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#0164_The Old Testament Explained: Faith, History & God’s Covenant · INSPIRE STORY

0:05
Speaker 1: Cardinal Burke.
0:07
Speaker 2: Yes.
0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
0:08
Speaker 2: Thank you, Sean. I'm glad to be with you.
0:11
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming. This is extremely surreal for me.
0:16
Speaker 1: So we took a long shot and I didn't think
0:21
Speaker 1: there was a chance we would get you here. And
0:24
Speaker 1: here you are sitting here. And it's an honor. It's
0:30
Speaker 1: an honor to do this. So thank you for making
0:32
Speaker 1: the trip.
0:33
Speaker 2: Not at all. I respect very much what you're doing
0:37
Speaker 2: and you're reaching out to a great number of people
0:41
Speaker 2: and with important messages for them. And so I am
0:47
Speaker 2: happy to be some.
0:48
Speaker 1: Little part of it. Well, let me start you out
0:52
Speaker 1: with an introduction. Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. You're an American
0:59
Speaker 1: Cardinal widely respected for your expertise in canon law and
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Speaker 1: church governance. You previously served as Archbishop of St. Louis
1:08
Speaker 1: and as a prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the church's
1:13
Speaker 1: highest judicial court. Pope Benedict XVI elevated you to the
1:17
Speaker 1: College of Cardinals in 2010. You are known internationally for
1:22
Speaker 1: your defense of traditional Catholic doctrine, the sacred liturgy, marriage, family,
1:28
Speaker 1: and the sacraments. You are also the founder of the
1:31
Speaker 1: Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin,
1:35
Speaker 1: which you established as a place of pilgrimage, prayer, and
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Speaker 1: spiritual renewal.
1:41
Speaker 2: Thank you.
1:45
Speaker 1: And, Cardinal, I was hoping you could lead us in
1:48
Speaker 1: prayer before we get started here.
1:50
Speaker 2: In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
1:52
Speaker 2: and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Almighty God, we ask
1:56
Speaker 2: you to Guide us in our conversation to remove from
2:01
Speaker 2: our minds all distractions and from our hearts any wrong
2:05
Speaker 2: affections that we might understand more perfectly your will for
2:09
Speaker 2: us and have the courage to carry out whatever it
2:13
Speaker 2: is you ask of us. We ask all this in
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Speaker 2: the name of your only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior,
2:20
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, who is with you in the Holy Spirit,
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Speaker 2: one God forever and ever.
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Speaker 1: Amen. Amen.
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Speaker 2: We ask especially the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe
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Speaker 2: on our conversation today, and also St. Lawrence, whose feast,
2:36
Speaker 2: the deacon and martyr, whose feast we celebrate today. In
2:39
Speaker 2: the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
2:41
Speaker 2: of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
2:45
Speaker 1: So like I said, I've been really nervous about this.
2:50
Speaker 1: And I'm going to be honest, it's been... I'm going
2:55
Speaker 1: to be a little vague here, but I did a
3:02
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience about a month ago, a little over a
3:06
Speaker 1: month ago. I've done these a couple of times, and
3:09
Speaker 1: the first one I found to be very healing. It
3:11
Speaker 1: actually took me off alcohol. I've been four and a
3:15
Speaker 1: half years now off alcohol.
3:17
Speaker 2: I wonder.
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Speaker 1: And then I went to do it again, and I
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Speaker 1: believe I was shown hell. And there was nothing there.
3:33
Speaker 1: There was no sense of God or Christ or anything good.
3:40
Speaker 1: It was vacant. And all I could feel in my
3:45
Speaker 1: body was extreme fear and extreme anxiety. And this went
3:52
Speaker 1: on for An hour and a half. And actually, I
3:59
Speaker 1: did one two days before that, and I met demonic entities.
4:06
Speaker 1: And we'll kind of keep it at that. I don't
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Speaker 1: know exactly what that all meant, but I did get
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Speaker 1: a clear message from God a few days after I
4:18
Speaker 1: returned home. Things have been very odd around the house,
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Speaker 1: around my family. Supernatural things have been happening. I've been
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Speaker 1: through four exorcisms with two different priests. It's not going away.
4:48
Speaker 1: And I feel this strong urge to use my platform,
5:01
Speaker 1: my channel, my audience, not my audience, but deliver my
5:05
Speaker 1: audience a understanding of the Bible and everything that's in it.
5:15
Speaker 1: I've had picture frames fly off the wall. I've had
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Speaker 1: manifestations happen inside of my body. I've had all kinds
5:23
Speaker 1: of weird stuff happen And last night, it all kind
5:36
Speaker 1: of resurfaced. It had been about a week since anything
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Speaker 1: had happened, and it all kind of resurfaced. And around 1245,
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Speaker 1: every smoke alarm and the smoke detector in the house
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Speaker 1: went off.
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Speaker 2: Went off.
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Speaker 1: Numerous times. All night long, I felt these manifestations come
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Speaker 1: back into my stomach and into my body. And... I
5:58
Speaker 1: started having the same nightmare over and over again last
6:03
Speaker 1: night about, it was basically nightmares that were extremely vivid
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Speaker 1: trying to rip my family apart, me and my wife
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Speaker 1: and my children. And I think that this is happening
6:21
Speaker 1: because something doesn't want me to do what we're about
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Speaker 1: to do today.
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Speaker 2: I would think so too. The devil absolutely hates anyone
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Speaker 2: who brings the truth to others. And of course, the
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Speaker 2: Bible is all truth, finally, fully in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Speaker 2: But the word of God leads us to him. And
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Speaker 2: that's what the devil can't stand. And our Lord himself
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Speaker 2: told us, he said, the devil is a murderer from
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Speaker 2: the beginning. So he does all kinds of things to
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Speaker 2: try to destroy people, attack the family, principally is one
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Speaker 2: of his principal attacks, but to attack individuals. And then
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Speaker 2: our Lord went on to say, he said, he's a
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Speaker 2: murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of lies.
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Speaker 2: And so the more you come to understand the truth,
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Speaker 2: the more you're attracted to the truth, the more you
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Speaker 2: seek the truth in our Lord Jesus Christ, he's going
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Speaker 2: to give you trouble. And he likes especially, I find,
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Speaker 2: to get into electronics and those kind of things to
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Speaker 2: frustrate us, to divert us, discourage us. I often say,
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Speaker 2: I think his principal temptation is discouragement. He can convince
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Speaker 2: you that what you're trying to do is not possible
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Speaker 2: or it's just going to bring you harm. And so
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Speaker 2: you abandon it. he's achieved his purpose. And so it's
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Speaker 2: very important for you to have courage, which I know
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Speaker 2: you have, and not let him work this kind of
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Speaker 2: rightly called devilment. In other words, his little tricks and
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Speaker 2: so forth to lead us astray.
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Speaker 1: I used to look for signs that were good, that
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Speaker 1: made me feel good. I had.
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Speaker 1: Without going into too much detail, I used to see
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Speaker 1: the number 444 all the time. And I would take
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Speaker 1: that as I'm on the right path. I'm doing something good.
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Speaker 1: Supposedly that number means your guardian angels are looking.
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Speaker 2: Out for you.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes I think that maybe those signs have led me
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Speaker 1: astray or maybe were deceptive and But these ones that
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Speaker 1: I'm getting now is as horrific as that experience was
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Speaker 1: and as much as I want all of this to stop,
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Speaker 1: I'm also thankful for it because it has immensely strengthened
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Speaker 1: my faith in Christ. And it absolutely lets me know
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Speaker 1: that I'm on the right track here. Yes.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting. what you just recounted to me
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Speaker 2: about the vision of hell. When Our Lady appeared to
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Speaker 2: the three children in Fatima in 1917, the world was
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Speaker 2: in a terrible state, the First World War and the
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Speaker 2: rise of communism. And she appeared to these little children
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Speaker 2: to call for reparation for sins, for devotion to her
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Speaker 2: Immaculate Heart and through her Immaculate Heart to the Sacred
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Speaker 2: Heart of Jesus. And she and then of course the
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Speaker 2: Holy Eucharist. she gave the children a vision of hell
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Speaker 2: in order for them to understand fully what is the alternative.
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Speaker 2: In other words, we either convert our lives to Christ,
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Speaker 2: we either turn to God, purify our lives of everything
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Speaker 2: that's not of God, or we go in that direction. And,
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Speaker 2: of course, as you said, it's empty. There's nothing good there.
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Speaker 2: There's nothing that's lasting, that's beautiful, nothing true. And so
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Speaker 2: it's a terrible thing to have such a vision, but
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Speaker 2: it can be a real grace, too, because we never
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Speaker 2: forget that. And when we're tempted to veer from the
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Speaker 2: way of Christ, then we remember that and we want
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Speaker 2: to get back on the right path.
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Speaker 1: I've had things speak to me through white noise machines.
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Speaker 1: I've had two pretty severe allergic reactions right after communion.
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Speaker 1: I know you've been spiritually attacked probably much, much, much
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Speaker 1: more than I ever have been or will be. How
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Speaker 1: did it stop?
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Speaker 2: The only answer there is to persevere. Saint Paul says
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Speaker 2: to stay the course, fight the good fight, stay the course,
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Speaker 2: keep the faith. And sometimes these, well, it never really
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Speaker 2: ends until our Lord finally takes us home to himself.
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Speaker 2: Throughout our life, he told us, he said, if you
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Speaker 2: will follow me, take up your cross daily. And that's
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Speaker 2: what we have to do. And that means also fighting
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Speaker 2: our own inclination to evil, fighting the evil influences that
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Speaker 2: are around us that want to draw us away from life,
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Speaker 2: which is in our Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's,
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Speaker 2: I say this, that as long as we're striving with
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Speaker 2: all our heart to love him and serve him, then
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Speaker 2: we remain at peace even amongst so many lies that
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Speaker 2: can be told about us, harm done to us by
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Speaker 2: others and so forth. But we remain serene because we
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Speaker 2: We know that we're with our Lord and that that's
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Speaker 2: all that ultimately really matters. We can suffer many hardships,
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Speaker 2: both in our bodies and mentally and spiritually. But if
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Speaker 2: we can offer it all with Christ, even can we
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Speaker 2: imagine someone, God the Son in our human flesh, what
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Speaker 2: his passion meant for him, or what all the lies
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Speaker 2: that were said during his public ministry. Sometimes we hear
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Speaker 2: our Lord say some pretty hard words, because like those
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Speaker 2: words where he told those who were denying who he was,
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Speaker 2: invoking their own Jewish faith, but not understanding that he
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Speaker 2: was the fulfillment of their faith, He said to them,
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Speaker 2: you follow Satan. You're not following the God of Isaac, Abraham,
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Speaker 2: and Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you're following Satan. And
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Speaker 2: so I think we can't ever hope that we won't
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Speaker 2: have to suffer, that we won't have to endure hardships.
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Speaker 2: And you've had some unusual experiences. which no doubt are
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Speaker 2: connected by the richness of the life that you've led,
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Speaker 2: even in its pretty difficult aspects. Those attacks will continue
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Speaker 2: to come, but we gain serenity. And the Eucharist, of course,
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Speaker 2: is the principal source of that serenity. It It is
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Speaker 2: Christ himself who comes to nourish his life in us.
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Speaker 2: And also a great help is the Sacrament of Penance Confession,
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Speaker 2: where we meet our Lord through his minister, but the
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Speaker 2: encounter is with our Lord himself. For instance, now they
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Speaker 2: want to try to force priests to reveal what's said
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Speaker 2: in confession. Rightly, priests could never do that because the
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Speaker 2: conversation of the penitent is with God. The priest is
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Speaker 2: just an instrument and the priest has never any license
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Speaker 2: or permission to ever reveal anything that is said to
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Speaker 2: God through him. And so, but that sacrament, it's also
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Speaker 2: called the sacrament of reconciliation, the sacrament of peace, but
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Speaker 2: it is a powerful help to us to know that
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Speaker 2: we can open our lives to God in a very
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Speaker 2: concrete way, confessing our sins And then knowing that in
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Speaker 2: his mercy he forgives us and gives us grace to
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Speaker 2: begin again. And I suppose one way to say it
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Speaker 2: is every day is a new beginning for us. We
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Speaker 2: set forth again on the way. This life is a pilgrimage.
