Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 43: God uses evil for good

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Show 43: God uses evil for good · The Uncensored Catholic

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Hey, y'all, welcome today's show. You know, I've been doing the
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Misio Day Gospel Reflection usually Thursdays for the past couple of months, and so
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of course one came out today and I want to talk about that just a
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little bit, maybe expand a little bit on some of those themes. It's
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an interesting concept really. It's a part of Catholic doctrine, teaching that God
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uses evil men. God uses bad things our actions which cause you know,
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our sins, our bad actions for good. And it's really interesting concept.
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We'll get into that in a minute, but I'm gonna go ahead and start
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like I did yesterday, with a couple of questions and answers from the radio
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Replies series from the nineteen thirties. And if you remember from yesterday, people
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were writing in to the priests and asking them basically to prove the existence of
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God. The person today writes in, you, as a priest, argue
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to a clockmaker, I, as a rationalist, ask who created your uncreated
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clockmaker? They answer, quite obviously, that is not a rational question.
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I say that the universe is obviously created, and that what is created supposed
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as a creator, who is uncreated or the problem goes on forever, the
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whole endless chain of dependent beings unable to explain itself as each of its links.
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It is rational to argue to an uncreated clockmaker. It is not rational
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to ask who created this uncreated clockmaker. God was not created. If he
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were, he would be a creature, and he would have a creator.
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His creature would then be God, and not he himself. God always existed,
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He never began, and never will cease to be. He is eternal.
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That's interesting if you go back to Saint Irenaeus, like maybe late two
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hundreds, around three hundred AD, he was countering the gnostic heresy. A
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lot of a lot of our flawed notions, both Christian and non Christian,
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really arise out of narcissism. The Nastics, he seems, were founded by
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Simon, the magician, who you may remember from the books Book of Acts,
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tried to buy the power of the apostles, and Saint Peter said,
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may you perish and your silver along with you. He went on and apparently
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founded it around Samaria, his own church, claiming that he was the Messiah,
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and mixed sort of vaguely Christian ideas with a lot of Greek mythology and
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his a concept or the concept of Valentineous or several of his father followers.
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One of the main ones was that there were multiple heavens, a heaven upon
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a heaven upon a heaven, each one with its own deities created by another
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above them and another above them. And if you think about sort of the
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pantheon of Greek or Roman gods, you can kind of, you know,
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figure out where he was getting from this getting this from. A lot of
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it came from the epic poets and their descriptions of like the I guess you
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would say, what the mythology, the adventures of the gods or whatever.
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Very evil man, very very evil man, but really one of the first
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people to truly take the Gospels, to take the teachings of the Church and
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pervert it into a new church, a new cult. They even came up
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with what they called the Gospel, the Gospel of Judas, where they tried
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to present Judas as a someone doing the will of God as opposed to the
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one who betrayed our Lord. So many of their heresies have lived on in
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different forms in various Protestant churches. You'll find a lot of nasticism, especially
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in the Jehovah's Witnesses, Seven day Adventists, Mormonism, a lot of the
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French groups, but then even more mainline Protestant denominations. The No. Six,
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for instance, were the first to say what many Protestants believe, once
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saved, always saved. They believed that once they had their knowledge of God,
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That's what gnostic means is knowledge, no matter what sin they committed,
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they would still go to heaven. And many of them were very public sinners,
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committing adultery and homosexuality and all kinds of stuff. They believed their knowledge
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of God meant that no matter what they did, they were not only forgiven,
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but they also argued that they had a duty to commit every sin,
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none to man. I don't know that many Protestants go that far say that
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they have a duty, but certainly, when I was at a certain Baptist
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university, they taught once saved, always saved, And I said, well,
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you know, if that be the case, why does Saint Paul says
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he's working out his self vation and fear and suffering, and that he wants
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or fear and trembling, I think, and that he wants to strive hard
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to finish the race. If salvation cannot be lost, why would and in
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many such quotes I gave them several passages. Why did those who wrote the
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Bible, the saints who founded the church say that salvation could be lost?
