Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 198: The 7 Principal Virtues and vices, Zeal in Doing Good and Sloth

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Show 198: The 7 Principal Virtues and vices, Zeal in Doing Good and Sloth · The Uncensored Catholic

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Speaker 1: The f A Hey all, welcome this week's show. Probably
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actually gonna have a couple of shows this week. I
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want to wrap up our series on the Seven Virtues
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and their opposite vices. I can think I can do
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that today and then tomorrow evening I have a really
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interesting interview concerning the Catholic Land movement. So if I
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can get that recorded and that it didn't ready, hopefully
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well Wednesday or Thursday, I should have that way to go,
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So stay tuned. It should be really good. Actually I'm
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looking forward to it. Of course. Today is January twenty
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and I am grinning from ear to ear watching the inauguration.
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President Trump is finally back in office. Joe Biden, who
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stole the presidency, the illegitimate president who has done uncalculable,
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incalculable damaged our nation, is finally out of the presidency,
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but not before parting his entire family. You know, I
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guess when you take you know, fifty sixty one hundred
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billion dollars or million, I guess it would be million.
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That's one of the few things in Washington's still in
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the millions from the communist Chinese and other American enemies.
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You think maybe it sort of like a tacit admission
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that there's a little guilt there. And of course he
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pardoned the entire January sixth Committee, and some cop killers
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and all kinds of good people, real good people. So
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the long national nightmare is over, and the new era
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has begun, and God willing, we will have a very
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very Catholic JD Vance as president four years from now.
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I pray in the name of the Father and the
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Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now returning to the
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classic book, Radio replies the questioner asks, well, the quintessential question,
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isn't it what is truth? And they answer Truth is
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the exact knowledge of things just as they are. Isn't
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that something a simple answer to what should be a
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simple question. Person replies, authority bears no relationship to truth,
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and they reply, it bears a tremendous relation of truth.
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The whole system of educating to truth supposes authority in
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a body of teachers. God is truth itself and the
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source of all truth. When God speaks, what he says
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has authority, and the authority of his works is absolute
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guarantee of the truth of what he says. Person continues,
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truth is too big a thing for one religion to quarter,
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and they answer, reason should tell you that the God
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who made both the universe and man, must know the
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truth about both. He should tell you that if God
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definitely tells man anything, the information must be sound. It
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would justify the fact that God has spoken. If you
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would but examine the credentials of the Catholic Church and
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find if it would show you, and finally, it would
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show you that the Catholic Church is big enough to
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contain all the truth revealed by God. On the subject
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of religion, the person says, dogma will not save a
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single soul, and they reply alone it will not. But
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since the Catholic Church is the true Church which Christ
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commanded us to hear, the conscious and deliberate rejection of
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her dogmas can forfeit salvation. All right, now, let's get
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on to our last chapter in Fellishpirago's section on devices
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and virtues, or I should say virtues and vices, because
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He always gives the virtue first. And we're actually nearing
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the end of this massive book. Believe it or not.
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We've spent more than a year on this and we
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are at now over five hundred pages into a seven
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hundred page book. Sofi or not, we will soon wrap
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this one up. And I honestly so much of what
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I do online in terms of social media is answer
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questions from Catholics and debate Protestants. Sometimes you get a
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legitimate question, a lot of times you get debate or
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just they tell you you're going to Hell because you're Catholic.
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And then you come back and say, well, wait to meet.
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The Bible says this is the Bible says that you
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know we're actually right in this matter. Father Spirago's exhaustive
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Catechism of the Catholic Church is, in my opinion, the
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perhaps i'll say perhaps the greatest reference when it comes
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to matters of doctrine. The modern Catechism is very good.
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I love the Catechism that was approved under Pope Saint
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John Paul. Second, you know, that's what brought me into
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the church. But I guess I wouldn't take one over
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the other. The one explains the other, and vice versa.
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It's really Father's Baraguo's work in the eighteen nineties, I
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think is essential. And when someone has a question and
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I pull up an answer and I say, well, here's
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what Father Sprague said, or I actually just copy and
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paste quote verbatim. For Catholics, that's like they're always like,
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that's the answer I was looking for. Okay, that's exact. Now,
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I understand this. For Protestants, they're like, I don't really
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understand that. And so you go into depth and you say, well,
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here's what the Bible said on this, and here's Catholic
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teaching on it, and they either accept it or not,
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and of course most times they don't accept it at all,
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you know, recently, I'm me. I think I mentioned this
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last time, but I mean, this is how, this is
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how fallible and weak. The Protestant argument is for the
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Bible alone, without sacred tradition, without the what the oral
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tradition of what Jesus told the apostles and what they
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passed on to us, and without the teaching authority of
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the church. Person is vowing and declaring that all Christians
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must go to church on the Jewish Sabbath, and anybody
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who goes to church on Sunday is a Satan worshiper.
