Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 204: The Means of Grace part 2, The Sacrifice of Christ Upon The Cross
Transcript
- 0:54Speaker 1: A Hey, y'all, welcome this week's show. Yeah, I missed
- 1:03a couple. It's been a while since I've been able
- 1:05to do a podcast. As I explained last time, my
- 1:09laptop was dying and had I had already ordered a
- 1:13new laptop before I recorded the last show that was
- 1:16aired almost two weeks ago, but the seller never sold it.
- 1:21So I'm sitting there for a week waiting, you know,
- 1:23think it's going to be here any day. I mean,
- 1:25he never shipped it. The seller did sell it. He
- 1:27took my money. I had to. He didn't want to
- 1:31give it back either. It was just basically a thief.
- 1:33But I did finally get a refund after being you know,
- 1:37quite quite insistent on the point. So a week was
- 1:41lost on that, and so I ordered another laptop. It
- 1:46arrived very quickly, like three four days. Well it was
- 1:50probably actually maybe even a little faster than that. It
- 1:53arrived unusable, it was broken. I had to return it,
- 1:57and I immediately ordered another laptop, and it was supposed
- 2:02to be to me within like four days on the outside,
- 2:05you know, except that seller just kind of waited around
- 2:09and didn't bother ship it for almost a full week,
- 2:12and so it got to me late, but it works
- 2:15and I'm finally back and able to do podcasts. So
- 2:19it's been a it's been an interesting month. I'll put
- 2:22it that way. It's been an interesting month. Been a
- 2:26lot of things going on. Actually nothing we need to
- 2:30discuss right now. All you need to know is I
- 2:32am back. Podcasting should be regularly at least one or
- 2:35two shows a week from here on out. By the way,
- 2:40if you haven't done so so far, be sure to
- 2:42share my show with your friends and family. Let's grow
- 2:45the audience. You know, my newsletter, the Uncensored Catholic Newsletter,
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- 2:56reflection that's a written article. Plus you get the podcas casts.
- 3:02Help me grow the audience. Let's let's get the good
- 3:04word spread, all right. So, last we spoke, there was
- 3:10someone who calls himself a rationalist debating with the priest
- 3:14Rumble and Karthy, and he has been He's basically what
- 3:20you call modern liberal. Even though this was in the
- 3:22nineteen twenties, this is the same kind of conversation you'd
- 3:26have with I don't know, John Carey or I think
- 3:30he actually may still claim to be Catholic, But you know,
- 3:34Bernie Sanders or somebody like that. Surely I can think
- 3:37of someone with a little more intelligence than either of those.
- 3:39But yeah, note actually really come to mind. You know,
- 3:44Bill Maher's right, what's every blue moon? You know, he's like,
- 3:49you know, even a blind pig finds the occasional acorn.
- 3:51So we'll go with that of stock clocks right twice
- 3:54a day. So the person asks, why can not the
- 3:59Catholic Church a man like Joseph McCabe, And he means
- 4:02as a member of the church, And they answer, well,
- 4:05because he was a man like Joseph McCabe, The Catholic
- 4:08Church keeps no man against his will. McCabe lost faith,
- 4:13as many men can do, or any man can do,
- 4:15they said, and departed from the church, just as the
- 4:18Jews from Christ, saying this is a hard saying, who
- 4:21can hear it? Intellectual pride blended with obstinacy of will
- 4:26could take any man out of the church. And McCabe
- 4:29was a popular writer at this time, so called rationalist,
- 4:32a modernist, progressive, you know. And the person continues, would
- 4:37you question his honesty of purpose? And then they answered guests.
- 4:42McCabe has sought to make money and a court popularity
- 4:45by reviling the church he quitted. He claims to know history,
- 4:49yet quotes his facts things that he must know to
- 4:52be untrue, calumnies which Ernest Rennan as good a rationalists
- 4:56as McCabe had refuted twenty years before mcabe rehashed him.