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Why did Jesus himself say that, you know, a man could have demons
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cast out, the demon would come back with more demons, and he would
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possess him again and be in a worse state than you know, he wasn't
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originally. Why did he get the parable of the seed scattered in good ground,
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bad ground, etc. The seed that he said, those who hear
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the word but do not keep it wither away like weeds and the sun cast
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on you know, bad ground, rocky soil. It's not a Christian concept,
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and yet it's a foundational least of several Protestant denominations. They have to
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believe that because they don't believe in confessing one sins to a priest. And
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if you take away confessing one sins to a priest, you are left with
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only being able to pray directly to God. And if you make the assumption
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that God's going to forgive you your sins every time you ask, and that
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assumption essentially says no matter what you do, oh, you have to ask,
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is just a simple prayer, whether you mean it or not, for
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forgiveness? And then some go as far as saying not at all that Jesus
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paid the sacrifice on the cross and all sins are forgiven. So I would
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ask very rationally in class, well, what if a person you know is
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at one of your Baptist revivals and he goes to the altar and he confesses
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his sins and he accepts Jesus Christ's savior and he's baptized, and you know,
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two weeks later he goes to Helton, robs a bank, shoots five
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people, you know, kills a police officer, you know, rapes,
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robs and murders. Is he still saved? And they say, yes,
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yes he is. And I'd say, well, why then should one why
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should he a Christian not sin? Well, they say, a true Christian
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doesn't sin. Well, if a true Christian doesn't sin, and there's no
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penalty, where exactly's is getting us? And then of course you may know
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what happened that that particular Baptist university where the you know, chancellor was involved
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in many many scandals that we will not discuss because the Catechism says, quite
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rightly, it's not right to discuss other people's scandals. But that concept that
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so long as you believe in God, you can do whatever and still go
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to heaven is not only not biblical, it's certainly not caught by the Catholic
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Church. It doesn't stand to reason. And I mean, it's probably led
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to a lot of bad stuff, a lot of divorce, a lot of
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adultery. I can think of a lot of embezzlement among ministers and church leaders,
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a lot of drug abuse, a lot of real serious perversion, a
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lot of homosexuality, and such as that. At least the Catholic Church says
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it's wrong and you need to go confess your sins and the priests will counsel
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you and give you penance, which is actually what the Bible says. You
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know, in the Gospel John, those who sends you forgive, they are
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forgiven. Those who sends you retain, they are retained. Without that,
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You're a ship without a rudder. I'm just cast about drifting aimlessly, hoping
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you make it to the shore, hoping the wind. I guess which we
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could compare to the spirit blows you in the right direction, and that you
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don't well, they don't believe you can avoid I'm afraid they're going to have
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a rude awakening. I mean, Jesus said, I mean, he will
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come to me and say, Lord Lord, did we not believe in your
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name? Did we not cast out demons of your name? Did not could
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do miracles in your name? And he will say, I do not know
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you. They say, just to believe in Jesus. It means salvation.
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Jesus is saying, these people are going to come and say, Jesus,
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we believe in you. We even did all these amazing things. And he's
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gonna say, I don't know you. Be gone from me, go to
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a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth. We can only hope and pray
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that does not happen to those who don't understand. Yeah, person I questioned,
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The priest goes on to say, you talk of universal persuasion. Men
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used to believe that the world was flat. Well, the answer, A
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sufficient reason for that error is evident these viz I guess you would say,
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via the lack of evidence and the fact that men followed their senses, which
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seemed to say that the Earth was flat. There was not a judgment of
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pure reason. It's just supplied. No immediate manifestation that there might be a
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God, to say, indicated that the world might be flat. The cases
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are not parallel, and the transition from a judgment based upon the senses to
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one based upon pure reason is not valid. In any case. The scientific
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and metaphysical proofs justify believe in God quite independently of this psychological reason. They
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would be valid supposing that only one man in a million believe in God's existence.
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The latter supposition, however, would never be verified, for the common
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rational judgment of a vast majority will always intuitively perceive the truth. Now,
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that's a very fancy way of saying. And I know some people still today
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believe the world's flat. That's a little bizarre to me. But that,
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as Thomas Jefferson would say, neither breaks my arm nor picks my pocket.
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I could not care less if someone thinks the world is flat. I also
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don't care about the Kennedy assassination, you know, not being a baby.