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I mean, you get this all the time. Seven day
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adventistur observant, whatever they want to call themselves. And they said,
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where in the Bible did Jesus say that you were
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supposed to go to church on Sunday. Now we've been
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through a lot before this. We talked about, you know,
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various scriptures. The Sabbath has made for man, not man
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made for the Sabbath. The son of Man is lord
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of the Sabbath. That when Jesus was questioned about what
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was the heart of the law, he mentioned thou should
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not killed, they should not steal, they should not commit adultery.
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Love God with all your heart, love your neighbors, yourself.
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He never once mentioned the Sabbath. He continually violated the
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Sabbath over and over and over, and that's one of
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the reasons they crucified him. Actually, I mean that and
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forgiving sins. I mean he basically violated the entire mosaic
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law to keep, you know, going over and over. The
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apostles had no authority. Where did Jesus say it? Well?
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And I said to him, first of all, what does
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the Bible say is the pillar and foundation of the truth?
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You know, I was debating three processes, and not one
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single one would answer it. I gave them chapter and verse.
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Where in this chapter in verse does the Bible What
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does in this chapter verse does the Bible say is
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the pillar and foundation of the truth? Reasonly wouldn't answer
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is because it says the church. I said, Jesus said,
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if a man would not listen to the church, let
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him be to you as a heathen. One of them
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told me that verse didn't even appear in the Bible.
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And when I gave him the chapter in verse was
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from Matthew, he blocked me. I mean, that was it,
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That was the end of it. He could not accept it.
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The one that really confounded them was when I said,
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after the Resurrection and before the Ascension, after the Church
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had been established, Jesus spent about forty days with the apostles,
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teaching them everything they would need to know in establishing
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his church. What does the Bible say that he taught
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them during that period. None of them can answer my question,
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because the Bible is essentially silent on that. Jesus very
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likely told them now our day of worship is going
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to be Sunday. Why do I say very likely because
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the d do ka was written before the Bible was
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even completed. The d do Kae is the teaching of
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the twelfth and it's the original catechism, The original Manual
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of Christian Worship. It was at least written before the
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Book of Revelations or the Apocalypse of John, whatever you
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want to call it, probably even earlier than that. Certainly
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several of the Apostles were alive when it was published
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and sent to all Christian churches to be taken as doctrine.
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And it specifies Sunday worship. You know. You can then
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say well, they say, well, you know the Lord days
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the Jewish abisten. I said, no, the Lord's days, the
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day went to Jerusalem, the day rose from the dead,
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and the day of Pentecost. That's the Lord's Day. It's
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very clear, and in the in the d dot K
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they made it extra clear. And in the writings of
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the Christians of the first in second centuries, I mean
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Pope say Clement of Round, the fourth Pope ordained by
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Saint Peter, Saint Ignatius, or yeah, ordained by Saint Paul,
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and so many others that also knew the apostles. They
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write over and over and over. We no longer recognize
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the Jewish Sabbath. We are a new church that celebrates
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the Lord's Day on the day he rose from the dead,
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and the purpose of our gathering together is to receive
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the Eucharist, and not a one of them, not a
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single one of them can accept it. I mean, it's
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just absolutely amazing. I'm telling you, you pull one thread
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in Protestantism and it falls apart. And what's so because
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they are protesting as their heart at their ideology. They
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keep poking, they keep poking. Why do Catholics do this?
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You tell them, and they just they can't answer it.
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They have no answer. They blow up and that's the
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end of it. I'm telling you. Protestantism may be a
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mild wide, but it's an inch deep and it's going
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to come to an end. And we need books like
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Father Spiagos so that we can give justification for what
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we believe, so that we can bring these people into
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the church. And that's going to be very important over
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the next few decades because mainline Protestantism is dying. In
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my lifetime, the attendance of the Episcopal Church is dropped
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by almost seventy percent. Episcopal An Anglican Lutheran mainline Lutheran.
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There's also Evangelical. Mainline Lutheran has dropped by about seventy percent.
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Presbyterian has dropped by over fifty percent. Methodists has dropped
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by over forty percent. And I mean basically mainline Protestantism
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is dying post COVID. The Baptists, there's Northern Babtists, there's
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Southern Babtists, are different kind Babtists, but you take them
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as a whole, it's down about thirty percent. Basically, you know,
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the families destroyed. These you know, they approve divorce, people
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get divorced three or four times, They move all around,
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they're not connected to their roots, and they just stop
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going to church after a while. And you know, you
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can look at the big you know, evangelical superchurches say
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they're growing, but you know, actually in terms of affiliation
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and church attendance, Protestantism is dying. Meanwhile Catholicism is growing.