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Speaker 2: That's why pilgrimage to holy places has always been a
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Speaker 2: major devotion because it reveals to us that that this
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Speaker 2: life is not our real home. Our real home is
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Speaker 2: with God in heaven. This is for us to be
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Speaker 2: on the way to him, our pilgrimage of life. And
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Speaker 2: so we set out every day anew and try to
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Speaker 2: stay on the path. And pilgrimages are not easy, and
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Speaker 2: neither is life. But our Lord is with us. He's
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Speaker 2: promised us that. He doesn't lie. He said, He would
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Speaker 2: be with us in the church until the last day,
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Speaker 2: and we stick with him, and then we are at peace.
16:47
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17:01
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18:11
Speaker 1: is happening. I just found out this is happening to
18:14
Speaker 1: somebody else on my team this morning. I know it's
18:19
Speaker 1: happened to you from the very top of the Catholic Church.
18:26
Speaker 1: Why does he allow this to happen?
18:28
Speaker 2: This is the question that everyone asks, and I think
18:34
Speaker 2: we have to look to our Lord himself. Why did
18:39
Speaker 2: the Father permit that evil people should unjustly condemn him
18:44
Speaker 2: and then put him through the cruelest passion and death
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Speaker 2: that was imaginable at that time? Why did God the
18:53
Speaker 2: Father permit it? It was for for the purification of
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Speaker 2: sin and for the offering of life completely to God.
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Speaker 2: Nothing that is not of God should be any part
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Speaker 2: of us. And so when we accept these sufferings, unite
19:17
Speaker 2: them with those of Christ, there's a purification that takes
19:20
Speaker 2: place in us. And all of us need that. And
19:26
Speaker 2: at the same time, our hearts expand to be more Christ-like,
19:32
Speaker 2: to let his love enter more fully into our lives
19:37
Speaker 2: so we can bring his love to the world, to others,
19:43
Speaker 2: to our best. We live in a culture of society
19:47
Speaker 2: which is so terrible. misguided. People are doing horrible things
19:52
Speaker 2: to themselves and so forth. Some people give up on it. No,
19:56
Speaker 2: we have to try. You mentioned the word family before,
20:00
Speaker 2: and that is essential. We have to, in our families,
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Speaker 2: in our homes, make Christ the king, have Christ rule
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Speaker 2: in our lives and in our families, and that will
20:13
Speaker 2: transform those around us. It transforms society itself. The other
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Speaker 2: thing is we have no right to see the direct
20:24
Speaker 2: results of our giving ourselves more fully to Christ, but
20:29
Speaker 2: we know that if we do, it will bear its
20:31
Speaker 2: fruit maybe in a time when we'll already be... have
20:37
Speaker 2: gone to the Lord and will have died, but that's
20:43
Speaker 2: what grace is. It continues its work, and we know
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Speaker 2: that we will have done then what our Lord asked
20:50
Speaker 2: us to do. When he was hanging on the cross,
20:55
Speaker 2: he died on the cross, a soldier pierced his heart
20:59
Speaker 2: with a spear. They thought that they finally put an
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Speaker 2: end to this troublemaker to this insurgent or whatever they
21:08
Speaker 2: wanted to call him. But in fact, and that's a
21:13
Speaker 2: great symbolism of the piercing of his heart, this blood
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Speaker 2: and water that flowed out were signs of the life
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Speaker 2: of grace. By that death, he brought the life of
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Speaker 2: grace of the Holy Spirit unceasingly and immeasurably into the world.
21:30
Speaker 2: And who is... better known today, who is more important today,
21:37
Speaker 2: who is better known, who is more loved than our
21:41
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ. And they thought
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Speaker 2: by that ignominious death that they, you know, had destroyed.
21:49
Speaker 2: And that's one of our principal objects of devotion is
21:53
Speaker 2: the crucifix. And people would say, that's a, what would you,
21:58
Speaker 2: how could that be the symbol of your religion, this,
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Speaker 2: our Lord with all of his wounds and and dying
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Speaker 2: or dead on the cross, and it's because that is
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Speaker 2: the way. The cross is our only hope. That is
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Speaker 2: our way to really become of God and to live
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Speaker 2: in his company and his communion.
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Speaker 1: Thank you.
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Speaker 2: Well, but you shouldn't be surprised either that others on
22:32
Speaker 2: your staff especially to the degree that they're united with
22:36
Speaker 2: you in this spiritual combat, which it really is. It's
22:41
Speaker 2: a warfare. And it's not by accident that in the scriptures, oftentimes,
22:48
Speaker 2: our Christian life, our life in God, the metaphors are
22:53
Speaker 2: either of athletic challenges or of war against the good
22:59
Speaker 2: against evil.
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Speaker 1: And so....
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Speaker 2: It shouldn't surprise you that others will be, and that's
23:06
Speaker 2: important for us too, to encourage one another so that
23:09
Speaker 2: people don't get destroyed by that or go off and say, well,
23:13
Speaker 2: I don't want anything more to do with that.
23:18
Speaker 1: I've never asked my audience to do anything for me personally,
23:21
Speaker 1: but I'm going to ask them today to please pray
23:24
Speaker 1: for me, my family, my team, and for you.
23:30
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much, and And I can assure you,
23:33
Speaker 2: I as one, I have been and will continue to
23:37
Speaker 2: pray for you and for your family and for this
23:40
Speaker 2: work that you are doing. Thank you.
23:43
Speaker 1: Thank you. I was hoping you could pray over us
23:48
Speaker 1: after this. Yes. Thank you. So let's move into the Bible.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
23:55
Speaker 1: The first episode of this new journey. Amen. Overview of
24:01
Speaker 1: the Old Testament. What is the Bible?
24:06
Speaker 2: The Bible is the word of God given to us
24:10
Speaker 2: in human language. That's why the Bible is treated with
24:14
Speaker 2: the greatest respect. St. Francis of Assisi said if he
24:18
Speaker 2: found even a scrap of paper that had a verse
24:20
Speaker 2: of the Bible from it, if we find such a
24:24
Speaker 2: piece of paper, we should treat it with the greatest respect.
24:27
Speaker 2: And why? Because God inspires us human authors to write
24:32
Speaker 2: what he wants us to know. And our Lord himself
24:38
Speaker 2: quoted the scriptures from the Old Testament. And of course,
24:41
Speaker 2: the gospel writers were inspired to write his teaching, the
24:48
Speaker 2: story of his saving work, and then of the church
24:53
Speaker 2: in those days after his ascension as the church was
24:55
Speaker 2: in its first days of life. So the Bible is
24:58
Speaker 2: the word of God. given to us through human authors.
25:03
Speaker 2: And the books of the Bible, we have 45 books
25:07
Speaker 2: in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.
25:10
Speaker 2: The Old Testament, sometimes they say there are 44. Some
25:13
Speaker 2: people put two books together, but it's not really important.
25:19
Speaker 2: So we have 72 books, all inspired by God, that
25:23
Speaker 2: over the centuries, the church has recognized as truly the
25:28
Speaker 2: word of God and therefore should be treated as most sacred.
25:33
Speaker 2: The Bible came to birth in the church, first in
25:37
Speaker 2: the Old Testament through the covenants that God formed, first
25:41
Speaker 2: with Adam and Eve when he expelled them from the
25:44
Speaker 2: Garden of Eden after their sin. He promised to send
25:47
Speaker 2: a savior, the son of a woman who would crush
25:55
Speaker 2: the head of Satan. Of course, that is our Lord
25:58
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ and our Blessed Mother. And then that covenant
26:02
Speaker 2: was renewed with Noah after the flood. It was a
26:06
Speaker 2: covenant renewed with King David and, of course, found its
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Speaker 2: fulfillment in the Incarnation and God the Son taking human
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Speaker 2: flesh and Virgin Mary. God the Son is called the
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Speaker 2: Word in the Old Testament. It's understood in the Trinity
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Speaker 2: that that God the Son is the wisdom of God,
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Speaker 2: the Word of God. He reflects the mystery of God
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Speaker 2: to us, and this is seen then in a most
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Speaker 2: believable way in the mystery of the redemptive incarnation that
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Speaker 2: God the Son took our human nature, united it to
26:50
Speaker 2: his divine nature to be the fullness of all that
26:54
Speaker 2: God was trying to reveal to us in in the scriptures.
26:58
Speaker 2: And so it's important to understand the inspiration of the
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Speaker 2: word of God and that nothing in the Bible can
27:07
Speaker 2: lead us astray, that every word that's in the Bible,
27:10
Speaker 2: even the most minute details in some way can lead
27:16
Speaker 2: us closer to God. And that the scriptures are those
27:21
Speaker 2: that the church has recognized over the centuries that are
27:26
Speaker 2: handed down to us. Before we began the show, I
27:29
Speaker 2: was happy to give you the latest English translation of
27:35
Speaker 2: the edition of the Bible produced by the St. Paul
27:39
Speaker 2: Center and Ignatius Press. St. Paul Center is in Steubenville, Ohio.
27:47
Speaker 2: Professor Scott Hahn, who is a great student of the scriptures,
27:54
Speaker 2: together with others, put this translation together. And it's wonderful
27:59
Speaker 2: because it has these notes that help us to understand
28:04
Speaker 2: words or events that might be confusing to us otherwise.
28:10
Speaker 2: But we should every day devote some time, if God
28:15
Speaker 2: gave us his word, and of course in its fullness,
28:20
Speaker 2: in our Lord Jesus Christ and when we ought to
28:25
Speaker 2: read His Word and to make it part of ourselves.
28:29
Speaker 2: And of course, all the books of the Bible are important,
28:36
Speaker 2: but the most important are the Gospels, because they tell
28:40
Speaker 2: us the story of the Word becoming flesh, of the
28:46
Speaker 2: revelation of God reaching its fullness in the coming of
28:50
Speaker 2: our Lord Jesus Christ into our midst. And so we
28:55
Speaker 2: give a special attention to the Gospels. And of course,
28:58
Speaker 2: at every offering of the Holy Mass, a passage of
29:01
Speaker 2: the Gospel is proclaimed. First, a reading either from the
29:05
Speaker 2: Old Testament or from the New Testament, but then always
29:08
Speaker 2: the Gospel. And then what actually happens in the Mass
29:13
Speaker 2: is that, so we have this passage from the Old
29:19
Speaker 2: Testament find its fulfillment in the Gospel, or if it's
29:22
Speaker 2: from the New Testament, St. Paul drawing us more deeply
29:26
Speaker 2: into the mystery. And then we have the Mass in
29:31
Speaker 2: which Christ descends from his place at the right hand
29:36
Speaker 2: of the Father to the altars of our churches and
29:38
Speaker 2: chapels and makes new sacramentally his sacrifice in Calvary. And
29:44
Speaker 2: so whatever is taught to us in the scriptures becomes
29:48
Speaker 2: reality for us as our Lord is present on the
29:52
Speaker 2: altar and then comes to nourish us through the sacred host.
29:58
Speaker 1: How were the books chosen?
30:02
Speaker 2: They were chosen by the priests, by the faithful who
30:11
Speaker 2: read these books and realized, recognized that this was not
30:19
Speaker 2: ordinary writing. And sometimes there was a controversy about one
30:25
Speaker 2: book or another, and then the authority either in the
30:31
Speaker 2: Hebrew Jewish faith, the authorities decided which books were to
30:37
Speaker 2: be recognized as the Word of God and others, perhaps
30:40
Speaker 2: good books, but not the Word of God. And you
30:43
Speaker 2: may know that there's a little difference between what's sometimes
30:48
Speaker 2: referred to as the Protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible.
30:52
Speaker 2: There are seven books that were part of a Greek
30:57
Speaker 2: translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. And some
31:02
Speaker 2: branches of Judaism don't accept those as revealed. They accept
31:05
Speaker 2: them as holy books, but not as revealed. But the
31:08
Speaker 2: church has accepted them, even though they were written in
31:13
Speaker 2: Greek and not Hebrew originally. The church has accepted them
31:20
Speaker 2: as inspired. And there are some very beautiful books and
31:25
Speaker 2: we can understand why the church understood it was the
31:28
Speaker 2: word of God to the book of Tobit, for instance,
31:30
Speaker 2: and also 1 and 2 Maccabees, where it's a wonderful
31:36
Speaker 2: teaching on eternal life, the importance of praying for the dead,
31:40
Speaker 2: and that through our prayers we can make expiation for
31:47
Speaker 2: the temporal punishment that the sins of the dead need
31:53
Speaker 2: yet to remit. And so, but in any case, it
31:59
Speaker 2: was through the, in the church, through the ecumenical councils
32:05
Speaker 2: and so forth, that the books were defined as truly
32:09
Speaker 2: the word of God. So we can rely upon that.
