Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #408 "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the POWER OF GOD," (Mt 22:9)

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#408 "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the POWER OF GOD," (Mt 22:9) · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Become who you Are.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Podcast production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rickards, your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for joining me today.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are, that you would literally set the world on fire.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And St Athanasius, an early church father and the doctor of the church, said the son of God became man so that we might become God.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You know I make a while to guess at this, but I bet you, most of us, are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yet St John Paul II said there's an echo of this story, of this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart, in your human heart, and if you put on a proper lens, if I put on a proper lens, we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: See, that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology the body.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Who am I?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: What's my purpose?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Why were we created, male and female?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: How do I find happiness here on earth?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Hey, glad you're with me.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back for today's episode.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: This is a very exciting audience.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Again and again we were just for if you've been following us, if you were following us from last week.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: This is audience number 65.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: John Paul gave on November 18, 1981.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: This was after a long pause.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: He's coming back after he was shot and it's really something that he was shot on the feast day of our Lady of Fatima, who then, he said, redirected that bullet.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: He was going to announce that day the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family to get this theology, the body, out to the world.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You could just see Satan at work here, you know.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And so here's really the battle that we enter into.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: And so this is very exciting in that this is the third part of John Paul, called the triptych.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It started out in the beginning, before sin.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Then we went to the historical man, which is fallen man.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about the resurrection of the body.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: He starts out like this, doesn't he?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Linda?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: You are wrong.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: He tells the Sadducees, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God for Matthew 22.9.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: That's just powerful there.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Nope, you're wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Do you have the scripture reading in front of you, by any chance?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: That was Matthew 22.9, where he says you are wrong, you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: So he is responding to what the Sadducees has presented to him.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: They said there were seven brothers among us.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: The first married and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother, according to the Mosaic law on Leverite.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Last of all, the woman herself died in the resurrection then of the seven, whose wife will she be?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: And that's Matthew 22.25 through 28.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: So Christ is responding directly to that question that they presented to him.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, so, first of all, they don't believe.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The Sadducees don't believe in a resurrection.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: They only believe in those first five books of the Old Testament, which we call the Torah or the Pentateuch.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: In there there's no mention of the resurrection, so they just push it off to the side.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And Jesus comes in and says you know neither scriptures nor the power of God.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So their question again is look at, you know the seven brothers married the woman.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: If you're right about this resurrection, then whose wife is she?
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: As I was reading and reflecting on this this morning, I started to think about our current times, that this is AD 2023.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And the reason I started to think about this is this power of God.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Jesus says you don't know the scripture, and when you know, you're the expert.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So you think you know the scripture, but what you're missing here is that God is revealing himself in scripture and you have to know the power of God.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: He's not the God of the dead, but of the living.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And the reason I mentioned that the dates are so important to John, paul and anniversaries.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: As I was thinking about this, and you know, jesus is coming into the story and he's going to reveal the power of God.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And think about this.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: You know, for all of the atheists and the secularists out there and the materialists out there, this is AD 2023.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And it's amazing that our calendar is just not a random calendar, but literally begins with an encounter, with an event, an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Ad is Anno De Manio, right, and that means the year of the Lord.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So, while we're talking about the power of God, think about this, linda all of history we're coming down.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: We're counting down this time before we take off to eternal life, which all of us are ticking down.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: We're counting the dates and the calendar according to Christ coming into the world, the incarnation of God that comes into the world.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: He takes on a human body, and why does he do this?
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Because in the beginning, we were united with the divine.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: No sin, no fall.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So we're in the ambit.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: The maloo created creatures that were actually swimming in grace.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: It must have been just incredible.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Then we fall and so we lose this tree of life, don't we?
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: We no longer have access to eternal life.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Sin and death both come in because we reject God.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And God's plan was already to have Linda and I here today, all of you listening today and say, you know, in the year 2023, you know, you're gonna remind everybody that we have to understand Scripture and we have to be able to understand the power of God, the power of God to change each of our hearts and each of our lives.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And this is why I think, linda, this is so exciting is because Christ comes into the world on the cross, which is that tree that we no longer had access to in Genesis.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: He's going to give up his body and pour this out to us so that we have access to that tree of life again.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And so this and, linda, if you could look at number two, there's 65.2, witness to the power of the living God.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And, although it does not refer to the bush, matthew's version, this bush where God reveals himself to Moses.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And here's two elements he says both versions contain.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So Matthew and Mark contain two essential elements the statement about their future resurrection of the body, which we have to aim at, that this is where we're all going, and then the statement about the state of the bodies of risen human beings.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to take off from there, linda.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I have this excitement within me because we have this hopelessness going on in the world today, but I think it's because we don't really understand the power of God that we really have to.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: John Paul would say contemplate the face of God, contemplate the act of Christ on the cross, what he did for us, and he opens up this pathway to life, eternal life, and this was already revealed to us in the Old Testament, where he said I am not the God of the dead, but of the living.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And so the Pope goes on to tell us that, with the Sadducees knowing neither the scriptures nor the power of God, what they're lacking in is the very basis of faith in the resurrection.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And curiously, he wants us to meditate just a bit on this phrase to know the power of God.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: We use that word, no, in so many ways.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Like we do love, we use the word love for everything.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Well, we never really stop and think what does it mean to really know something, and when?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Christ?
