't want to just know
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individual truths— 2+ 2= 4— you
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want the truth. You want all truth. You want God.
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And when you realize that you can set your heart
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on goodness and you don't want goodness to fade
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away, then you want what
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is endlessly lovable, and that
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would be God. And then when you see that beauty
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is delightful but incomplete,
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and you want to delight in beauty that doesn't end or fade,
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then you want beauty itself. So we
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discover— and it's not that hard to figure out— That we want
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not just true things, beautiful things, good things. We want truth itself,
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beauty itself, goodness itself, which can only be found
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in God. And that means that
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we go through time to
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get ready for eternity.
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And either we become that
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kind of being that will be only satisfied
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with truth itself, beauty itself, goodness itself,
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and we treat as second best anything
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that's not truth itself, beauty itself, goodness itself,
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in which case we are ready to meet God face to face and live,
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or we have settled for lies
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and half-truths for lesser
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goods, for partial beauties.
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We might even have set our hearts and hands and minds
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on what is false, on what is ugly,
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and what is wicked, in which case
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entering eternity into the presence of the all-holy,
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true, beautiful, and good God is going to be quite
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honestly, unbearable,
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and we will want an infinite distance from
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the infinitely true and beautiful and good God. So,
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on this view, time is what you go
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through to get to your destiny, in which
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case you can afford to be patient.
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'Cause you're just waiting to get to the other side.
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You have somewhere to go. And also very importantly,
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and we'll talk about this more in the next segment, things that
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we suffer, things that pain us,
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can be redeemed. When you say,
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well, I had to go through that in order to get to the
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God who was waiting for me on the other side.
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And if I derail the train— and I'm going to
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ask Mr. Engineer to remind me in the next segment to talk about the train—
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if we derail the train, we might have avoided a pain,
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even a great pain, but then we didn't get to
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where we needed to go. Now,
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some of you say, Father, are you going to say the T word?
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Are you going to say the 2 T words? Yes, I am. I'm going to
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say the first T word. Telos,
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T-E-L-O-S. That's Greek for,
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for a goal, for ultimate final end,
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for ultimate good, and also from that teleological.
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So first principle and foundation, made for the praise,
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reverence, and service of God, and thereby to save my soul.
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That's our telos, that's our ultimate end,
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that's our destination. And the destination
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makes the journey worth the effort.
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And apart from that, life becomes
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unbearable. Life becomes one damn thing after
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another. As Fulton Sheen says, it's the difference between good
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morning, Lord, and good Lord morning.
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We'll talk about that in the next segment. I'm Jesuit Father Robert
24:59
McTaggart, your host here every day of The Catholic Current. After the broadcast today,
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go to the station of across.com. Get our resources list,
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Here we are, Friday, The Catholic Current, you and me. Let's talk about
26:56
this. We're talking about running out of time, and my claim is that most
27:00
people misunderstand time.
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If we recognize that our origin is
27:08
in God and that our destination
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is God then time is what
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you go through to get to eternity. And we had
27:20
a very good beginning, and we are called
27:24
to a very good end, and we can attain that
27:29
good end on the condition of how we live
27:33
and die. So we are made for truth
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and beauty and goodness, and if we live and die in such
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a way that we are prepared to receive infinite
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truth, beauty, and goodness, then eternity
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will begin very well for us.
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And if we set our hands on lesser goods,
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well, then we're going to be in trouble if
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we die grasping those lesser goods.
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I want to have a quote here from Anthony Esselen. It was one of my
28:10
favorite authors. And Tony, if you're listening, it's been too long. I'd love to He's
28:15
talking about idolatry. And, you know,
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if you read the scriptures, that really is the number one
28:22
issue. It's either the living God or the idols.
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And Esselen says this, he says, some idols are hideous like
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Moloch, and some are beautiful like Dionysus.