32:16
Speaker 1: Do you know how many, how many books did they
32:21
Speaker 1: sift through to formulate the Bible?
32:25
Speaker 2: I don't actually, I have to confess. I love the
32:31
Speaker 2: scriptures and I, of course, studied them intensely. I'm not
32:37
Speaker 2: what they call a scripture scholar in the sense of
32:39
Speaker 2: an expert, but one thing that is very, how should
32:45
Speaker 2: I say, typical of the scriptures is how many times
32:52
Speaker 2: the books of the Bible make reference to to other
32:55
Speaker 2: books of the Bible. One sees the unity in the
33:00
Speaker 2: whole of the Scriptures, and there is a wonderful unity there.
33:05
Speaker 2: And there are things, for instance, that can seem to
33:08
Speaker 2: us less important. For instance, in the book of Deuteronomy
33:14
Speaker 2: and Leviticus, the law of God, and God is giving
33:16
Speaker 2: very detailed instructions about worship, how the worship should take place,
33:22
Speaker 2: what the vestments of the priest should be, and so forth.
33:26
Speaker 2: And people can think of that as less important, but
33:30
Speaker 2: it's not really because God is manifesting himself to us
33:38
Speaker 2: with his right that we worship him in the way
33:42
Speaker 2: that he teaches us so we don't end up worshiping
33:45
Speaker 2: ourselves or worshiping some demons. And so all of those
33:52
Speaker 2: things have their importance. And of course, There are other
33:56
Speaker 2: things that are more immediately obvious. For instance, our Lord
34:01
Speaker 2: makes reference to the book of Genesis, how God made
34:04
Speaker 2: man and woman, God made man male and female, and
34:10
Speaker 2: what he intended, that a man should take his wife
34:16
Speaker 2: and wife take her husband for life, that the marriage
34:23
Speaker 2: is indissoluble, what God is joined, man must not put asunder.
34:29
Speaker 2: And so that's, of course, a very fundamental, essential teaching.
34:40
Speaker 2: So we see a whole variety in the scriptures, but
34:44
Speaker 2: each part has its importance. But I know a number
34:49
Speaker 2: of books. For instance, there are the Gospels. than the
34:55
Speaker 2: ones that are in the scriptures. And they can be
35:00
Speaker 2: read with profit, but they aren't part of the, the
35:05
Speaker 2: church did not understand that they should be part of
35:08
Speaker 2: the canon, as we call it, the canon of the scriptures.
35:11
Speaker 1: What is the canon of the scriptures?
35:13
Speaker 2: Canon of the scriptures is the list of those books
35:17
Speaker 2: of the Old Testament, 45 or 44, and then the
35:20
Speaker 2: 27 books of the New Testament, that are declared by
35:26
Speaker 2: the Church to be divinely revealed, to be the Word
35:29
Speaker 2: of God.
35:31
Speaker 1: What time span does the Old Testament cover?
35:36
Speaker 2: Well, from the beginning, from creation, it starts with the
35:38
Speaker 2: book of Genesis, right up until the coming of our Lord.
35:45
Speaker 2: The prophets foretold His coming and spoke about it. And
35:51
Speaker 2: then John the Baptist is the last of the prophets now.
35:56
Speaker 2: He did not leave us a book, but he's the
35:58
Speaker 2: last of the Old Testament prophets. He points to our
36:02
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus Christ and said, Behold the Lamb of God.
36:18
Speaker 1: How do you think that before we move strictly Old Testament,
36:23
Speaker 1: how do you think that, how many authors are there?
36:29
Speaker 2: Oh, that some of the books are written by the
36:32
Speaker 2: same author. There'd be more or less 40 or so authors.
36:39
Speaker 2: The five books, first five books called the Pentateuch or
36:41
Speaker 2: the Law, those are often called the books of Moses
36:48
Speaker 2: that Moses wrote them all. We don't necessarily think that
36:52
Speaker 2: Moses wrote all five books. And so there could be
36:56
Speaker 2: the exact number of authors, I wouldn't be sure, but
37:00
Speaker 2: a number of authors.
37:01
Speaker 1: Well, I guess what I'm getting at is several different
37:06
Speaker 1: authors over thousands and thousands of years.
37:09
Speaker 2: Yes.
37:11
Speaker 1: And it formulates one story. Yes. It references itself over 62,000 times.
37:23
Speaker 1: But how do we know this is the Word of
37:31
Speaker 1: God because it's been written by man?
37:35
Speaker 2: Because our Lord himself teaches us that. He says that
37:42
Speaker 2: he has come to fulfill the law and the prophets
37:45
Speaker 2: is referring to the Old Testament. And he tells us,
37:50
Speaker 2: do not think that I have come to destroy the,
37:52
Speaker 2: The Law and Prophets, I've come to fulfill them and
37:55
Speaker 2: insist on attention to the very detail of the Word
38:00
Speaker 2: of God. And then our Lord, acting through His Church,
38:06
Speaker 2: has verified for us that these exact books are divinely inspired.
38:15
Speaker 1: And then one last question before we move on just
38:18
Speaker 1: to the Old Testament. Why does the God of the
38:22
Speaker 1: Old Testament seem so much different than the New Testament?
38:26
Speaker 2: Well, because God hadn't yet taken our human flesh to
38:33
Speaker 2: redeem us. He was bringing the people along, and we
38:38
Speaker 2: must not forget those people were not unlike ourselves. He
38:42
Speaker 2: refers to them as stiff-necked. Remember, we get various stories
38:46
Speaker 2: in the Bible, but take, for instance, when God brought
38:49
Speaker 2: the people out of slavery in Egypt, and they were
38:52
Speaker 2: in the desert on their way to the Promised Land.
38:56
Speaker 2: Moses was called up by God to receive the Ten Commandments.
39:01
Speaker 2: Down below, what are they doing? They're molding a golden calf,
39:07
Speaker 2: taking their jewelry to make a calf to worship. Can
39:10
Speaker 2: you imagine? God brought them out of slavery, brought them
39:16
Speaker 2: It's bringing them out of the way of the promised land,
39:18
Speaker 2: and they turn to idolatry. So God is bringing the
39:23
Speaker 2: people along. And finally, and so the God of the
39:28
Speaker 2: Old Testament rightly can seem a bit harsh to us,
39:34
Speaker 2: but he had to purify this people in order that
39:40
Speaker 2: they would be ready to receive the Savior. Our Lord comes,
39:46
Speaker 2: and of course, he is God himself, and you know,
39:50
Speaker 2: divine nature united to our human nature in the one
39:53
Speaker 2: person of God the Son. And that gives us all hope.
40:02
Speaker 2: That gives us assurance. People haven't ceased to be sinful.
40:06
Speaker 2: The effects of original sin continue, but we know now
40:11
Speaker 2: that we have the grace of Christ to help us
40:14
Speaker 2: to overcome the temptations to sin, to to overcome the
40:19
Speaker 2: temptations to evil, to pursue that which is true and
40:24
Speaker 2: good and beautiful. And so it brings all of the
40:33
Speaker 2: joy and positive aspect of God revealing himself in the
40:37
Speaker 2: Old Testament. And so God isn't different. It's simply that
40:43
Speaker 2: he has brought his plan to its fullness.
40:49
Speaker 1: Let's move on to strictly the Old Testament. What does
40:56
Speaker 1: testament mean?
40:57
Speaker 2: Testament means covenant. And all the books of the Bible
41:02
Speaker 2: are an expression of the covenant that God made with man.
41:07
Speaker 2: A covenant, an agreement, a sacred agreement where God promises
41:13
Speaker 2: to be our God, to save us, And we, accepting
41:23
Speaker 2: that covenant, pledge ourselves to be his loyal sons and daughters.
41:30
Speaker 2: And so every book of the Bible, beginning with the
41:35
Speaker 2: story of Adam and Eve, with the creation, God confides
41:40
Speaker 2: to Adam and Eve the stewardship of the earth. He's
41:43
Speaker 2: created this beautiful world, but he creates this creature the
41:48
Speaker 2: scriptures of Genesis makes it clear. One creature, one earthly
41:53
Speaker 2: creature is created in his own image and likeness. What
41:57
Speaker 2: does that mean? It means that God intends us to,
42:01
Speaker 2: to be in communion with him, that we, we share
42:05
Speaker 2: in his own, his own life. And he says, let
42:09
Speaker 2: us make man in our own image and likeness. And so, uh, the, um,
42:21
Speaker 2: From that moment, there is a bond between God and man.
42:25
Speaker 2: Now Adam and Eve sinned. The serpent came, tempted Eve,
42:30
Speaker 2: and then she tempted Adam. They both fell for the
42:34
Speaker 2: lie that the serpent told them. God had only asked
42:38
Speaker 2: him not to eat the fruit of a single tree.
42:43
Speaker 2: And that was a sign of the trust And they
42:47
Speaker 2: broke the trust. But even from that moment, they, of course,
42:52
Speaker 2: lost their God's friendship. But he promised already that moment.
42:56
Speaker 2: He made a covenant with them that he would send.
42:59
Speaker 2: He said to the serpent, I'll put enmity between you
43:02
Speaker 2: and the woman, between her seed and your seed. He
43:06
Speaker 2: will crush your head. In other words, the son of
43:09
Speaker 2: the woman. And that indicates to us the central importance
43:15
Speaker 2: of the Incarnation. that God united himself, his divine nature
43:22
Speaker 2: to our human nature in the womb of a woman.
43:25
Speaker 2: That's why the Blessed Virgin Mary is so important in
43:28
Speaker 2: our faith, because she is that instrument through which God
43:35
Speaker 2: came into the world. She's not mother of God in
43:39
Speaker 2: the sense that she's mother of his divine nature, no,
43:43
Speaker 2: but she is his mother when he unites us His
43:47
Speaker 2: divine nature to our human nature. And then throughout the
43:52
Speaker 2: Old Testament, then, this covenant is renewed. We know the
43:56
Speaker 2: story of Noah on the ark. We know the story
44:00
Speaker 2: of King David. We know of Abraham, of course, too,
44:06
Speaker 2: of course, is very important. The promise God made to
44:08
Speaker 2: Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the
44:13
Speaker 2: sands on the on the shore.
44:19
Speaker 1: Why did he pick.
44:24
Speaker 2: Noah? Noah was faithful to God. People were acting in
44:32
Speaker 2: a very sinful way, but Noah and his family were
44:37
Speaker 2: striving to follow the law of God. And so God.
44:46
Speaker 2: Told him what he planned to do and instructed him
44:49
Speaker 2: to build the ark in order to save. God would
44:51
Speaker 2: never destroy what is good. And so this faithful family,
44:56
Speaker 2: Noah and his family, and then they took some of
45:00
Speaker 2: all the animals with them. So God, in punishing the
45:05
Speaker 2: people by the flood, punishing them for their sins at
45:08
Speaker 2: the same time, saves the goodness of his creation represented
45:13
Speaker 2: in Noah and his family.
45:17
Speaker 1: I know I talk a lot about preparedness on this show.
45:21
Speaker 1: Most of the time, that conversation's about what gun you're carrying,
45:25
Speaker 1: what knife you have, what your EDC is. But here's
45:28
Speaker 1: the reality. People bleed out from injuries they could have
45:31
Speaker 1: survived all the time. And it's not because nobody wanted
45:34
Speaker 1: to help them. It's because nobody had a tourniquet on
45:38
Speaker 1: them when it happened. It's in the truck. It's in
45:41
Speaker 1: a kid at home. It's somewhere other than being on
45:44
Speaker 1: your person. And that does nothing for you in a
45:47
Speaker 1: parking lot or out on a trail. That's why if
45:50
Speaker 1: you've been watching this show for a while, you've seen
45:53
Speaker 1: me hand these, these tourniquets right here, out to guests.
45:58
Speaker 1: This is the ETQ Gen 2 from Snake Staff Systems.