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I really couldn't care less. There are other things that I may have,
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you know, some controversial opinions, But there are other things that people get
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all worked up about that. I just really don't care about whatsoever. And
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you can put him upon those the supposed flatness of the earth and the Kennedy
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assassination. Kennedy was not a very good man whatsoever. Just because he was
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the first Catholic president does not make him a saint. Yeah, he was
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probably killed by CIA. Yeah, probably seems to be. You know,
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LBJ was a Freemason and a clansman, and most of the CIA were also
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Freemasons, and I don't doubt at all that they could have used Oswald as
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a useful idiot. He was a Communist, and you know, events came
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together and allowed the bad guys to prosper by bumping off the first Catholic president,
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the only one that was in a Freemason. And while Kennedy was far
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more conservative than Nixon, especially fiscally, Nixon was essentially a socialist. They
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were both anti communist, and CIA was working with the Communists. And you
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know, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Venona documents came out
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and showed that the Kremlin was working with many American politicians, including Ted Kennedy,
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but also had very strong ties to the Masonic Order, and if it
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was beneficial to get rid of the first Catholic president who was pretty strongly anti
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Communist, to benefit a LBJ socialist member of the Masonic Order who may have
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been a little bit more on the side of Russia Soviet Union, I don't
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doubt it. But then again, I don't get real worked up about it
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because Kennedy was really not a very moral or good man. Sorry, he
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wasn't. I know, a lot of you know, Catholics think he just
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hung the moon, but he was pretty much a real scoundrel. So so,
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you know, I'm sorry, baby Boomers. I don't get all worked
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out that you're, you know, hero adulterous president got shot. I kind
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of got over that one a long time ago, like when I was ten
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years old watching the X Files or something. I just assume, yep,
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yep, yep, government probably had something to do with it. Time to
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move on, all right, anyway. And I'm about the same way with
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flat Earth or something like, yeah, all right, you believe that that's
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cool. I couldn't go less if you think the world's flat, you know,
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just go walking into any direction, see if you fall off, and
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if you do, hey, you're right, I guess so you've proven that
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much. But anyway, the point on this statement, what the priests were
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saying, is that primitive man could not perceive what was beyond his vision.
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He thought the world might be flat and one could go and fall off.
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To compare that to this person says, well, why would you believe in
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God? Just because people in the past believed in God, they also used
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to think the world was flat. That would limit the perception of anything to
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the human senses. Whereas primitive man could only see so far into the distance
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and did not know what was out there, the mind of man, the
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sensitivity has given us by God, can point a truth that our physical senses
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cannot and well, where the main things would be miracles, our physical reason
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and senses cannot understand miracles there beyond home human understanding or ability to recreate.
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As I have mentioned before, I was paralyzed with a debilitating, lifelong back
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injury, and some people prayed for me and my spine was healed in an
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instant. The doctors could not understand the X rays look like two different people.
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Because I was healed. That is a miracle beyond human reasoning. But
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even with our just simple rational minds we can understand, and everything we know,
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from ourselves to everything around us owes its existence to something else. The
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desk in front of me comes from wood that came from a tree, that
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came from a seed that came from a previous tree, that came from a
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previous tree, a previous tree, a previous tree. With the energy from
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the sun and the nutrients of the soil, it can exist on its own.
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It could not bring itself into existence. An oak tree is formed from
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an acorn, and acorns formed from an oak tree. The plant itself could
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not bring itself into existence. It had to be created by a create tour.
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The create tour of everything is something without a create tour, it is
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whole in and of itself. It was not created. So therefore the so
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called clockmaker, if you want to use an analogy that Thomas Jefferson is rather
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flawed. Never was fond of that. What they called that is it rationalist
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argument that basically God just sets everything in motion like a clockmaker, winds it
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up and lets it go and walks away. Because miracles and answers to prayer
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would not fit into that model, nor would the sacrificial death and resurrection of
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Jesus Christ. God came to redeem man, and the clockmaker would not.
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The clockmaker just builds the clock, winds it up, and walks away.
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Not only that, but the gears themselves would have to be willingly repaired by
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the clockmaker. See, because God gives us free will, that analogy does
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not work. If you do not wish to be saved, God will not
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save you. If you do not wish to be healed, God will not
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heal you. If you do not pray and worship God, God will not
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be active in your life. You have free will to accept God or deny
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God as you please, And the gears of a clock do not have that
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if they were being maintained or wound by a clockmaker. So it's a very
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faulty, very faulty analogy. But now let's get into one of those odd
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const apps in today's gospel. We really revisit a story I actually wrote about
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last week. And if you're on a subject newsletter, I usually send my
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missing a Day gospel reflections to you when I write them. It's just a
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little bonus feature, you know, no big deal. We were talking about
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how in many instances in the history of the Bible. The younger brother receives
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the inheritance due the older brother. These are all essentially analogies that repeat throughout
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the Old Testament, you know, from starting with Esaul and and all that.