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The Hebrew prophets did not care. They did not condemn
28:38
the idols for their style. They condemn them for
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being false. So says Anthony Esland. And that quote
28:47
is very much in mind because, uh, there is a
28:50
document that's come out now from Rome regarding the 60th
28:54
anniversary on— of the release of the document
28:58
Nostra Aetate, which is the Vatican II document on ecumenism.
29:02
Some people are running around with their hair on fire about it. I haven't
29:06
read the document, so I don't have an opinion, but at least from what they're
29:09
quoting about it You get the impression— again,
29:13
I haven't read the document, but you get the impression from what's been quoted so
29:16
far— is that the authors of the document did not have absolute
29:21
truth, beauty, and goodness in mind when they wrote that document.
29:24
I hope I'm wrong. I hope I have misperceived that document.
29:27
So going back to Glenn Tinder, Glenn Tinder says when
29:31
you recognize that your origin is the supreme
29:35
goodness of God, and you recognize that you
29:39
are a creature of the supremely good Creator who
29:42
calls you to himself, then your destination and
29:47
your origin become the foundation of your dignity.
29:50
That I'm rooted in God and I'm made for God, for truth,
29:54
beauty, and goodness. And therefore I want to avoid anything
29:58
that's unworthy of me. And if I live that as an individual
30:02
and we live that as a culture and a civilization, and cooperate
30:08
with our creatureliness before the creating God, then we have
30:12
what he calls destiny. He said destiny is
30:16
a gift because it is bestowed
30:20
by God, and it is an achievement because
30:24
we act individually and communally in
30:27
harmony with the facts that we come
30:31
from and are made for a good creating God. We're made for
30:35
and come from infinite beauty, truth, and goodness,
30:38
please, let's act accordingly.
30:41
And he says that individuals and communities and civilizations
30:46
that live in that harmony, that are characterized
30:51
by destiny, that's a pretty nice place and time to be living
30:54
in. How do we understand our own time?
30:59
So what happens if individuals and communities
31:03
and civilizations reject that
31:07
we are created by an infinitely good
31:11
creating God? What if we reject our creaturely status?
31:15
What if we reject our destination, which is the
31:19
infinite truth, beauty, and goodness of God? Then he
31:23
says we have fate,
31:28
and fate is alien to
31:31
us. It is contrary to our nature.
31:36
And he said fate is something that befalls us
31:41
from the outside, as if by blind
31:44
chance. And at the same time, it's a
31:48
disaster that we've pulled down upon our
31:51
own heads. So now I have to ask
31:55
you very candidly, How would you characterize our
31:59
own times, our own communities,
32:03
civilization, culture? Would you say that
32:07
we're more characterized by destiny or
32:11
by fate?
32:14
Hmm. Don't rush to an answer.
32:18
You know the old joke about, you know, there's a glass on
32:22
the table and the optimist says it's half full,
32:26
and the pessimist says it's half empty,
32:29
I would say there's the realist who says, uh,
32:33
half full, half empty, doesn't matter if the glass is resting
32:37
on a rickety table. So let's
32:41
think about that for a moment, and let's turn to Tolkien. Now, Tolkien is not
32:45
only a literary giant and genius, he fought
32:49
in World War I. And watched his son fight in World
32:53
War II, and he was a profound Catholic.
32:58
And he wrote this, he says, actually, I am a Christian and
33:03
indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect history to
33:06
be anything but a long defeat,
33:10
though it contains, and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly,
33:14
some samples or glimpses a final victory.
33:19
So says Tolkien. So in other words, we shouldn't be
33:22
surprised if we go through life collecting bumps and bruises
33:26
and fractures along the way because we're in a war.
33:30
But all those bumps and bruises and fractures can
33:34
be redeemed when we say, this is what I go through
33:39
on the way to my destiny. If we
33:44
just see the passage of time as the erosion of being,
33:49
then suffering and inconvenience, indeed any pain
33:52
at all, is meaningless. And the best
33:56
we can do, if we can call it that, is just try to find
34:01
the way to kill time pleasurably.