46:03
Speaker 1: And it's probably the most important thing I carry every day.
46:07
Speaker 1: It's about 65% smaller than a standard tourniquet. It rides
46:11
Speaker 1: in your pocket or on a belt and you forget
46:14
Speaker 1: it's even there. And because of how it's built, it
46:17
Speaker 1: works on smaller limbs too. That matters if you've got kids,
46:21
Speaker 1: and it matters if you're out with your dog. I
46:23
Speaker 1: think everybody should carry a tourniquet. A bad bleed can
46:27
Speaker 1: take a life in minutes, faster than any ambulance is
46:31
Speaker 1: getting to you. And the only version of this that
46:34
Speaker 1: actually works is the one that's on you. One warning,
46:37
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you, the internet is full
46:41
Speaker 1: of cheap, Chinese-made tourniquets and counterfeits. They're on all the websites.
46:46
Speaker 1: They're cheap. They look legit. They're not. And this isn't
46:51
Speaker 1: the type of thing you want to gamble with. Snake
46:53
Speaker 1: Staff is made in the USA. Get the real thing
46:56
Speaker 1: at snakestaffsystems.com. They're on Amazon now, too. Get one for
47:01
Speaker 1: yourself and one for the people you love. Again, that's snakestaffsystems.com.
47:11
Speaker 1: How did he know... How did anybody know the law
47:14
Speaker 1: of God?
47:16
Speaker 2: Because already then, God was speaking to them through the patriarchs,
47:23
Speaker 2: through the religious leaders. We know about some of the
47:33
Speaker 2: figures from the scriptures themselves, but God was revealing himself
47:38
Speaker 2: speaking to them, and so they They knew and they trusted.
47:44
Speaker 2: I mean, Noah could have said, well, that's crazy and
47:49
Speaker 2: not built the ark and so forth. But no, he
47:53
Speaker 2: prayed and he understood that God had this plan to
47:59
Speaker 2: save the people and that he was part of it.
48:01
Speaker 2: Same way, too, that God instructed Abraham to leave Sodom
48:09
Speaker 2: and Gomorrah to go away and to a land where
48:15
Speaker 2: they could live in fidelity to God. And Abraham trusted,
48:20
Speaker 2: and his faith was always rewarded. The same way, too,
48:27
Speaker 2: Abraham and Sarah are living in the land of Ur
48:33
Speaker 2: of the Chaldees, and they have these three visitors come
48:40
Speaker 2: to visit with Abraham to renew the covenant with him.
48:44
Speaker 2: We always understand the three visitors to represent the three
48:48
Speaker 2: persons in the Holy Trinity. But there too, God promised
48:56
Speaker 2: Abraham he'd have all these descendants, but he didn't even
49:00
Speaker 2: have a son. His wife was sterile, Sarah. And the
49:04
Speaker 2: three visitors said, no, your wife is going to conceive
49:07
Speaker 2: a child. And she overheard this. She was preparing some
49:14
Speaker 2: hospitality for them. And she laughed and said, that she
49:20
Speaker 2: was way beyond the age of childbearing, and they reprimanded her,
49:27
Speaker 2: and she did indeed have a son. Abraham, Isaac, and
49:34
Speaker 2: God tested Abraham by... asking him to sacrifice his son, Isaac,
49:42
Speaker 2: as a sign of his fidelity, of his obedience. And Abraham,
49:49
Speaker 2: who is heartbroken, is taking his son up to offer
49:55
Speaker 2: him in sacrifice. The son is on his back, the wood,
50:01
Speaker 2: which he was to be immolated. We see it as
50:06
Speaker 2: a sign of the cross. And at the moment when
50:09
Speaker 2: he was going to do what he understood God's will,
50:12
Speaker 2: God intervened and said, no. And Isaac was saved. And
50:16
Speaker 2: of course, he had Jacob and then the 12 sons
50:22
Speaker 2: of Jacob. And the story goes on, so to speak.
50:27
Speaker 2: But in all of it, the 12 sons of Jacob,
50:35
Speaker 2: the sons are are envious of their brother Joseph because
50:39
Speaker 2: the father had a special affection for him. So they
50:44
Speaker 2: sold him into slavery in Egypt. And then comes the
50:49
Speaker 2: famine and they have to go to Egypt to try
50:52
Speaker 2: to get some food to live on. In the meantime,
50:55
Speaker 2: their brother Joseph, who had such extraordinary gifts, the Pharaoh
51:01
Speaker 2: of Egypt recognized them and he was practically the governor
51:05
Speaker 2: of the whole country. And so these brothers come and
51:13
Speaker 2: Joseph's talking to them and they don't know, they don't
51:16
Speaker 2: recognize who he is. But he finally breaks down because he,
51:23
Speaker 2: and then he says to him, you know, you intended
51:27
Speaker 2: to do something evil, but God used what you did
51:32
Speaker 2: to save you. And then he, He gave them the
51:36
Speaker 2: food that they needed to survive. And so he becomes
51:40
Speaker 2: a figure to us too. We see that how God
51:43
Speaker 2: is always at work and is always bringing good even
51:46
Speaker 2: out of evil situations. He's always at work to accomplish
51:54
Speaker 2: the salvation he wants for us.
52:02
Speaker 1: How does the Old Testament line up, especially the creation?
52:06
Speaker 1: Does it line up at all with theories like the
52:08
Speaker 1: Big Bang, dinosaurs, things like that?
52:13
Speaker 2: There can't be, whatever is scientifically proven can never be
52:18
Speaker 2: in contradiction with the Bible. And so that isn't a
52:24
Speaker 2: major concern of ours. Sometimes people, for instance, people say, well,
52:30
Speaker 2: evolution proves that the book of Genesis is false. Well,
52:35
Speaker 2: that isn't true. First of all, evolution is a theory.
52:38
Speaker 2: This is not scientifically demonstrated. And the story of creation is,
52:48
Speaker 2: first of all, it is the word of God. We
52:51
Speaker 2: know its truth. We interpret it according to the form
52:55
Speaker 2: of literature, which it is. But what it tells us
52:59
Speaker 2: is that all of creation is the order in it
53:03
Speaker 2: and so forth, comes from the hand of God. It's
53:06
Speaker 2: not some kind of accident that took place. And that
53:12
Speaker 2: in that creation, there's one creature who is radically distinct
53:19
Speaker 2: from the others because no creature evolves with a soul,
53:28
Speaker 2: which we have with an intellect and will, which we
53:31
Speaker 2: have in us. And all the scientific studies that are done,
53:37
Speaker 2: it's clear that this is a distinct gift which only
53:42
Speaker 2: God himself could give. I remember when I was a
53:45
Speaker 2: young man and studying philosophy, there was a theory that
53:49
Speaker 2: people have always tried to discover that some animal had
53:58
Speaker 2: intellect and will. And I remember there was a.
54:02
Speaker 2: Some people were saying that the bee, because the bee
54:06
Speaker 2: goes out and finds the nectar, comes back to the
54:11
Speaker 2: hive and communicates to the other bees where it is,
54:15
Speaker 2: and they go and it's a kind of instinctual behavior.
54:22
Speaker 2: But what they discovered was that even if they're were
54:30
Speaker 2: no other bees there to communicate with. The bee did this,
54:33
Speaker 2: was just instinctual behavior, went and then, and so there wasn't,
54:39
Speaker 2: it wasn't intelligent communication. There was some kind of communication,
54:43
Speaker 2: but not intelligent and willful communication. I remember there was
54:51
Speaker 2: a famous book written at that time by, he was
54:54
Speaker 2: a Jewish philosopher, but I believe, He became Catholic, if
54:58
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, a man by the name of Marner Adler.
55:02
Speaker 2: And he wrote a book, The Difference of Man and
55:04
Speaker 2: the Difference It Makes. And so the difference of man
55:09
Speaker 2: is that we are essentially related to God. And that
55:12
Speaker 2: makes all the difference. And we could say in a
55:17
Speaker 2: certain way, the whole of the Old Testament is showing
55:21
Speaker 2: us this truth. And get back to your original question,
55:27
Speaker 2: That's why it's called a testament. It's the old covenant,
55:32
Speaker 2: the first covenant, which finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ,
55:36
Speaker 2: the new covenant, the new testament. And really, it's one covenant.
55:43
Speaker 2: It's always God's relationship with us from the moment of creation.
55:48
Speaker 2: He chose man for this very particular relationship with him.
55:57
Speaker 1: How many covenants are in the Old Testament?
56:01
Speaker 2: At least four. It's the same covenant, but our Lord
56:06
Speaker 2: keeps renewing it. The first gospel or the first announcement
56:13
Speaker 2: is with Adam and Eve. You have Noah. You have Abraham.
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Speaker 2: Then you have the Mosaic Covenant and David... That's five.
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Speaker 2: I think five would be the right, correct number.
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Speaker 1: Who was David?
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Speaker 2: David was the people at a certain point, they saw
56:39
Speaker 2: the people around them had kings. And before, our Lord
56:45
Speaker 2: had always governed the people through judges. They were people
56:51
Speaker 2: endowed with special wisdom by God to lead the people.
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Speaker 2: For instance, Samuel. And there were also Judith, others. And
57:05
Speaker 2: so God gave them a king, Saul. And Saul's... Excuse me.
57:18
Speaker 2: I'm getting mixed up. Yeah, Saul. In any case... But
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Speaker 2: the king was corrupt. So David became king when he
57:35
Speaker 2: destroyed Goliath, the head of the Philistines who were coming
57:42
Speaker 2: to destroy the people. He killed him with a slingshot.
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Speaker 2: He was a young man, so he became very popular people.
57:51
Speaker 2: So he succeeded that king. And God promised him that
57:59
Speaker 2: it would be through his descendant that he would save
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Speaker 2: the people and that the people would become great in
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Speaker 2: all the earth. And our Lord Jesus Christ, through St. Joseph,
58:18
Speaker 2: is a descendant of of David. The Gospel of Matthew
58:31
Speaker 2: begins with a genealogy that shows all the generations from
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Speaker 2: Adam and Eve down to our Lord himself. And so
58:45
Speaker 2: that David himself sadly fell into sin too, but he
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Speaker 2: regained repented of it, and our Lord forgave him. But
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Speaker 2: through his line, our Lord was born in human flesh.
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Speaker 2: Of course, as God, he is from all time. his
59:10
Speaker 2: divine nature.
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Speaker 1: And back to Abraham, I believe you mentioned that the
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Speaker 1: covenant from Abraham was the promised people, the God's chosen people.
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Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Yes, we, in fact, we refer to ourselves
59:35
Speaker 2: as sons of Abraham because of his faith in God's
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Speaker 2: promise of a son, that God would continue to generate
59:47
Speaker 2: the family. And Abraham trusted in God's promise against, there
59:56
Speaker 2: was no reason for him to trust no human reason,
1:00:00
Speaker 2: no earthly reason, but he trusted, and so Abraham is
1:00:05
Speaker 2: a very important figure to us. And of course, it's
1:00:10
Speaker 2: through Abraham that we arrive, through the genealogy and so forth,
1:00:18
Speaker 2: we arrive at our Lord. And it is our Lord
1:00:23
Speaker 2: who makes, fulfills the promise that the children of Abraham
1:00:28
Speaker 2: are as numerous as the as sand on the sea.
1:00:37
Speaker 2: In other words, through our Lord Jesus Christ, all men
1:00:40
Speaker 2: are called to be saved if only they accept from
1:00:45
Speaker 2: him the gift of faith and.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Follow him. So are the descendants of Abraham the Jewish people?
1:00:58
Speaker 2: Yes, the Jewish people are the descendants of Abraham. And
1:01:05
Speaker 2: we ourselves, as Christians, we call ourselves spiritual Semites. Semite
1:01:11
Speaker 2: was another term used for the Jewish people because God
1:01:18
Speaker 2: chose the Jewish nation, the Hebrews, to present him to
1:01:28
Speaker 2: the world. God chose Hebrews, the Hebrew Virgin Mary, to
1:01:41
Speaker 2: be the first tabernacle, the first place which he came
1:01:45
Speaker 2: to dwell in our human flesh. And so it is
1:01:49
Speaker 2: the vocation of the Jewish people to present the Savior
1:01:53
Speaker 2: to the world. And that is what Our Blessed Mother does.