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And they're they're bleeding up to remember the Old Testament for shadows a New
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Testament. The New Testament explains the Old Testament how God would call the Jews
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the hebrew people to be as chosen people, and that they would reject him
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to time and time again, and eventually what their their inheritance, their gift
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as God's chosen people, would be taken and given to the younger brother,
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the Christian. That's you know. Jesus says, you are no longer slaves
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to the law, but you are heirs. He makes us brothers and sisters
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in Christ. Jew and gentile alike who follow him are adopted into the family
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of God through Jesus Christ. The younger brother takes from the older brother what
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was rightfully due the older brothers. But like while Esau he traded his inheritance
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for bold lentils, he could not he was attached to the things of the
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world that he was attached to temporal things and not to the eternal things.
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When we get to Joseph, Joseph of the you know, the technical or
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dream Code, whatever ridiculous musical is all about. Now, Joseph, the
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one that was favored by his father. His brothers took him an originally one
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to kill him, through him in a cistern, you know, neck deep
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in mud to die, and then pulled him out and sold him into slavery
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to Egypt. He goes there, he's a slave. He's really blessed by
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God though, and he raises up, rises up through the ranks. He
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becomes second in command of all of Egypt under the Pharaoh. And during a
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famine, his family comes to him, not even knowing it's their brother,
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and he gives him grain, he keeps him alive, and then he reconciles
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with them. And you know, that's that's how God saved his people was
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through the evil intentions of those younger brothers. You know, consider that,
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Consider that in their jealousy his older brothers, and each of these brothers became
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the heads of one of the tribes of Israel. This is the analogies are
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you know, remember there's the Old Testament is very symbolic. We make a
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big mistake when we just read it literally as if we were reading a newspaper.
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The Encyclopedia Britannica. There were twelve brothers that became the Twelve, the
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heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Well, so essentially all Israel was
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saved through the evil actions of Joshua's brothers. Another correlation, as I mentioned
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before, you know, our Torah observant friends that tell us we're going to
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hell because we go to church on Sunday, insists that Jesus's name must be
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pronounced Yeshua or Yeshua. Well, that's Hebrew for Joshua. So in many
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ways, Joshua's saving the people of Israel is an an nowology or similar even
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to Jesus's saving of all of humanity. So God used evil intentions for good.
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That's that's that's something I mean. Let it sink in. And if
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we think in the life of Jesus, we have no salvation without the crucifixion,
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death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that only comes through the
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evil actions of Judas. Now that does not excuse Judas's evil actions. Very
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likely Satan tempted all of the twelve Apostles and probably tempted m Saint Peter and
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Judas most Even though Saint Peter would deny Jesus, he would not betrayed Jesus.
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And Jesus made him the foundation stone upon which he would build his church,
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and went to him and said three times, Peter, do you love
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me? And he said, feed my sheep. He made him the shepherd
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of the church. Very we can get way into that. There's so much,
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so much parallels, so many parallels, and so many allegories between the
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images of shepherds throughout the Bible. But Jesus made Saint Peter the shepherd.
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Whereas Judas, through his free will, betrayed Jesus. And Jesus said of
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the one who betrayed him, it would be better had the man never been
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born. Judas chose whether it's through greed, whether you know for the silver,
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said that he was stealing from the treasury of the Apostles. Anyway,
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he was apparently very tempted by greed. He may have had political aspirations.
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He may even thought he could force Jesus to rise up and conquer the Roman
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people if his life was threatened. That's another idea. Some people have had.
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No one knows for sure. For whatever reason, Judas did betray Jesus
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through his own free will and consigned himself to eternal damnation and committed suicide thereafter
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without with no chance of repentance. So as you just said, it would
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be better for him had he never lived. So in no way to God
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prevent no way. God supersede the free will of the individual. He did
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not force him to betray Jesus. Very likely he brought temptations against several of
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the Apostles, and most likely Saint Peter and Judas the most one of them
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would fall. Remember twelve is also considered like a universal number, so the
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twelve our representative of all mankind. But God used the betrayal of Judas for
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good, no matter how much the devil tried to destroy Jesus through Judas.