34:05
And if it looks like there's not enough pleasure
34:08
available, then we can punch out early. Now,
34:13
I am not an advocate of getting
34:16
people together, holding hands, and singing rousing choruses
34:20
of He's Got the Whole World in His Hands.
34:23
And I'm not Father Cheerful over at St. Typical's running
34:27
around saying, don't worry, I just know everything
34:32
is going to be okay. We have to
34:35
be really clear about the circumstances we
34:39
find ourselves in.
34:43
And we also have to understand who we are and whose
34:46
we are. Let's turn to my mentor, Paul Weiss,
34:50
and his book, The God We Seek. Now, mind you,
34:53
he said he was not religious, never prayed,
34:58
neither sought nor found,
35:01
and never had a religious experience. And yet he
35:06
wrote this. He says, Judaism is Moses in the wilderness,
35:10
straining to reach a land he knows he never can.
35:14
For the Christian, the truth is but the necessary first
35:18
act in a divine comedy. The history of the universe
35:22
for the Christian is in principle already told.
35:26
It is a delightful tale with
35:29
but a spicing of momentary woe.
35:33
So Weiss understood, and Tolkien believed,
35:37
that a Christian is called to share in a victory
35:41
that he didn't win. Or rather,
35:45
the Christian is called to imitation of and union with the
35:49
victorious Christ. And that's
35:53
why, uh, William Barclay, biblical scholar— don't always agree
35:57
with him, but he is highly literate and he writes well.
36:01
He says, if the Christian message is true,
36:05
the world is on the way not to disintegration,
36:09
but to consummation. And that
36:13
is important for us. I've had some
36:18
rough stretches of road in my life.
36:22
I've had some very dark chapters in my life.
36:26
I've known a lot of people who've walked
36:30
harder miles than I've had, who've had
36:34
not only dark chapters in their life, but dark volumes,
36:39
and they kept on going. And all of them
36:44
have said the same thing to me: Christ didn't let go of
36:47
me, and I didn't want to let go of Him.
36:53
And so is time running out? Yes. Are we at
36:57
the 2-minute warning? I don't know. We're all, each of us,
37:00
running out of time and into eternity. And I can
37:05
talk in terms of grand horizons. I'm a metaphysician.
37:09
I can do that. But I was going through some notes.
37:12
You do that when you get older. You shuffle through papers and you wonder what
37:16
you want to keep and what you want to throw away. And I found some
37:18
sermon notes from, gosh,
37:21
2013. I wrote this. I said, with God's
37:26
grace, we can choose who will write the pages of our
37:29
history, whether it will be written by our enemies standing upon
37:33
our graves in the smoldering ruins of our culture,
37:37
or whether it will be written by our children who learn in
37:41
our schools and pray in our churches. That's what I was
37:44
thinking about in 2013. So we have
37:48
a choice to make. Are we as individuals,
37:52
cultures, and communities going to be
37:55
a civilization oriented towards what Tinder
38:01
called destiny? Shall we live
38:05
lucidly as we pass through time and into eternity,
38:10
or shall we say, this is hard,
38:13
quit it, and derail
38:17
the train to avoid a present pain, thereby surrendering destiny
38:23
and bringing fate upon us? Fate's miserable now.
38:27
It gets worse when fate becomes an eternity.
38:31
Going through the same pile of notes, I found something I
38:35
wrote in 2011. And it shows that
38:39
a concern with time and eternity can be very practical. Listen to this. I wrote
38:42
this. I said, we can be hunger— hungry, so let us help each other prepare
38:47
for famine. We can be thirsty, so let us help each other prepare
38:50
for drought. We can be vulnerable, so let us help each other prepare for
38:54
danger. We are Christians, so let us help each other prepare for persecution.
38:59
We are mortal, so let us help each other prepare for death.
39:04
We are immortal, so let us help each other to
39:08
prepare to meet God face to face. That's what I wrote 15
39:11
years ago. I stand by those words.
39:15
The common good is helping each other build a
39:19
community that makes it easier for each of us and all
39:23
of us to live and die as saints.