1:01:58
Speaker 2: That's what St. Joseph does. And so we have a
1:02:04
Speaker 2: great reverence. Of course, we share the scriptures with the
1:02:10
Speaker 2: Jewish people. Now, when asked to understand the difference between
1:02:16
Speaker 2: the Jewish faith and what might be other political realities,
1:02:21
Speaker 2: and I don't intend to get into that at all, but.
1:02:26
Speaker 2: The Jewish faith is contained in those books of the
1:02:29
Speaker 2: Old Testament. And that's part of our heritage. An essential
1:02:34
Speaker 2: part of our heritage is the Old Testament fulfilled in
1:02:39
Speaker 2: our Lord Jesus Christ.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: At what point did, I mean, if we all came
1:02:45
Speaker 1: from Adam and Eve, at what point did the split happen?
1:02:51
Speaker 1: Or was it just the descendants? There was no split
1:02:55
Speaker 1: until Abraham, and then it was his descendants. Was that
1:02:58
Speaker 1: the split?
1:02:59
Speaker 2: From Adam and Eve, there are two genealogies in the Gospels,
1:03:06
Speaker 2: one in Matthew and one in Luke. And one in
1:03:09
Speaker 2: Luke draws out more. Basically, there are infidelities, numerous infidelities
1:03:18
Speaker 2: in this long, long history. But basically from Adam and
1:03:24
Speaker 2: Eve to John the Baptist and the coming of our Lord,
1:03:31
Speaker 2: there is no split. It's a constant handing down from
1:03:37
Speaker 2: one generation to the next. And that really is from
1:03:42
Speaker 2: the time of Abraham.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: Okay. The Ten Commandments. What is the significance of those?
1:03:51
Speaker 2: A tremendous significance. So God, the people were in slavery
1:04:00
Speaker 2: in Egypt, and God sent them this tremendous leader, Moses,
1:04:08
Speaker 2: who brought them out by God's hand out of the
1:04:13
Speaker 2: land of Egypt, the famous story of the plagues. God had, Abraham, Moses,
1:04:20
Speaker 2: excuse me, went to Pharaoh and told him that God
1:04:23
Speaker 2: wanted his people freed. And Pharaoh equivocated. He said he would,
1:04:31
Speaker 2: then he wouldn't. And there were various plagues that God sent.
1:04:34
Speaker 2: And the last one was the Passover when the angel
1:04:42
Speaker 2: of death came and the firstborn of all the families
1:04:47
Speaker 2: was those families that did not have the blood of
1:04:51
Speaker 2: the Paschal lamb on their doorpost were killed. And at that,
1:04:55
Speaker 2: Pharaoh let them go. And they came to the Red Sea.
1:05:02
Speaker 2: And God, by a miracle, dried the Red Sea so
1:05:08
Speaker 2: they could pass through it. And Pharaoh at that point
1:05:12
Speaker 2: decides that he made a mistake letting them go and
1:05:18
Speaker 2: sends his armies after him. And at that, the sea
1:05:21
Speaker 2: returns and all of Pharaoh's army is destroyed. And the
1:05:25
Speaker 2: people are free, so they're out in the desert. And
1:05:29
Speaker 2: then God, in his desire to for their salvation, to
1:05:39
Speaker 2: bring them in the promised land, he calls Moses up
1:05:42
Speaker 2: to the height of Mount Sinai and there gives him
1:05:50
Speaker 2: Ten Commandments. Basically, this is the order of our relationship
1:06:00
Speaker 2: with God, with one another, and with the world. So
1:06:05
Speaker 2: the first three commandments all have to do with our
1:06:07
Speaker 2: relationship to God, that we worship Him alone, we don't
1:06:11
Speaker 2: have idolatry, that we honor His holy name, we aren't blasphemers,
1:06:20
Speaker 2: that we keep holy His day. Even as from the
1:06:25
Speaker 2: story of creation, the seventh day is a day of rest,
1:06:32
Speaker 2: of giving thanks to God for all of creation. So,
1:06:39
Speaker 2: then the next commandments have to do with the family.
1:06:43
Speaker 2: Honor your father and your mother, and by extension, our
1:06:47
Speaker 2: relationship in the wider community, the virtue of patriotism that
1:06:52
Speaker 2: we honor also our homeland as a place that makes
1:06:56
Speaker 2: it possible for families to exist and to prosper. Then
1:07:03
Speaker 2: the commandments not to commit, not to kill, not to
1:07:06
Speaker 2: commit adultery, not to lie, not to covet your neighbor's
1:07:13
Speaker 2: wife or your neighbor's goods. And those commandments remain for
1:07:20
Speaker 2: us today. Our Lord himself, when he had the Sermon
1:07:23
Speaker 2: on the Mount, this is found in this very significant
1:07:29
Speaker 2: passage in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapters 5
1:07:34
Speaker 2: to 7. Our Lord gives a Sermon on the Mount
1:07:37
Speaker 2: beginning with the Beatitudes, but in that Sermon on the Mount,
1:07:41
Speaker 2: he confirms the Ten Commandments that... that he has come
1:07:48
Speaker 2: to fulfill them, not to eliminate them. Some people say, oh,
1:07:54
Speaker 2: now we have the love of Christ, therefore we don't
1:07:57
Speaker 2: have to worry about the sixth commandment, for instance, you're
1:08:02
Speaker 2: not committed adultery, all the sins connected with the abuse
1:08:06
Speaker 2: of our human sexuality. But our Lord makes it clear, no,
1:08:10
Speaker 2: those commandments are as true today as ever. only that
1:08:15
Speaker 2: they should find their perfect expression in pure and selfless love.
1:08:21
Speaker 2: So the commandments, it's called the Decalogue. They are considered
1:08:27
Speaker 2: to be the rule for our lives, the rule that
1:08:34
Speaker 2: leads us to lead a good and holy life.
1:08:39
Speaker 1: Have there been any mistakes? found in the Old Testament?
1:08:43
Speaker 1: Any discrepancies?
1:08:45
Speaker 2: There are a couple of passages that talk about having
1:08:49
Speaker 2: to do with natural phenomena. I'm an old man and
1:08:54
Speaker 2: I'm not remembering exactly the passages. One was about the
1:08:59
Speaker 2: movement of the sun and so forth but there are
1:09:03
Speaker 2: mistakes in the sense that the passages involved weren't meant
1:09:07
Speaker 2: to be teaching earth science and so no we can
1:09:19
Speaker 2: save There are not mistakes in the Bible, no.
1:09:23
Speaker 1: How much of it does line up with science?
1:09:29
Speaker 2: It all does eventually. If you understand the word of
1:09:34
Speaker 2: God correctly, interpret it correctly, and if the science is
1:09:40
Speaker 2: true science, we always have to keep in mind, sometimes
1:09:45
Speaker 2: somebody can come along and say they're a scientist, They
1:09:48
Speaker 2: tell you things that are not true. So it has
1:09:51
Speaker 2: to be things that are scientifically demonstrated. There won't be
1:09:55
Speaker 2: any contradiction.
1:09:57
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Speaker 1: Cardinal Burke, we're back from the break. I wanted to
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Speaker 1: kick this segment off with why were some of the
1:13:01
Speaker 1: books removed for the Protestant Bible in the Old Testament?
1:13:07
Speaker 2: They were part of, they weren't, not for all the
1:13:14
Speaker 2: Jewish people. Some accepted these seven books, some did not.
1:13:19
Speaker 2: And The principal reason, in short, was that the whole
1:13:26
Speaker 2: Old Testament was written in Hebrew, except for these books.
1:13:31
Speaker 2: And then, let me go back. The whole Old Testament
1:13:35
Speaker 2: was written in Hebrew. Then there was a translation into
1:13:42
Speaker 2: Greek done by, they say, 72 scholars. It was called
1:13:47
Speaker 2: the Septuagint. And it's the word of God, but translated
1:13:53
Speaker 2: into Greek. And in that edition of Septuagint, these seven
1:14:00
Speaker 2: books were included. But they don't have a Hebrew original.
1:14:07
Speaker 2: They were written originally in Greek. And so for some
1:14:12
Speaker 2: of the Jewish people, they excluded them because they didn't
1:14:18
Speaker 2: have a, a Greek original, excuse me, a Hebrew original.
1:14:23
Speaker 2: But the church said, no, they don't have a Hebrew original,
1:14:30
Speaker 2: but these are divinely inspired books. And so they were
1:14:37
Speaker 2: included in what is now what we call the canon.
1:14:41
Speaker 2: As I was saying before, the official list of the
1:14:45
Speaker 2: books of the Bible, these seven books are also included.
1:14:49
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. I wanted to dive a little bit more
1:14:55
Speaker 1: into the covenants.
1:14:56
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:14:57
Speaker 1: The covenants with Noah, Abraham, David, and Moses. And I
1:15:02
Speaker 1: wanted to start with Noah, and if you could explain
1:15:06
Speaker 1: it as if it's somebody's first time ever hearing this.
1:15:10
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, this is early on in the book of Genesis.
1:15:16
Speaker 2: There was Christ, Adam, and Eve, and then the first generations,
1:15:20
Speaker 2: and then comes the time of Noah, and the scriptures
1:15:25
Speaker 2: tell us that God looked upon man and the way
1:15:32
Speaker 2: he was living, and he was doing everything but what
1:15:37
Speaker 2: God wanted. And the scriptures say that, not literally, it
1:15:46
Speaker 2: shouldn't be interpreted, but that It made God sorry that
1:15:49
Speaker 2: he had made man. In other words, not that he
1:15:53
Speaker 2: would ever be sorry for having created this wonderful creature,
1:15:57
Speaker 2: but because man has free will, he can go away
1:16:03
Speaker 2: from God. And at that time, clearly, people were living
1:16:08
Speaker 2: and doing very immoral things. Well, we shouldn't. be so
1:16:15
Speaker 2: surprised because we have a lot of things going on
1:16:17
Speaker 2: today in our world that are pretty terrible.
1:16:21
Speaker 1: Are there similarities? Yes. What are some of those similarities?
1:16:27
Speaker 2: Those similarities would be violations of our human nature as
1:16:35
Speaker 2: male and female, violations of the....
1:16:41
Speaker 1: Transgenderism.
1:16:42
Speaker 2: That would be.
1:16:44
Speaker 2: A clear example, they didn't have the capacity to do
1:16:51
Speaker 2: all these terrible surgeries and so forth to try to, well,
1:16:55
Speaker 2: to mutilate somebody, try to make a man into a
1:16:58
Speaker 2: woman and vice versa. But there are other, I guess
1:17:03
Speaker 2: a simple way to put it, unnatural relationships or relationships
1:17:09
Speaker 2: that violated the unity and the indissolubility of the marital
1:17:13
Speaker 2: bond adultery, or just sexual activity outside of marriage, because
1:17:21
Speaker 2: sexual union is expression of the bond, the exclusive bond
1:17:27
Speaker 2: of marriage. And to have sexual union with someone who's
1:17:32
Speaker 2: not your wife is a grave sin. So God saw this,
1:17:41
Speaker 2: what was going on. And of course, Other things, too, people, dishonesty,
1:17:48
Speaker 2: abusing people for one's own gratification and so forth, could
1:17:54
Speaker 2: be also done in economic affairs and so forth. So
1:18:01
Speaker 2: God saw this, but he saw that Noah and his
1:18:05
Speaker 2: family were living rightly, were living in.
1:18:13
Speaker 2: And truth according to the way God made us. And
1:18:19
Speaker 2: so he called upon Noah to build the ark and
1:18:24
Speaker 2: to save, as I was saying before, what was good,
1:18:29
Speaker 2: the good that he had created. Now, of course, this
1:18:36
Speaker 2: was before the Ten Commandments. Noah comes before Moses. But
1:18:41
Speaker 2: I would like to make a point here, if I may,
1:18:43
Speaker 2: and that is that God made us in.
1:18:50
Speaker 2: His own image and likeness, with intelligence and free will,
1:18:55
Speaker 2: and he wrote on the human heart, we use that image,
1:18:59
Speaker 2: his law. In other words, if he made us in
1:19:02
Speaker 2: that way, he made us to live in accord with
1:19:07
Speaker 2: our true nature, and not in accord with idolatry or sinfulness.