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: is talking about that and think about this, linda, while you're saying this, make that connection that you just made, because you're talking about what does it mean to know somebody?
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Remember, right away, in Genesis, before sin now I just mentioned this, before sin, we're swimming in the ambit of God, and so Adam and Eve knew one another.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So make that connection with it, because when they knew, I mean this is knowing, like intimately knowing somewhere.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: This is what God is talking about.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: And as Adam and Eve knew each other and became one flesh bodily, we're also speaking of knowing the person in every way spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, mentally when we're dealing with persons.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So when Christ is talking about knowing the scriptures, he is also referring to knowing not just in the head.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I've read the scripture, I've memorized some verses and I can repeat the scriptures.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: That would all be the intellectual head, part of it, but knowing the scriptures in the heart, and that is how we come to know Christ, through the scriptures and Jesus-.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And this leads us into knowing Jesus Christ.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: This is what God wants.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: He wants us to know Him, to know Him.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: See, this is the power of God.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The power of God is not to dominate.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: You Just look at a cross.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: If you look at the cross in the body of someone on the cross, jesus Christ, what does that say?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: This is God who says what can I do?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I remember that the scripture from Sunday was the landowner.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And do you remember this?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: And so he's getting laborers for the vineyard right, and so he goes out at nine o'clock and hires them, and then 12 o'clock, and then five o'clock, almost at the end of the day.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: And so the people that were there all day are grumbling because he pays them all the same wage.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And so what does that?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: What is that analogy?
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Well, this is God, the Father.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: What is he giving all of us Depending on?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Doesn't?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: No matter where we came in history, no matter what part of our lives here on earth we come into it?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: The landowner, god, wants to give us the same wage.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Why does he give us the same wage?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Because it's his son, because it's his son.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: This is what God has to give, and that is whole.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Whatever it does, whatever time and place you say yes to God, he's going to give you everything that he can pour into you.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: So if I'm reflecting on that and I'm thinking, I've spent many, many, many years away from the church, how is it possible that I now can come back?
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: That gospel tells us how you're, the person that was called at five o'clock in the evening.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Come, the grace is still available to you.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: We often myself included, jack will look in a very human way at the gospels and get hung up on.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Well, that doesn't seem fair, right?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: The guys who have been working all day just get the wage, and it's pointed out that they agreed to that wage, you see, so we get hung up on what we think is fairness or not fair in our human way, and even if to a degree, humanly it's not fair on one level we go far beyond that because we're talking about the transcendence into the life of grace, and so we've gone beyond just our pure human way of looking at something.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And that's what Christ is wanting us to do here with the Sanctuces that they understand that he is the living God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And what does that mean?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: He is not God of the dead, but of the living.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: We're talking about that spiritual element.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So, by human terms, when we look at Abraham Isaac and Jacob they're dead.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Right, how can they be living if they're dead?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And we can get stuck in that way of thinking and Christ is pulling us way beyond that into the supernatural world of grace to say that no, they are living in that supernatural world with the living God.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thought just came in from the transfiguration too.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: So here's Peter and John and James go up the mount with Jesus.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: They see the transfiguration.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And so here's Jesus.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: He appears with Moses and Elijah and they're conversing.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: So Moses is the law, the covenant, and Elijah, of course, is the prophet.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And so here's Jesus.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: He's the fulfillment of both the law and the prophet in himself.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: But again, you see the, the life of Moses, you see the life of Elijah, and it's amazing.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: This is what we're called into, and while we're we're, we're worried about when somebody comes into this.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: We should all just be celebrating that they did.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: You know this life is over in a blink of an eye.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: If you had to justify when you came into the church, then you should know that your life was better earlier than the person that came in later, because you know, I mean, when you step in, you step away from slavery to sin and and to this tyrants of the world that want to take you down.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So you'll cause a lot less pain, hopefully, in your life if you came into the church earlier.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I saw the pain that I caused other people before I came back into the church.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So this is, this is fascinating again.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: John Paul says in 65, 3 he goes, he goes, there's Jesus first shows them a mistake in their method they do not know the scriptures and Then an error in the substance.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So they do not accept which is revealed by the scriptures, since they do not know the power of God, they do not believe in the one revealed to himself, to Moses and the burning bush.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And and John Paul goes on.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It's very significant and very precise answer here.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Here Christ meets men who consider themselves experts.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I love this, linda.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: These experts we hear this today in education, we hear this today in government.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: We hear this, anthony Fauci's of the world, you know, we hear the Bidens of the world, everybody's an expert bringing us all of this.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: What right this, this sin and death, really upon mankind, because they don't have the wisdom and they don't really believe in the power of God.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So, the experts and the competent interpreters of scripture?