39:27
You know, I'm a raging introvert. I want to sit in a corner with my
39:30
books, my chapel, and my fountain pens and my paper, and I show
39:34
up on a microphone every day because I want
39:37
us to achieve our God-given destiny.
39:42
I want this to be my contribution
39:46
to the common good, a world in which it is easier
39:51
for all of us to live and die as saints.
39:55
I think we should do that good work together.
39:57
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTaggart, host every day of The Catholic Current.
40:02
Be part of the conversation. Follow what we're following by following us on
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40:18
Comments, questions, suggestions, recommendations,
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40:35
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41:12
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41:20
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTaggart. This is Society of Jesus,
41:24
your daily host for the Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
41:28
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
41:30
your local radio station, and the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we
41:34
proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
41:37
Here we are, the last segment of a Friday. You know what that means,
41:40
you and me? Weekend readiness, reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the
41:43
upcoming Sunday scriptures, so we'll be all prayed up for Sunday Mass.
41:46
However, however, I'm not recording
41:49
this on a Friday. I'm recording it a little bit
41:53
before Friday because I'm traveling this
41:57
week. Please do pray for me. I always find travel
42:01
to be a chore. I'm not going on vacation. I'm giving
42:04
a talk at a conference, and I hope that it will help souls. But please
42:07
do pray for my safe travels. I'll be on the road for several days.
42:11
So if something very dramatic happens, say the
42:16
Friday that you're hearing this or the day before, and I don't mention it,
42:18
it's because it hasn't happened yet. As as I'm recording it, but Mr.
42:22
Engineer and I will try to do our best. But what's going on
42:25
now? Well, you know, it's the middle of September, so by golly,
42:30
Congress is deciding to call it quits and is gonna
42:34
not do anything until the midterms or
42:39
elections are over. So there's that. The Fed seems
42:42
to have been raising interest rates significantly today, and people
42:47
are up in arms about that. Speaking of arms, people are still shooting
42:50
each other all over the world. With a great deal of enthusiasm.
42:56
The Lindsay Clancy trial jurors are making names for themselves and
43:00
embarrassing themselves. People continue to be slandered in social
43:04
media. On and on it goes.
43:07
And you know, I try to have some bit of good news.
43:11
Mr. Engineer and I scour the internet looking for,
43:16
for good news and We have found one.
43:19
Uh, actor Christian Bale has opened
43:23
up a foster care village that will help keep siblings
43:27
together. He said, you know, it's traumatic enough when kids lose their parents,
43:31
but if, you know, siblings are separated from each other, that adds
43:34
to the trauma. So good for you, Christian Bale. There's some corporal and spiritual
43:39
works of mercy taking place. We've, we've, we've linked to that. I'm glad to
43:43
see somebody's is doing something noble with his fame
43:46
and fortune. So God bless him for that. Let's give
43:51
the preponderance of our time to, to the scriptures today.
43:54
If you're following the Novus Ordo calendar of the Pauline Rite, we're looking at the
43:58
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary 133,
44:04
and the first reading is from Isaiah
44:07
55. And I think in God's providence,
44:10
it's fortunate that you and I have been talking today about
44:14
time and how we understand
44:17
time. And sometimes when we go through times,
44:21
it looks like God isn't very involved,
44:26
or God isn't active or audible or visible
44:31
in the way that we would like. I remember talking some years ago to
44:36
a cloistered nun who said, Father, the next time
44:40
you talk to your king, please remind him that his spouse would like
44:44
to hear from him. So I know that we don't always hear from God in
44:47
the way, in the manner, in the times that we would like, and Isaiah
44:51
addresses that. In Isaiah 55, we read,
44:54
seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while
44:59
he is near. Well, seek the Lord while he may be found.
45:02
Well, that's as we live through time,
45:06
because once we step outside of time and into eternity,
45:10
our searching is over,
45:13
and we're either ready to meet God or we're not.