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So we have to be able to fill this role.
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So now let's get into the virtue. It's the last
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of them, and it starts with zeal in what is good?
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I had never heard this growing up, you know, I
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was actually long before I became Catholic confirmed in the
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Methodist Church. It was never such a thing taught to
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me as zeal in what is doing good? Well, of course,
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a base their belief so on Lutheranism, which says good,
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good works doesn't matter. Luther told what was his name, Marcion,
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another Lutheran to you know, encourage him to commit murder
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and adultery, to be the worst sinner you could, because
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you know that would prove the grace of God somehow.
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I mean, as Catholics we try to avoid sin and
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do good. But you know, Luther was a very very
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very bad guy, very very very bad guy, actually an Antichrist.
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But anyway, zeal in what is good consists in working
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out one salvation with all earnestness and fervor unless zeal springs,
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and there you see, it's the opposite of Protestant belief,
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working out one salvation with all earnestness and fervor. It
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may be the words of Saint Paul essentially, but Protestants
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do not believe that at all. They believe in faith
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alone and once saved, always saved, and grace that covers
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up all your sins. They don't tell you that they
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don't believe in mortal sin. Let's put it that way,
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or that we'll just keep reading. It must also be discreet,
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or it would do more harm than good. Unless zeal
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springs from the love of God, it is valueless. It
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must also be discreet, or it would do more harm
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than good. He whose zeal is without discretion is like
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a man who is gathering up the cockle in the field,
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roots up the wheat together with it. Matthew thirteen twenty nine.
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Blind zeal. Cockle, by the way, is weed. Okay, it's
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not cockles, which in English can mean a shellfish. So
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not that you were confused, but I just fear i'd
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clarify it. Blind zeal is only pernicious if Alexander the
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Great performs such great achievements for the sake of earthly renown.
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What ought not we to do, who aspire to eternal glory?
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We ought each day to serve God as if it
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were the first day of our consecration to his service.
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We should be like the merchant who never thinks he
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has made enough money, but is continually on watch for
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fresh gains, Or like the traveler who does not look
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back upon the way which which he has traveled or traverse,
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but only onward to the goal before him. He who
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is zealous in what is good avails himself as far
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as can, as far as he can of the means
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of grace the Church affords for his sanctification. He is
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assiduous at prayer. He frequently approaches the sacrament. He listens
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attentively to the Word of God and reads spiritual books sacraments.
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Of course, he neglects no opportunity of doing good works.
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He never refuses in alms to the poorci he innteriously
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observes the Fast of the church. He devotes his free
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time to prayer. Moreover, he who is zealous and what
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is good cheerfully makes sacrifice for God. He glad. He
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is glad when he is ridiculed or persecuted for his faith.
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He rejoices in the sufferings that come to him from God.
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He will give up anything rather than commit sin. He
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is even ready to lay down his life for Christ
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if need be. He who is zealous in what is good,
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exerts himself also for the salvation of others. He strives
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to dessure his subordinates, his friends, his relatives from sin.
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He admonishes them and prays for them. He prays besides
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for the conversion of the heretic and sinners. How much
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the saints did In this way, Zeel was like a
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fire which spreads all around, both far and near. Without
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zeal in what is good, we cannot be saved. For
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the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence. Our Lord says, not
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everyone that saith to me, Lord Lord, turn into the
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Kingdom of Heaven Matthew eight twenty one. That alone should
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be enough to disprove the twin tenant of Protestantism, which
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is the Bible alone and faith alone. Well, not everyone
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that saith to me, Lord Lord, shall enter into the
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Kingdom of Heaven. And in another place, he says, the
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Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it
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away Matthew eleven twelve. Of those who run a race,
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he who perseveres will receive the price. One Corinthians nine
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twenty four. Let us not imagine that it is an
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easy manner matter to be saved. Eternal felicity is spoken
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of as a kingdom, the city of God, the House
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of God, paradise in a crown. All these things can
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only be acquired by a fierce battle or a large sum.