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Well, jesus responds to these men, the Sadducees that mirror.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Literal knowledge of scripture is not enough.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Scripture is, in fact, that above all, this is so important.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: All a means listen to what you were just saying, linda all a means for knowing the power of the living God who reveals himself in it, he read he's revealed himself, as he revealed himself to Moses in the bush.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I Remember Benedict the 16th.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: He said, you know, at the end of the day, your faith and faith Don't forget, as a response to this God who wants to reveal himself to us.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Right faith is not just an empty thing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: It's faith in a somebody and in a belief in a person.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So Benedict said, you know, your faith will never be an ethical decision or some lofty philosophical idea.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be an encounter with an event.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It's an encounter with a person.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: This is what we're talking about here, and this encounter that scripture leads us to, this encounter will give you a new horizon and A decisive direction for your life.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: This is what Christ does.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: He comes into the world to bring us out of sin, out of death.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: You encounter that you see the world differently, and I it's so clear today, linda, when you see the, the what's going on in the world, that these are two totally different Views of how, what it means to be a human being, and this is what we're explaining here today.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: If you reject God, then you reject really what it means to be a human being and you see the world differently.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how you see the end and the fear, the can you.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Can you see how fearful people become about when you tell them you know there's a, there's a, the corona virus is out there, a climate change.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: You know, wear a mask, get a shot.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: You know, hide from the climate.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And you just see people just in tear, almost where they can't think anymore.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: The reason Because of the Irony of all of that, jack is, we all know we're all going to die anyway.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's amazing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Then that world view that is rooted in all that fear leads you nowhere, and you know.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: The opposite world view, of course, is to believe All that you have just described for us, and in that sentence that you read I want to read it again.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting here, before you ever got there with my pen.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Oh right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: But we're.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So I want to say it again scripture is, in fact, in above all, a Means for knowing the power of the living God, who reveals himself in it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Just as he did to Moses, so he reveals himself in it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Do you see that in the scripture?
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: When you talked about the transfiguration which, by the way, my trip to the Holy Land we were there right on that mountain in the church of the transfiguration and is just awesome to have that experience.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: But Christ is revealing himself over and over again in the scriptures as that way to, as Pope Benedict said, to have that encounter with him.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: He gives us so many opportunities.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: One of those may be the one that finally touches your heart, but you have to be open to that, and we've talked many times in theology, the body, that a main Overriding theme is opening our hearts to the scriptures, to Christ, to all that he has revealed, and so it comes out very strong in this audience.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Number 65 yes, it does.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the other part of this in the paragraph that I wanted to bring out is the Pope makes it clear again that we're only going to understand the statement of God being a God Not of the dead but of the living is if one admits the reality of a life that does not end with death.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So where are you, our dear listeners I'm at element of you know.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Do you believe that there is life after death, that that is a reality, or do you not?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And why and how have you come to that belief?