45:16
Isaiah continues, let the scoundrel forsake
45:20
his way and the wicked his thoughts. Well,
45:23
why? Because scoundrels and the wicked who
45:28
have set their hands and heart on what is not true and good and beautiful
45:32
are going to find eternity really disappointing.
45:36
And he goes on to say, let him turn to the Lord for mercy,
45:40
to our God who is generous and forgiving.
45:44
So remember, God's not a jerk. God's not the fault-finder
45:47
general. He's the shepherd of the sheep and not
45:52
the hunter of the sheep. We have
45:55
to be clear about that. And he does want us
45:59
to see His face and live. And we also have to understand that
46:03
there are many things in this life that we're not going to understand in this
46:07
life. And only when we're free from the limits of
46:11
time and space will we see that God has been just all along.
46:15
So the passage from Isaiah, you know, God says, for my thoughts
46:19
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my
46:23
ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above
46:26
the earth, So high are my ways above your ways and
46:30
my thoughts above your thoughts. There was a
46:34
Broadway play, it was a musical, it was popular I think when
46:39
I was in high school, and it was called Your Arms
46:42
Are Too Short to Box with God.
46:45
See, we're really just not smart enough to,
46:51
you know, give God a job performance.
46:55
We can't really appraise whether or not He's
47:00
working. Now, a lot of the scriptures are complaints.
47:05
There's a lot of kvetching going on in the scriptures,
47:09
but ultimately we have to stand with Job and say,
47:13
even though He should slay me, yet I would trust in Him.
47:18
Let's jump ahead to Philippians 1.
47:23
And he, at the end of the reading, Paul writes, only conduct
47:28
yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. How different
47:33
that is from treating discipleship
47:37
as a subscription to anti-hell insurance that you have to
47:40
renew inconveniently on a
47:44
week-by-week basis by giving God as much as an hour. An hour, I tell
47:48
you, when you add in commute time, to allow him to
47:52
interrupt your weekend. That's a pretty miserable way.
47:56
But if we say that I am, by virtue of my baptism,
47:59
I'm consecrated for resurrection and destined for glory,
48:03
and all I have to do is live a life worthy
48:07
of my calling, that,
48:10
that's really what it is all about. You know, I said
48:14
earlier in the program, As of this morning,
48:18
I have been alive for 23,759 days.
48:21
I don't remember most of them. God does,
48:25
and I will have to give an account of them. And I hope
48:29
that by the end of my days I can say, well, I was a mess
48:32
for a while, but with your grace and a lot of militant
48:36
intercession, I was able to wake up in time
48:40
and hate my sin and set my hands and heart
48:44
and mind on truth and beauty and goodness as
48:48
it can be found only in you.
48:52
And dear God, let it be true that before
48:55
I die I am able to say to our Lord, you are enough for
49:00
me, and my heart is restless and it
49:03
will not rest until it rests in thee.
49:07
That's what I want. I do want to spend whatever time I have
49:11
left acting on the knowledge I'm made for the
49:15
praise, reverence, and service of God. And so are
49:20
you. Please, friends, while there is still time,
49:24
let's resolve to get rid of our idols.
49:27
Let's resolve to repent from having set our hands and
49:31
minds and hearts on lesser good.
49:35
Let us run to the Father who made
49:38
us, who called us by name. Let's take the
49:42
pierced hand of our Savior and
49:47
say, lead me and guide me through the narrow
49:51
way. This is why I show up at the microphone every
49:55
day, friends, to announce Christ to you,
49:59
for he alone is our hope. May God's holy name
50:03
be praised now and forever, and please do pray for me
50:06
during my travels. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host
50:10
every day of The Catholic Current. After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
50:14
get our resources list, download our audio as podcasts.
50:17
Wherever you can find audio, you can find us. Follow us on your favorite platform,
50:21
write a 5-star review. We need to attract the attention of the listeners
50:24
so these conversations get the attention they deserve. Take us to your family
50:28
and friends, that together we'll take it to the whole world. Through the intercession of
50:32
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
50:35
Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.