1:19:15
Speaker 2: And so we call that the natural law, that its
1:19:20
Speaker 2: expression is found in the Ten Commandments, but that every man,
1:19:29
Speaker 2: even if he doesn't know the Ten Commandments, if he
1:19:33
Speaker 2: is in communication with his heart, with his deepest being,
1:19:39
Speaker 2: He knows, for instance, that human life is inviolable. He
1:19:46
Speaker 2: knows that human sexuality is intended to form the bond
1:19:52
Speaker 2: of marriage and for the family. And he knows that
1:19:56
Speaker 2: God is to be worshipped, as our Lord says, in
1:20:00
Speaker 2: spirit and in truth. And we see this, that people eventually,
1:20:05
Speaker 2: when they're told about the faith and so forth, they
1:20:08
Speaker 2: understand that this is the truth about themselves. And so
1:20:13
Speaker 2: in any case, Noah and his sons, they were living
1:20:18
Speaker 2: according to the natural law, to that law that God
1:20:20
Speaker 2: had written on their hearts. And so God called upon
1:20:24
Speaker 2: them to build the ark and to save his people.
1:20:29
Speaker 2: And so the people of God continued, even though this
1:20:33
Speaker 2: flood destroyed everything, including all the people who who continued,
1:20:38
Speaker 2: even though Moses was building the ark and so forth,
1:20:42
Speaker 2: they continued to carry on, as we say, as if
1:20:45
Speaker 2: there were no tomorrow. And they were all killed by
1:20:49
Speaker 2: the flood.
1:20:52
Speaker 1: So the natural law is God is to be worshipped. Yes.
1:20:58
Speaker 1: Human life is invaluable. And sexuality is for procreation in
1:21:02
Speaker 1: the family unit. That's right. And so what did God
1:21:06
Speaker 1: promise Noah?
1:21:07
Speaker 2: God promised him that he would have descendants and that
1:21:12
Speaker 2: they would have life and that they would enjoy his
1:21:17
Speaker 2: friendship forever. And in fact, he kept that promise.
1:21:22
Speaker 1: He did keep that promise. What about the covenant with Abraham?
1:21:31
Speaker 2: There, Abraham was living in the, land of Sodom and Gomorrah,
1:21:39
Speaker 2: and there.
1:21:42
Speaker 1: What was Sodom and Gomorrah?
1:21:45
Speaker 2: Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities, and the people there
1:21:50
Speaker 2: began to live in a godless way, and especially there
1:21:54
Speaker 2: was homosexual activity. They were a natural attraction between people
1:22:02
Speaker 2: of the same sex, and then they would even abuse
1:22:06
Speaker 2: people who would come People would be passing through, offer
1:22:11
Speaker 2: them hospitality, but with the intention to abuse them sexually,
1:22:17
Speaker 2: to have relations, unnatural relations with them. And so God
1:22:24
Speaker 2: told Abraham to leave Sodom and Gomorrah with Lot. And
1:22:30
Speaker 2: so they... They fled and God led him into the
1:22:44
Speaker 2: land of Ur of the Chaldees. His present situation in
1:22:49
Speaker 2: Iraq is so sad for us because that's where they went.
1:22:54
Speaker 2: The Chaldeans became the Chaldean, Chaldea, and today is Iraq.
1:23:02
Speaker 2: But in there, God promised Abraham a son, which he
1:23:11
Speaker 2: didn't have. Lot was his nephew. And from that son
1:23:18
Speaker 2: would come a people a greater number than anyone could imagine.
1:23:27
Speaker 2: And so, as I was mentioning, Abraham's wife, who was
1:23:33
Speaker 2: far beyond childbearing age, She thought that this was some
1:23:38
Speaker 2: kind of joke, if you might say. But no, it wasn't.
1:23:43
Speaker 2: She did. She had a son, Isaac. And Isaac had
1:23:51
Speaker 2: a son, Jacob. The covenant keeps coming through. And then
1:23:59
Speaker 2: Jacob had 12 sons. And it was... Anyway, the whole
1:24:06
Speaker 2: genealogy continues. And indeed, from Abraham comes this, what today
1:24:13
Speaker 2: is the church, all those who have come to life
1:24:18
Speaker 2: in Christ through baptism and who become more numerous than
1:24:28
Speaker 2: we can imagine. Now they're... there are still a lot
1:24:34
Speaker 2: of people who do not yet know Christ. And there
1:24:39
Speaker 2: are sadly people who have known Christ and then have
1:24:42
Speaker 2: gone away from him. And so the church is essentially
1:24:46
Speaker 2: missionary in the sense that she's constantly wanting to bring Christ,
1:24:51
Speaker 2: to bring that to fulfillment, that promise of God to
1:24:59
Speaker 2: make a great nation that Christ who is the king
1:25:02
Speaker 2: of the universe by his saving work, would reign in
1:25:06
Speaker 2: the hearts of all men.
1:25:10
Speaker 1: How did he appear to Abraham?
1:25:12
Speaker 2: He appeared as three visitors, mysterious visitors. Often there's a
1:25:17
Speaker 2: famous Russian icon of the three visitors to Abraham, and
1:25:24
Speaker 2: they say there were three angels. In some way, they
1:25:29
Speaker 2: represented the Holy Trinity. And they came to Abraham. He
1:25:35
Speaker 2: showed them hospitality. And he recognized them as truly unusual visitors.
1:25:44
Speaker 2: And it was through them that God promised him the son,
1:25:51
Speaker 2: who was Isaac.
1:25:53
Speaker 1: How did he appear to Noah?
1:25:57
Speaker 2: With... No, the scriptures simply say God spoke to him.
1:26:01
Speaker 2: I don't recall that it was more than that, that
1:26:09
Speaker 2: God spoke to him and didn't say that he appeared
1:26:12
Speaker 2: to him in the sense in some kind of particular way,
1:26:15
Speaker 2: but in some way he communicated to him what he
1:26:19
Speaker 2: needed to do.
1:26:22
Speaker 1: Did he fulfill his promise to Abraham?
1:26:25
Speaker 2: Yes. We see in the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
1:26:35
Speaker 2: we refer to, in fact, we refer to God as
1:26:41
Speaker 2: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because through that
1:26:45
Speaker 2: line came then David, who was the house of Judah,
1:26:56
Speaker 2: and And then through the house of David came our Lord.
1:27:04
Speaker 1: Are you seeing similarities in today as they did in
1:27:09
Speaker 1: Sodom and Gomorrah as well?
1:27:11
Speaker 2: Yes, yes. It's very clear to us, or to me
1:27:18
Speaker 2: I should say, and to others as well, that.
1:27:25
Speaker 1: In this.
1:27:26
Speaker 2: rebellion that is set into society really centuries ago, but
1:27:35
Speaker 2: in our day is represented by the idea that I
1:27:43
Speaker 2: am the author of my own being, that I have
1:27:46
Speaker 2: a right to decide whether I should live or not,
1:27:58
Speaker 2: and that I have a right to change the identity
1:28:02
Speaker 2: which was given to me at my birth, and then
1:28:08
Speaker 2: in all kinds of other ways in which evil is
1:28:12
Speaker 2: exalted as good, and then the evil actions of men
1:28:17
Speaker 2: are exalted as good and in defiance of God's law,
1:28:21
Speaker 2: and We see a good example is atheistic materialism, communism,
1:28:28
Speaker 2: and to deny that the law of God by enslaving
1:28:36
Speaker 2: people to an ideology which is contrary to the Christian faith.
1:28:44
Speaker 2: But we see it too in the whole homosexual agenda
1:28:53
Speaker 2: to say that you can have a marriage There are countries,
1:29:01
Speaker 2: the country of my own ancestors, Ireland, they put in
1:29:06
Speaker 2: their constitution that you can have marriage between two people
1:29:10
Speaker 2: of the same sex. I say this is a heresy
1:29:16
Speaker 2: not only against the faith, what the scriptures teach us,
1:29:21
Speaker 2: but against reason itself. It's clear here. that God made
1:29:25
Speaker 2: man for woman and woman for man, and that he
1:29:28
Speaker 2: didn't make us to have genital relationships with a person
1:29:34
Speaker 2: of the same sex. But we see various phenomena in
1:29:41
Speaker 2: this whole transgender business, too. Someone gets an idea that
1:29:50
Speaker 2: he's a woman captured in a male body, So this
1:29:57
Speaker 2: is where, too, I have to say we need to
1:30:00
Speaker 2: think about medicine. Medicine is the art of healing, of curing.
1:30:06
Speaker 2: It's not to be used for other ends. But sadly,
1:30:11
Speaker 2: the medical profession has then taken up the work of
1:30:20
Speaker 2: really mutilating people so that they can somehow realize this
1:30:28
Speaker 2: idea that they have that the sex assigned to them
1:30:33
Speaker 2: by nature is wrong, and they may want to change
1:30:37
Speaker 2: it to what their idea is. It turns out, of course,
1:30:42
Speaker 2: no one can be happy that way, and now already
1:30:46
Speaker 2: we hear of the cases of people who've had all
1:30:50
Speaker 2: these surgeries and so forth, making lawsuits against those that
1:30:56
Speaker 2: mutilated them. And as I say here, too, it's a
1:31:03
Speaker 2: question of this just isn't reasonable, how anyone could think
1:31:10
Speaker 2: that you could change your sexual identity. It's just, and
1:31:16
Speaker 2: certainly God, from the creation of Adam and Eve, he's
1:31:22
Speaker 2: It's let us create man, and then it says male
1:31:25
Speaker 2: and female, he created them. So God creates us either
1:31:30
Speaker 2: as a male or a female. We should be very
1:31:33
Speaker 2: grateful for our sexual identity and strive to live out
1:31:39
Speaker 2: the particular gifts that come to us for our sexual identity.
1:31:43
Speaker 2: And we know that man and woman also in their
1:31:47
Speaker 2: way of thinking and so forth, very distinctive gifts. And
1:31:54
Speaker 2: that's what makes for a good marriage. It makes for
1:31:58
Speaker 2: a good family life. And those are the things we
1:32:00
Speaker 2: ought to, for instance, instill in our children. And the
1:32:07
Speaker 2: qualities of a gentleman, the qualities of a lady, as
1:32:11
Speaker 2: we say, which is something we all recognize as.
1:32:18
Speaker 2: It's a real gift and something very beautiful in human life.
1:32:26
Speaker 1: Here at Sean Ryan Show, there are always a hundred
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1:32:39
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1:32:57
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1:35:51
Speaker 1: was the covenant with David?
1:35:54
Speaker 2: David, of course, was king. God saved the people from
1:36:02
Speaker 2: the Philistines, from their enemies, through King David. And as
1:36:10
Speaker 2: he was dying, he had committed a terrible sin with
1:36:18
Speaker 2: the wife of Uriah, one of the great generals of
1:36:23
Speaker 2: his army. He had one day seen her bathing and
1:36:28
Speaker 2: was overcome with lust, and so Uriah was out fighting
1:36:33
Speaker 2: a battle, and he had sexual relationships with her, and
1:36:36
Speaker 2: they conceived a son. And then he had Uriah killed
1:36:45
Speaker 2: because he didn't want... Uriah to discover what had happened.
1:36:51
Speaker 2: And so the Lord punished him for his sin, but
1:37:00
Speaker 2: he repented and God promised him before he died that
1:37:10
Speaker 2: through his family would come a king who would rule forever.
1:37:21
Speaker 2: And that, of course, that king is our Lord Jesus Christ.
1:37:27
Speaker 1: So that covenant was fulfilled.
1:37:28
Speaker 2: That was fulfilled, too.
1:37:31
Speaker 1: And how about Moses?
1:37:32
Speaker 2: Moses, likewise, Moses himself became upset with the people and
1:37:40
Speaker 2: the famous account of the people were, always complaining about things.
1:37:48
Speaker 2: And so they complained that they didn't have any water.
1:37:51
Speaker 2: And our Lord told them to take his staff and
1:37:53
Speaker 2: strike this rock and that water would come. And Moses,
1:37:59
Speaker 2: before he struck the rock, made a rather angry speech.