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: We're looking at all the ways to understand that, in fact, that is that reality, and when we consider, yes, we're all going to die, we have to also understand that God is not bound by death.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So, even though Christ died on the cross, that wasn't the end of it, because he's not bound by that, and his coming to us lifts us beyond that as well, in the reality that the Triptych tells us, we have a destiny.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: We're made for more.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: So these thoughts are something I think we really need to meditate on.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: As we get so fearful and concerned of what all is going on in the world today.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: This kind of brings us back to the real foundation, right.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know how people deal with it Otherwise, I guess you live in fear, anxiety and fear, and that becomes your life right, or you numb yourself to the reality of it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: You know utopia again, that mankind's trying to create and, trust me, they're going to try to create.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: You didn't come into a neutral space when you were born.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: If you reject God, you reject the power of the living God, then you will fall under the.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: There's two things you're going to fall under.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: You're going to fall under your own sin.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Your passions and desires are going to run amok.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: You'll be enslaved to your own sin within you.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But then you'll also be enslaved by the tyrants and rulers of the world who also have fallen the same way you have.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But they take it a step further.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: They want to rule you.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: So you may have lost your free will to enslavement, to addictions, all kinds of different things.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: We've talked about so many of those things in the past.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I don't have to tell people out there how many addictions and enslavements from food and alcohol and drugs and sex and you name it right, gambling but at the end of the day you become enslaved, or enslaved to fear.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: But don't forget the tyrants of the world have the same thing going on, but they decide they want to also take another step and they want to rule you.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Well, they know very well that the way to do that is by instilling fear in people.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And then they come in and swoop in and take power.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Well, this is the world ruled by the principalities and the powers of the world, those world elites that think they're so smart.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Time is ticking up on them too, linda, and if they really saw the big picture, they would know that they're under the power of Satan.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They're under the power of Satan.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And so, right at the bottom of so, this is number 65.3,.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So in man and Woman, he Created them.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: This is the bottom of page 384.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: We read this correctly.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Rereading Scripture, and particularly God's words just quote it means knowing and welcoming with faith the power of the giver of life, who was not bound by the law of death which rules over man's earthly history.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So again, we lost access to that tree of life.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Christ and the cross actually brings that back to us, right.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: So when we embrace that, the whole world opens up again.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: And then on 65.4, the moment was to come.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Now, here, john Paul points out that Christ has been talking about the Old Testament because he's talking to people that know the Old Testament.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: But there would come a time, soon after this, when Christ would give an answer to this question by his own resurrection.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: We have to remember this that tree that brought us life, that Jesus is hanging on, that he pours out to us Right next to that.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: If you go down this path that Jesus is opening up, this narrow path that Jesus opens up in Scripture, you see the empty tomb.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: We see the empty tomb.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: That empty tomb is what awaits all of us that believe in Jesus Christ, and so we know this.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: And it starts today because you start to free yourself from that death, that sin and death that we feel right now on this earth, right and as you become more free, your faith starts to grow, then you start to look up toward where Christ is leading us and your hope comes.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And then charity, finally, because you become that person of love that Christ has been wanting to instill in us.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: And that's the final word that I'll say right now, and that it's a love story.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: It has to be a love story.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Think about the humility of Jesus Christ.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: God pours this gift out to us.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Even before we were born, linda, this tree was already standing there.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: That tree, that power of the living God, was already there the moment I came into the sinful world.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I was baptized before I even knew it, and then that tree was there.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I always was free to choose that tree of life, and I didn't in certain times of my life, and that's okay, because I saw how far and how fast a person can fall when you don't have that.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate it every day because I know what could happen and what did happen in times of my life when I didn't embrace that tree and that tree of that living God.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: And so that life that we start to feel, that we see in Christ, with that empty tomb, takes hold of us today, today, right.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Right, wow, so much there, jack.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Interesting you said if you become more free, you see that whole idea of the powers and the principalities and the Global elitist trying to rule the entire world and all.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: It's slavery, it's slavery in every form.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So all the addictions are slavery.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: You know we think, oh, we're doing what we want to do.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Well, all it's doing is leading us, you know, more into that death spiral and being entrapped and enslaved by all of it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And the opposite is what Christ brings us.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: So, with the tree of life, we've had Access to it if we're baptized we died with Christ through the baptism, and we rise with him to have access once again to that tree of life.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Well, the tree of life is Is the the grace, sharing in grace, sanctifying grace.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: We know that is a share of the life of God and so it's grace that enters into our life.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: But we have to respond to the grace.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: So when you say, boy in my life, when I Wasn't paying attention to that, and so on, it was like the grace was sitting there on the shelf right next to you, you know, and it was there all along, but you didn't access it.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: You know, for whatever reason, reasons most likely being my selfishness, wanting to live life my way, which eventually leads me into all of those addictions.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Right, it's really.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: It's like.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: It's like the love story when it goes awry.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: This is what happens, and while all the details are different for each of us.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: The the whole idea, the path is really the same, you know.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So we don't respond to the grace that is available to us now through that access once again to the tree of life, and we're gonna do it our way.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, it just rings in my head all the time that Frank Sinatra's song, that I did it my way, you know, and there have been priests that have pointed out that that's a theme song of hell.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Right, doing it my way.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Acting, the grace and so on.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: You know so, this audience Telling us that.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the tree of life.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: What is that for us?
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: In historical man?
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: That's the cross.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Right, jack?