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Through the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of our Lord, all humanity received
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the opportunity should through our free will as we accepted salvation, and all creation
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was redeemed. Sin and death entered the world for our first parents sins,
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and the beginning of the renewal of the entire universe is the resurrection of our
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of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You know, I know many people
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are suffering right now, just in my own circle of friends. You know,
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I've got one dear friend who's in dire financial straits, lives in another
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country. I can't help her, but you know, all I can do
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is pray for her. She's having a really hard time dealing with some family
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issues and financial issues. It's not good. Another dear friend, a real
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good Protestant friend, one of the most religious people I know, was in
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a terrible auto accident a couple of weeks ago. He's still in the hospital
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recovering from surgeries, barely survived, and it's really bad. I mean,
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he's seriously injured. And another one is my friend in Ukraine who lives in
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Odessa, who is just literally trying to survive from day to day. That's
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just three of several people just in my immediate circle who are going through really
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bad struggles. And you know, all I can do is pray for them.
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But what really stands out is the faith of each I mean, they're
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each of them seem to be praying more and have a stronger faith in God's
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providence than ever before. And the same true of their families. I mean,
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my friend who was in the car accident, really good Protestant Christian,
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whole communities are praying for him. I mean this, you know, kind
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of quiet guy who works at a grocery store, who just stops and talks
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with everybody and ask them how they're doing, and if they're not doing well,
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ask if he can say a prayer for them. He takes some time
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on weekends to do some mission work and such. Real humble, real quiet,
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humble guy. The entire communities of Protestant, Catholic, non religious I
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mean barely religious, I guess agnostic whatever, people are praying. Thousands of
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people are praying for him, tens of thousands. There was even an article
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about him in the local newspaper. I mean, he's touched so many people's
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life. It is just by just by caring about people and there, I
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mean, the the outpouring of support for him is incredible. My friend that's
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going through so many financial struggles is now going to daily mass and praying,
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you know, three three rosaries a day, you know the one in Ukraine.
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Her house was burned down by a Russian missile strike. Uh, she's
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come back, She's gotten another apartment, she's taking care of her family,
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and you know, just praying and trying to get through one day at a
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time. I mean, you know, I have some my own issues,
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don't I don't talk about him. I've been going through a lot um but
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I mean in comparison, no matter how hard my struggles are, it's nothing
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compared to them, and each one of them is showing, you know,
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heroic faith. I don't know how. I mean, He's going to take
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a miracle for each one of these people that I just mentioned, but I
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know God's gonna work out everything for good. That's his promise. And you
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know, by definition, God cannot lie. God who can speak anything into
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creation, but he cannot lie anything he says is true. He's the author
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of truth. Faith is a belief in things that are unseen and even by
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behind our ability to understand. I don't know how Everything's gonna work out,
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but I know we can trust in God's promises. As our Lord said,
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not one sparrow falls without his notice, and he loves us so much more.
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You know, I talked about that quite a bit yesterday, So go
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back to that show if you don't remember this one. But anyway, but
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by no means started these glid woords. I mean, imagine the suffering of
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Joseph awaiting his death, sunk deep into the mud of a sister, and
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imagine being made a slave. He was likely now nourished, beaten, and
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forced to do unpleasant work. Many times. The world is absolutely full of
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suffering right now, and has been since the fall of man. But the
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Bible also tells us those who endure to the end will be saved. And
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that is another one of God's promises. I've seen in my own life.
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I can tell you the depression when I was paralyzed. I've been through financial
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hardships. Two thousand and eight, I had started a business that went under
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in the financial collapse. I ended up a half million dollars in debt in
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the blink of an eye, with no job. Went through a lot of
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hard times, went through a lot of struggles, doing a lot of things
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I didn't want to do, a lot of sacrifices. Basically, ten years
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of my life just kind of lost, but came out on the other side.
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God provided, God will always provide. God works all things together for
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our good. If we only had the foresight to see how things were going
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to turn out we would never lose faith. So y'all, in the words
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of Saint Padre Pio, pray, hope and don't worry. And I guess
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I'm signing off for this week. I'll talk to you next week. Have
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a good one.