1:38:03
Speaker 2: And then he struck the rock twice. And God saw
1:38:09
Speaker 2: that he didn't reflect the holiness of God in the
1:38:11
Speaker 2: way he responded to the people. And so Moses did
1:38:15
Speaker 2: not enter the Promised Land. It was through Joshua that
1:38:21
Speaker 2: the people entered the Promised Land. He was able to,
1:38:24
Speaker 2: from Mount Nebo, he could view the Holy Land from afar,
1:38:27
Speaker 2: but he didn't... didn't enter the Holy Land. Now, Moses
1:38:33
Speaker 2: was a very good person, but God in his plan
1:38:37
Speaker 2: for our salvation requires that we imitate as perfectly as
1:38:45
Speaker 2: possible his holiness, his qualities, And so Moses rightly accepted
1:38:52
Speaker 2: that he had failed in that regard. But Moses was
1:38:57
Speaker 2: a great figure. There's a wonderful tribute to him in
1:39:02
Speaker 2: the scriptures. And so there too, God kept the promise.
1:39:09
Speaker 2: He brought the people into the promised land. And of course,
1:39:15
Speaker 2: that promised land eventually is the church.
1:39:24
Speaker 1: Are there any covenants that God did not keep or
1:39:26
Speaker 1: has not fulfilled yet in the Old Testament?
1:39:29
Speaker 2: It's not possible that God would make a covenant and
1:39:33
Speaker 2: not keep it. We say of God that he is
1:39:39
Speaker 2: ever faithful, his love is enduring, and so it never fails.
1:39:47
Speaker 2: And we can The Scriptures testify to that.
1:39:52
Speaker 1: Okay. In Genesis 3.15, God promises that the offspring of
1:40:01
Speaker 1: the woman will crush the serpent. What conflict does this
1:40:08
Speaker 1: set in motion, and how far does it run through Scripture?
1:40:13
Speaker 2: It runs through the whole of Scripture. Satan succeeded in
1:40:19
Speaker 2: tempting Adam and Eve. And he will, of course, he
1:40:25
Speaker 2: doesn't rest, he doesn't sleep. He continues to tempt man
1:40:32
Speaker 2: to turn against God, to think, basically for man to
1:40:35
Speaker 2: think that he is God. And we see manifestations of
1:40:39
Speaker 2: this immediately. For instance, the Tower of Babel. People thought
1:40:43
Speaker 2: that they could build some kind of physical structure uniting
1:40:46
Speaker 2: heaven to earth. and on their own, not according to
1:40:51
Speaker 2: God's plan. And so in the whole scriptures, we see
1:40:59
Speaker 2: that people are waiting for the fulfillment of this promise
1:41:03
Speaker 2: through the whole Old Testament. And the prophets speak about,
1:41:07
Speaker 2: for instance, connected with Genesis 3.15 is Isaiah 7.14 says,
1:41:16
Speaker 2: And where God promises that a virgin will conceive and
1:41:24
Speaker 2: bear a son and who will save the people. And that,
1:41:30
Speaker 2: of course, is a prophecy in Isaiah, but it's the
1:41:34
Speaker 2: prophecy of this man born of a woman who crushes
1:41:40
Speaker 2: the head of Satan. And that opposition continues, our Lord comes.
1:41:48
Speaker 2: He's incarnate in the womb of Mary. He's born at Bethlehem.
1:41:50
Speaker 2: He carries out his public ministry, which is fundamentally a
1:41:55
Speaker 2: confrontation of the goodness of God with the evil of sin,
1:42:02
Speaker 2: the powers of darkness. And so our Lord comes, and
1:42:09
Speaker 2: he crushes Satan's head, by his suffering and his death,
1:42:15
Speaker 2: his resurrection, and he sends the right hand of the
1:42:18
Speaker 2: Father and sends the Holy Spirit in the church. And
1:42:22
Speaker 2: so that victory is won. Now, what remains is that
1:42:29
Speaker 2: the victory which Christ achieved in his human nature is
1:42:32
Speaker 2: to be achieved in each one of us. St. Paul
1:42:36
Speaker 2: uses the image, he said, that he rejoices to fill
1:42:40
Speaker 2: out in his body what is lacking in the sufferings
1:42:43
Speaker 2: of Christ. Now, there's nothing lacking in the sufferings of Christ.
1:42:47
Speaker 2: He's the Redeemer perfectly. But what is lacking is that
1:42:51
Speaker 2: each one of us incorporate the life of Christ into
1:42:55
Speaker 2: our lives and that we resist the temptations of Satan
1:43:00
Speaker 2: until our Lord comes at the end of the time
1:43:03
Speaker 2: and restores everything to the Father. And so this is
1:43:08
Speaker 2: so important for us to realize that We're all called
1:43:13
Speaker 2: to cooperate with Christ in His saving work, and that
1:43:17
Speaker 2: that saving work should be the story of our lives.
1:43:22
Speaker 2: And even as in Genesis 3.15, this was through a woman,
1:43:30
Speaker 2: we also, through our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary,
1:43:35
Speaker 2: understand what our Lord is asking each one of us
1:43:40
Speaker 2: to do according to our vocation in life, according to
1:43:44
Speaker 2: our particular gifts. And the image of this is in
1:43:48
Speaker 2: the wedding feast at Cana. Our Lord and our Blessed
1:43:52
Speaker 2: Mother were invited to a wedding feast at Cana, and
1:43:55
Speaker 2: at the wedding feast, through some miscalculation, they ran out
1:44:00
Speaker 2: of wine. And the wine stewards were extremely distressed, and
1:44:06
Speaker 2: it was our Blessed Mother who took them to Jesus,
1:44:10
Speaker 2: her divine son, and said to them, do whatever he
1:44:14
Speaker 2: tells you. And of course, they do. He told them,
1:44:19
Speaker 2: fill these water jars, and the water was transformed into wine.
1:44:24
Speaker 2: So we take that, what she said there, for each
1:44:30
Speaker 2: of us, we're trying to do whatever Christ tells us.
1:44:34
Speaker 2: And in doing that, we cooperate in his saving work.
1:44:41
Speaker 2: even as our Blessed Mother cooperated by saying when the
1:44:45
Speaker 2: Archangel Gabriel appeared to her to tell her that she
1:44:48
Speaker 2: was to be the mother of the Redeemer, she didn't
1:44:52
Speaker 2: understand it first. She said, how can this be because
1:44:55
Speaker 2: I know not man? She was married to St. Joseph.
1:44:58
Speaker 2: They were fully married, but there was a virginal marriage.
1:45:01
Speaker 2: They had not come to live together. And they had intended,
1:45:07
Speaker 2: we know this, that they had intended to lead their
1:45:10
Speaker 2: married life respecting her vow of virginity. And St. Joseph
1:45:15
Speaker 2: accepted this. So she said, I know not man. She
1:45:21
Speaker 2: was married, but she knew not man in the sense
1:45:23
Speaker 2: she had no sexual relation with Joseph. And the angel
1:45:28
Speaker 2: tells her not to fear, but to trust God's word.
1:45:33
Speaker 2: And she says, fiat let it be done to me
1:45:35
Speaker 2: according to what you've said.
1:45:37
Speaker 1: And so....
1:45:45
Speaker 2: She became the mother of us all by that fiat,
1:45:50
Speaker 2: and then, of course, she let it be done. Fiat
1:45:53
Speaker 2: is the Latin for let it be done to me
1:45:56
Speaker 2: according to your word. And then throughout our Lord's public ministry,
1:46:04
Speaker 2: Our Lady has always been at her side, but most
1:46:09
Speaker 2: Most importantly, as he's dying on the cross, she's at
1:46:13
Speaker 2: the foot of the cross with St. John the Evangelist.
1:46:16
Speaker 2: The other apostles, sadly, were cowards and had run away.
1:46:22
Speaker 2: They didn't want to risk being arrested and punished. But St.
1:46:27
Speaker 2: John was there, and our Lord, just moments before he died,
1:46:32
Speaker 2: he said to Our Lady, Woman, behold your son. St. John,
1:46:37
Speaker 2: of course, represents us all, the church. And then he
1:46:41
Speaker 2: said to John, behold your mother. And so she, we
1:46:45
Speaker 2: see that our Blessed Lady's role in the redemption, which
1:46:51
Speaker 2: Christ alone, of course, accomplishes, but that all of us
1:46:55
Speaker 2: have some part to play. Our Lord is calling upon
1:47:00
Speaker 2: us to be, as it's in the third letter of St. John,
1:47:06
Speaker 2: cooperators of the truth. All of us are called to
1:47:10
Speaker 2: be co-workers of the truth. That, by the way, was
1:47:13
Speaker 2: the motto of Pope Benedict XVI. He chose that cooperatores veritatis,
1:47:19
Speaker 2: cooperators of the truth, as his motto for his Episcopal ministry.
1:47:29
Speaker 1: I have a question. If God promises that the offspring
1:47:33
Speaker 1: of the woman will crush the serpent, But the serpent
1:47:36
Speaker 1: is Satan. Satan is obviously alive.
1:47:44
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:47:46
Speaker 1: And working.
1:47:47
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:47:49
Speaker 1: How has that prophecy, that promise, that prophecy, how has
1:47:53
Speaker 1: that promise been fulfilled?
1:47:55
Speaker 2: Because we receive divine grace. We receive from Christ himself
1:48:02
Speaker 2: the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit. to combat Satan,
1:48:07
Speaker 2: and that wasn't true until he came. Yes, people received
1:48:16
Speaker 2: grace from God, but not the gift of the Holy
1:48:18
Speaker 2: Spirit as is given through baptism and through the sacraments
1:48:24
Speaker 2: and through our whole life in the church. And so, yes,
1:48:28
Speaker 2: Satan is still around. He'll always be in hell, but eventually,
1:48:39
Speaker 2: Our Lord will come to restore the whole church, become
1:48:44
Speaker 2: the heavenly in Jerusalem, the heavenly church. And then, of course,
1:48:49
Speaker 2: Satan won't be able anymore to tempt and bother anybody.
1:48:57
Speaker 2: But up till then, we have to, as St. Paul says,
1:49:04
Speaker 2: fight the good fight, stay the course, and keep the faith.
1:49:11
Speaker 2: God keeps his covenant with us. He gives us divine grace.
1:49:14
Speaker 2: We need to keep our covenant with him and cooperate
1:49:17
Speaker 2: with that grace.
1:49:18
Speaker 1: Oh, God. The blood of the Passover lamb saves Israel
1:49:27
Speaker 1: from death. What does this point forward to?
1:49:32
Speaker 2: This I was mentioning before. When the people were enslaved
1:49:37
Speaker 2: in Egypt, God wanted to set them free. And he
1:49:41
Speaker 2: chose Moses because they were killing all the first, the
1:49:45
Speaker 2: Egyptians were killing all the firstborn of the Israelites because
1:49:49
Speaker 2: they were becoming so numerous and they were becoming very powerful.
1:49:54
Speaker 2: And so, but Moses was saved to the daughter. Pharaoh
1:50:01
Speaker 2: discovered him and his mother hid him in a reed
1:50:04
Speaker 2: basket in a marsh and And she found him and
1:50:09
Speaker 2: took him and raised him. And of course, this was
1:50:11
Speaker 2: all in the providence of God. He became then a
1:50:15
Speaker 2: great leader. And God, through him, asked Pharaoh to set
1:50:21
Speaker 2: the people free. And God sent various plagues to show
1:50:26
Speaker 2: that he wanted his people to be freed. And Pharaoh,
1:50:31
Speaker 2: the plague would come. For instance, the water turned, all
1:50:34
Speaker 2: the water turned into blood. There were... a terrible plague
1:50:40
Speaker 2: of locusts and so forth, destroying the crops and the
1:50:43
Speaker 2: source of food. And Pharaoh would say he was going
1:50:47
Speaker 2: to set them free, then he wouldn't. Well, finally, the
1:50:52
Speaker 2: last plague was that God took through the angel of death.
1:51:00
Speaker 2: The firstborn of all the Egyptians died. And that, the
1:51:05
Speaker 2: night of the plague, that this happened, the Israelites were
1:51:13
Speaker 2: instructed to, with very strict instructions, to slay a lamb
1:51:21
Speaker 2: and to eat this Passover meal. Passover, the angel of
1:51:27
Speaker 2: God passes over the houses and to sprinkle, to slaughter
1:51:34
Speaker 2: the lamb, to sprinkle its blood on their doorpost. And
1:51:39
Speaker 2: In all the homes where the blood of the Paschal
1:51:41
Speaker 2: Lamb was sprinkled, the child was saved. And so we
1:51:47
Speaker 2: see this as a very strong symbol of what our
1:51:52
Speaker 2: Lord has done for us by his saving passion and death.