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: It's the cross, and we've talked many times over it's.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You know that we have to pick up our cross daily, look at the cross, look at the crucifix, in order to be able to do that and avail ourselves of that grace.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: But we have to live our individual crosses and when we're doing that, we're actually Availing ourselves of the tree of life and we're recognizing that we are made for something more.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: That bad destiny is in fact Proven to us, so to speak, through Christ's own resurrection.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, I, I'm thinking as you're saying that.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: So Padre appeals feast day was just.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: We just had it on September 23rd yeah and I just did a podcast on that, and I would recommend people Maybe catch that, because and I'll just tell you just a little bit about so this unpacks a little bit more what we're looking at here.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: He said in a meditation in the Magnificat you can get that.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Let.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Let us always keep our eyes On the fact that here on earth, we're on a battlefield, and then, in paradise, well, we shall receive the crown of victory that.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: This, though, is a testing ground, and the prize will be awarded from above.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We are now in a land of exile.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Our true homeland is heaven, to which we must continually Aspire.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Let us live, then, with a lively faith, the firm hope in an ardent love, with eyes fixed on heaven and the keenest desire, as long as we are travelers, to dwell one day in heaven.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: So let us keep our thoughts, I say, continually.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: He said, fixed on heaven.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So he wants you, and John Paul says this too.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: He said the first thing we should do if we want to enter into this life is contemplate the first thing, contemplate the face of Jesus Christ, and I was reading Linda, this is from the Magnificat.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: The next day from Sunday, father Simeon, and I'm thinking okay, I'm looking at the, and I do this, and I did this today at mass, just really looking up at the cross, into the face of Christ.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And then Father Simeon writes this he, he, he says this, and he's talking about the landowner, again, that that I brought up.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And he said God must give One in the same ways to all, because the one thing he has to give is his son, single, whole, individed, all sufficient.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: He who did not spear his own son but gave him up for all of us, will he not also give us all things with him?
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And that's Roman eight, romans 832.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: You can read that.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So, finally, the point is precisely that infinitely Boundiful, bountiful mercy of Christ, that infinitely bountiful mercy of Christ, impossible for any of us to merit, that puts itself lovingly this is what we're looking at up at the face of Christ, puts itself lovingly in the place of the center in Order to justify him before the holiness of God and make him worthy of participating in God's holy life.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing, right.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so so here you have the Christian Catholic worldview, if you hold to what you just read there.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Jack the Pope ends this audience really with paragraph 7 here talking about Beautiful yeah, our understanding.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Can I go ahead and read?
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: it.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, please, I Do that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: So paragraph 7 then says, regarding the possibility of the resurrection.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Well, we could extend that, not just the resurrection, but the whole worldview of is there a God?
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Does he love me, does he want me to be with him?
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Just all of that, as you just read.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: So Christ appeals precisely to that power that goes hand in hand with the testimony of the living God, who is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob and the God of Moses.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: The God whom the Sadducees Deprive he's got that in quotes of this power is no longer the true God of their fathers, but the God of their hypotheses and interpretations.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Christ, on the other hand, has come to bear witness to the God of life in the whole truth of his power that unfolds over man's life.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I love that sentence, the second to the last, where it's not the true God the Sadducees are Even discussing at this point because they've deprived him of his power.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: But they have hypotheses or interpretations and isn't that what we continue to do?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Always my own hypotheses about this, or the way I'm going to interpret it, to do it my way, as I just said, and the Pope tells us no, christ is bearing witness to that God of life in the whole truth of his power, and the meditations that you've read go into depth and how we actually Achieve that understanding of that whole truth.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, linda.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: And so I'll just finish by saying that that if people have the Magnificat, the readings from Padre Pio, the meditation from Padre Pio and the readings from that day on Saturday, and then from father Simon Simeon on Sunday and then Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity on on Monday, if you read those three together with the scripture reading you, you can spend the rest of your life meditating on that.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And what Linda just read here and and you know, christ came in here and we're talking about here bringing this tree of life, he's unlocking what happened in Genesis 3.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: So we're not going to take the time because we're going to close here, but Just read Genesis 3 and you're going to see the serpent with Eve and that closed off that tree of life.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And just to Linda's point that she made just a few moments ago that, no, you will not die.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: The serpent said to Eve you will be like God's, knowing what is good and what is evil, and so this is what happened.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And you're exactly right, linda.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, you know, think about all the lies and what you just read at the end there Be your witness to the God of life in the whole truth, the truth of his power that unfolds over man's life.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Huh beautiful stuff powerful stuff.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, and truth is a key word that we're going to talk about in some of these other audiences.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: That is so important.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, john's Paul said that that if they had to take one phrase out of the Bible and no other phrase, it would say the truth will set you free.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: The truth will set you free.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: God bless you, linda.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being with us, thanks everyone for listening and we will catch you again next week.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you, jack, bye you.