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Or for a large sum, only those who have a
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long training can obtain a high salary. Yet the Kingdom
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of Heaven is bought cheaply. The price paid for it
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comes infant short. The price paid for it comes infinitely
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short of its value. Without zeal and energy, nothing can
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be accomplished. God allows obstacles to be placed in the
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way of every good work to test our will. No
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good work can be performed without some sacrifice. No virtue
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can be gained without a struggle. The greater violence thou
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offerest to thyself, the greater progress thou wilt make. That's
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from imitation of Christ. What Thomas campus I believe, Book one,
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chapter twenty five. We cannot expect our prayer to be
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heard unless we persevere in spite of all hindrance. Remember
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the example of Saint Monica and the blind Man by
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the wayside. That's Luke, eighteen thirty five. The opposite of
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zeal is sloth. Now this one we know, we know,
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we know sloth is a vice, but I never really
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heard it contrasted in terms of zeal. I like that
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though sloth consistence shunning everything that conduces either to our
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temporal or eternal well being, provided it be toilsome. Sloth
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displays itself either by indolence, dislike of work, and the
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fulfillment even of the duties of one's calling, or by tipidity,
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in which indifference to what is good and conducive to
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one's spiritual welfare, This slothful man displays distaste for all
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good works. We find life and movement and activity in
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all nature. The celestial host lawed and magnify the most
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high continually. The heavenly bodies revolve unceasingly in space. Trees
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and herbs grow to the air appointed size. The tiny
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ant lays up a store in summer. The busy bees
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make honey, and do not suffer drones to live. And
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shall man alone be an idler, an exception to all
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creatures whom instinct teaches to abhor idles. Go to the ant,
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oh sluggard, and consider her way Proverbs six to six.
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The indolent postpone all work to a future day, and
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only pursue sensual pleasures Tomorrow tomorrow, not today, is their cry.
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The lukewarm Christian wills and does not will. He would
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fain have the wages God gives, but the will, but
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he has not the will to work for it. As
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soon as it is a question of putting force upon himself,
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he shrinks back. Yet this slothful think they do more
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than others. For a while. The fervent look at those
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who do better themselves to learn humility. They, on the contrary,
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look at the good not in others, but in themselves. Hence,
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this lawsful never attain perfection. Great sinners have been known
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to become great saints. But the lukewarm, never idonness leads
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to all kinds of vice. It brings misery into life
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and eternal damnation in the life to come. Ioness has
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taught much evil Ecclesiastis thirty three twenty nine. It is,
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in fact the source of every evil habit. Man is
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like the earth. If a filled be not sown with
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good seed, a crop of weeds spring up and grow
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in the space. So if a man has no useful occupation,
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his natural activity turns to all manner of mischief. If
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you don't believe that, visit the local housing project. I
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think you'll see very soon. Putting people on welfare and
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so they don't have to work will result in the
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crime violence, destruction. Yeah, iron, rust when is not used,
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water when stagnant, becomes foul, and a man corrupted by
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idleness becomes the abode of evil passions and falls into
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manifold temptations. The busy man is assailed by one demon,
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the unemployed by one hundred. The idle man, who does
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nothing all day is like the trunk of a tree
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without without foliage, and without fruit. Idleness springs misery in
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this life. Holy Scripture says the slothful once shall come
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upon thee in poverty. Proverbs six ' eleven. Saint John
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Christostom declares idleness to be the parent of poverty and
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the root of despair. It also brings a man to
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eternal damnation. Illness is in excess, idleness is in itself
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a sin. A servant may not steal, or drink, or
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be insolent, but if he has the fault of being lazy,
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his master will dismiss him from his service. God acts
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in the same manner. Every tree that bringeth not forth
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good fruit should be cut down and cast into the
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fire Matthew seven nineteen. The servant who refuses to trade
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with talents his Lord has confided to him shall be
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cast into the exterial darkness. There shall be weeping and
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gnashing of teeth matched through twenty five point thirty. The
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idler cannot indeed hope that heaven will be his portion.
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For our Lord, says, call the laborers and give them
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their higher God does not love those who love their
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own ease. He expressly states as those who are lukewarm,
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neither cold nor hot, he will vomit them out of
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his mouth as Apocalypse or Revelations three sixteen. That is
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to say, he is disgusted with them. Our God is
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a consuming fire, and he delights in the adoration of
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the seraphim, who are in flame with a burning love.
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An open unbeliever is less abhorrent to him than a
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tepid Christian. Those who are inclined to indolence should think
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frequently of the reward, both temporal and external, of industry,
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and thus they will overcome their distasteful work. Look not,
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o Christians, says Saint Augustine, on the labor that it
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costs thee. Look rather to the rest and the joys
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which God promises thee. See how infinitely they outweigh all
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thy toil in doing good. Let us not fail, for
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in due time we shall reap not failing Galatians six.
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All right, y'all, we will wrap it up there. I
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will talk to you next time, and the words of
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Saint Padre Pio pray, hope and don't worry. Have a
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going