1:51:55
Speaker 2: And we eat his flesh, we drink his blood in
1:51:59
Speaker 2: the Holy Eucharist. We are saved by his blood from
1:52:06
Speaker 2: everlasting death. And so the Paschal Lamb is a very
1:52:12
Speaker 2: strong sign of that. And then the people, through the
1:52:16
Speaker 2: blood of the Lamb, they escape from Egypt and eventually
1:52:21
Speaker 2: arrive in the Promised Land.
1:52:25
Speaker 1: Are there any other prophecies in the Old Testament that
1:52:29
Speaker 1: came true other than the birth of Christ?
1:52:34
Speaker 2: They all center on that. All of them are directed
1:52:39
Speaker 2: toward the Savior, the Messiah, the anointed of the Lord.
1:52:43
Speaker 2: These are all names for our Lord. They're all centered
1:52:47
Speaker 2: on that, but there may be some aspect or another
1:52:52
Speaker 2: that's reflected in one of the prophets, but it's always,
1:52:57
Speaker 2: everything is directed toward the coming of the Savior and
1:53:00
Speaker 2: that the people ought to be prepared They ought to,
1:53:06
Speaker 2: by their way of life, be ready to welcome the
1:53:10
Speaker 2: Savior at his coming. And, of course, John the Baptist
1:53:13
Speaker 2: expresses this most perfectly because he's the last of the prophets,
1:53:18
Speaker 2: and he's preaching to the people the repentance for their
1:53:21
Speaker 2: sins and that they should make the language from the
1:53:28
Speaker 2: prophet Isaiah, make a straight pathway for God to enter
1:53:31
Speaker 2: their lives. And that, of course, is... what happens when
1:53:37
Speaker 2: our Lord comes. But even as the prologue to St.
1:53:41
Speaker 2: John's Gospel tells us, our Lord came unto his own
1:53:45
Speaker 2: and his own received him not. In other words, our
1:53:50
Speaker 2: Lord came to save us, but many people who knew him,
1:53:56
Speaker 2: who met him, rejected him. And in fact, ultimately they
1:54:02
Speaker 2: convinced the Roman government to put him to death. But
1:54:06
Speaker 2: that notwithstanding, he saves those who turn to him with faith,
1:54:13
Speaker 2: who embrace him with love. And so we will find,
1:54:20
Speaker 2: back to your point, all the prophets have very rich messages.
1:54:25
Speaker 2: I often think of the one in Prophet Zechariah when
1:54:32
Speaker 2: he says, strike the shepherd and scatter the sheep. In
1:54:36
Speaker 2: other words, this is how the devil works. He corrupts
1:54:40
Speaker 2: the shepherds and then the sheep are scattered. Don't we
1:54:45
Speaker 2: see that in the whole history of the church too,
1:54:48
Speaker 2: where those called to high office in some way betray
1:54:53
Speaker 2: that office and therefore cause damage to innumerable souls. And
1:55:01
Speaker 2: there'll be other prophecies The prophecy of Amos is very
1:55:08
Speaker 2: rich in the instruction about fidelity in the marriage bond
1:55:15
Speaker 2: and so forth. And so there's a whole richness in
1:55:21
Speaker 2: the prophets, but it's all directed toward the coming of
1:55:26
Speaker 2: the anointed, of the Savior, of the seed, of the
1:55:33
Speaker 2: woman that crushes the head of Satan.
1:55:40
Speaker 1: The only woman that could ever have a seed.
1:55:43
Speaker 2: Yes, it's because the seed is the Holy Spirit. She
1:55:47
Speaker 2: was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and so it was
1:55:52
Speaker 2: the seed of God that's the miracle of the Incarnation,
1:55:56
Speaker 2: is that she gave the human nature, but the divine nature,
1:56:02
Speaker 2: the union was accomplished by the Holy Spirit, by the
1:56:06
Speaker 2: overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. But it's interesting not to
1:56:13
Speaker 2: get away from your question, but what's beautiful too is
1:56:19
Speaker 2: how God prepared everything for the conception of our Lord Jesus.
1:56:26
Speaker 2: Sometimes people say today, that Mary was the first unmarried mother.
1:56:37
Speaker 2: That's not true because she was perfectly married to Joseph
1:56:47
Speaker 2: before the angel Gabriel arrived. In the Jewish law, there
1:56:54
Speaker 2: were two stages to marriage and the The first stage
1:56:59
Speaker 2: was the contract of marriage, and from that moment on,
1:57:03
Speaker 2: the couple were husband and wife. But then there was
1:57:06
Speaker 2: a period of time before the husband would lead the
1:57:10
Speaker 2: wife into his home, and the marriage was consummated. But
1:57:16
Speaker 2: the consummation didn't make the marriage. The marriage was already there.
1:57:20
Speaker 2: It simply was the consummation of it through the conjugal union.
1:57:25
Speaker 2: So Mary... when the archangel appeared, was married to Joseph.
1:57:31
Speaker 2: And that's why in the Gospel of Matthew, for instance,
1:57:34
Speaker 2: when Joseph finds out that Mary's with child, he thinks
1:57:39
Speaker 2: to divorce her. Well, he wouldn't have thought that if
1:57:44
Speaker 2: it were a question of that they weren't married. So
1:57:46
Speaker 2: they were perfectly married. What's the point I want to
1:57:48
Speaker 2: make is that God made so his plan to save
1:57:54
Speaker 2: us that Christ The Savior, God the Son incarnate, would
1:57:59
Speaker 2: be born into a family with a husband and wife.
1:58:02
Speaker 2: And St. Joseph is called the virginal father of Jesus.
1:58:06
Speaker 2: He's called the putative father of Jesus. But Jesus... was
1:58:12
Speaker 2: in the home of Mary and Joseph, and that's where
1:58:15
Speaker 2: he grew up and so forth. And so you see
1:58:17
Speaker 2: how God is, his providence at work, and he's blessing
1:58:23
Speaker 2: the family and from the very beginning of his saving work.
1:58:27
Speaker 2: And So I always like to make that point because
1:58:30
Speaker 2: many people don't understand that. They think that in the
1:58:36
Speaker 2: gospel it says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and
1:58:39
Speaker 2: people think that that's engaged. No, the betrothal was marriage.
1:58:44
Speaker 2: It wasn't just engagement. There was a legal bond so
1:58:51
Speaker 2: strong that, as I say, St. Joseph would have thought
1:58:54
Speaker 2: that he had to divorce Mary.
1:58:57
Speaker 1: Wow. I did not know that.
1:59:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very important. And there have been all studies
1:59:09
Speaker 2: done on the Jewish practice of marriage, and this is
1:59:12
Speaker 2: just perfectly the case. And so that should be a
1:59:21
Speaker 2: special inspiration for husbands and wives. And we always say
1:59:26
Speaker 2: that the husband should... St. Joseph, not that every marriage
1:59:32
Speaker 2: should be virginal, that wouldn't work very well in terms
1:59:35
Speaker 2: of the propagation of the human race, but that the husband,
1:59:39
Speaker 2: like St. Joseph, should have a very chaste love for
1:59:42
Speaker 2: his wife. In other words, that it's pure and solely
1:59:46
Speaker 2: for her good and that it's not mixed in with
1:59:49
Speaker 2: any infidelity.
1:59:53
Speaker 1: Can you describe, this is a little off topic, but
1:59:56
Speaker 1: can you describe the Holy Trinity?
1:59:59
Speaker 2: If I could describe the Holy Trinity, I would be
2:00:02
Speaker 2: God himself. We say that this is the great mystery,
2:00:09
Speaker 2: the three persons in one God. Our Lord himself refers
2:00:12
Speaker 2: to his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
2:00:16
Speaker 2: And we see in the whole of scriptures that God is,
2:00:20
Speaker 2: there are three persons that share the same nature. And
2:00:24
Speaker 2: different religions, images have been used to try to help
2:00:31
Speaker 2: us to understand that. I think that if you ask
2:00:36
Speaker 2: me for a description, it would simply be this, that
2:00:41
Speaker 2: the nature of God is so rich that it is
2:00:49
Speaker 2: embodied in three distinct persons. And so they're perfectly one.
2:00:55
Speaker 2: There's only one God. There are not three gods. but
2:00:59
Speaker 2: that the fullness of God has this expression in the Son,
2:01:05
Speaker 2: who is the Word, and who comes to save us.
2:01:11
Speaker 2: And then in the Holy Spirit, who the Son and
2:01:16
Speaker 2: the Father send to us and to our hearts into
2:01:19
Speaker 2: the church so that we can be alive in God,
2:01:23
Speaker 2: that we can live in God and They say that St.
2:01:31
Speaker 2: Patrick used the shamrock to teach this, that it's a
2:01:36
Speaker 2: single stem, but it has these three leaves. There are
2:01:43
Speaker 2: other images, too, that are sometimes a triangle, a single unit,
2:01:54
Speaker 2: very solid, but with three distinct Those are all images,
2:02:00
Speaker 2: and we can never, I mean, only God can reveal
2:02:06
Speaker 2: the fullness of his nature to us, but he has
2:02:09
Speaker 2: in various ways shown us that who he is, the
2:02:17
Speaker 2: three persons and one God.
2:02:24
Speaker 1: Well, Cardinal, we'll wrap it up for the interview. Okay.
2:02:31
Speaker 1: What is the overall message of the Old Testament and
2:02:37
Speaker 1: what should people take from it?
2:02:39
Speaker 2: The overall message of the Old Testament is God saves
2:02:44
Speaker 2: us through Jesus, a name which means God saves. But
2:02:53
Speaker 2: the whole Old Testament is a preparation for this incredibly wonderful,
2:03:00
Speaker 2: indescribably wonderful act of God's love that he comes himself
2:03:06
Speaker 2: in the person of his only begotten Son to dwell
2:03:12
Speaker 2: with us, to be one with us, first during his
2:03:15
Speaker 2: public ministry, but then as he was ascending to the Father,
2:03:24
Speaker 2: he ascends to the Father to send us Holy Spirit
2:03:28
Speaker 2: so that we can continue to enjoy the grace of
2:03:33
Speaker 2: salvation until the end of time. And the Old Testament
2:03:41
Speaker 2: just encourages so many beautiful things in the Old Testament
2:03:48
Speaker 2: and we need to read it to understand how great
2:03:51
Speaker 2: is the mystery of God's love. You know, I I
2:03:56
Speaker 2: think of the story of the Exodus we've talked about.
2:03:59
Speaker 2: We've talked about King David. A book even like the
2:04:02
Speaker 2: book of Tobit, this wonderful story about the care for
2:04:06
Speaker 2: the dead and so forth. They're all bringing out different
2:04:10
Speaker 2: aspects of God's love for us.
2:04:18
Speaker 1: Thank you.
2:04:19
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
2:04:20
Speaker 1: Yes.
2:04:23
Speaker 2: In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
2:04:24
Speaker 2: and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art
2:04:28
Speaker 2: in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy
2:04:32
Speaker 2: will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
2:04:35
Speaker 2: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us
2:04:38
Speaker 2: our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
2:04:43
Speaker 2: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
2:04:47
Speaker 2: In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
2:04:50
Speaker 2: and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
2:04:52
Speaker 1: Amen. Cardinal, God bless.
2:04:55
Speaker 2: Well, God bless you too. We've worked hard this morning.
2:05:00
Speaker 1: We have. We'll start again tomorrow with the New Testament.
2:05:04
Speaker 2: Very good.
2:05:05
Speaker 1: All right. Wonderful. Thank you.
2:05:08
Speaker 2: Thank you for doing this. I'm sure it's going to
2:05:10
Speaker 2: reach countless souls. So God willing, it'll lead them to
2:05:16
Speaker 2: start to read the Bible and come to know our
2:05:18
Speaker 2: Lord through the Bible.
2:05:21
Speaker 1: I hope so. No matter where you're watching The Sean
2:05:35
Speaker 1: Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this
2:05:38
Speaker 1: at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly,
2:05:46
Speaker 1: share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling
2:05:51
Speaker 1: extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave
2:05:55
Speaker 1: us a review.