- 5:00Though he claims to be an unbeliever in Christianity, regarding
- 5:04that religion as a complete fraud. The whole of his
- 5:07distorted work twelve years in a monastery panders to Protestant centiment,
- 5:12and it does to this day that is considered an
- 5:14anti Catholic classic. In fact, a lot of these calm
- 5:20chick books. You may have seen these, if you ever
- 5:23stopped into a gas station on the interstate, you would
- 5:27find these in the bathrooms, like beside the sink or
- 5:30on the hand dryer. There were little comic books that showed,
- 5:33you know, priests eating children, and every kind of anti Catholic,
- 5:40insane form of insanity that you could come up with.
- 5:44Every horror story that he invented, and that was one
- 5:47I believe he serialized, if not, he did draw heavily
- 5:50on it. Those were everywhere when I was a kid,
- 5:54you know, eastern North Carolina basically run by the k
- 5:57Klux Klan and the Freemasons. There was a lot, there
- 6:01was a lot of anti Catholic stuff around. A person says,
- 6:07it is strange that two highly intellectual men could be
- 6:10affected so differently, you being attracted to join the Catholic
- 6:13Church and mccab impelled to leave it. And the answer
- 6:16where the priest is actually addressing. One was a convert,
- 6:19the was a cradle Catholic. He said, it is not strange.
- 6:22Intellectual attainment really has very little to do with it.
- 6:26In the ultimate analysis, brains alone cannot bring a man
- 6:30to Christian truth, and brains alone will not keep him
- 6:33in it. Christ did not say, come to me, all
- 6:36ye intellectual people, and I will refresh you. Very true,
- 6:41I'll often point out. Christ didn't say, read the Bible
- 6:44and you'll be saved. No, there was no Bible. The
- 6:47Bible wasn't around for another three hundred and some years
- 6:50after the resurrection. He said, believe and follow my commandments,
- 6:56be baptized, be born again through water and blood, which
- 6:59is bad baptism and the Eucharist unless you eat of
- 7:03my flesh and drinking my blood. You have no life
- 7:05in you. Forsake out the gathering yourselves together on the
- 7:09Lord's Day, all the practices of the Catholic Church. But
- 7:13Protestants like to just shove those aside. Or someone will say,
- 7:16I don't believe in organized religion. The Bible's enough. Jesus
- 7:20never said that. And if that can't actually be true,
- 7:24because for the first well over three hundred years of
- 7:28Christianity and for hundreds of years after, as most of
- 7:31the people in the world were illiterate, they couldn't read
- 7:34the Bible if that was necessary to be saved. They
- 7:37could only go to a church and hear the priests
- 7:39read the Bible to them, because they couldn't read it themselves.
- 7:43And of course, before the Gutenberg invented the printing press,
- 7:46every Bible had to be copied by hand. There just
- 7:49weren't a lot of Bibles around. If reading the Bible
- 7:52was necessary for salvation, there could have been no Christian
- 7:57Church until after the Catholic Gutenberg printed a Catholic Bible.
- 8:02And how Protestants make that claim that somehow the Catholic
- 8:05Church prevented people from having bibles. I mean, look, at
- 8:09it rationally to most people in you know, one hundred
- 8:17AD to or just say around fourteen hundred, giving them
- 8:22a Bible or a book of any kind would have
- 8:24been about as useful as giving a bicycle to a dog.
- 8:27They couldn't use it because they couldn't read. It was
- 8:32only through the institution of free schools by the Catholic
- 8:35Church that literacy was spread to the masses, and it
- 8:38took a long time because there were a lot more
- 8:41people than there were priests and monks and nuns to teach,
- 8:45and a lot of people just really didn't see the
- 8:47point in reading. They were basically at subsistence level. They
- 8:52had to work hard and farm just to put food
- 8:55on the table, and they didn't have electric lights, you know,
- 8:57and they didn't have money for candles. What were they
- 9:00going to do sit, you know, on their version of
- 9:03a porch at noon and try to learn to read.
- 9:07They didn't have time for that. They had to eat. So,
- 9:10I mean, it took the development of literacy, It really
- 9:15did take many centuries, and somehow Protestants just forget that.
- 9:20They think somehow everybody could read, and the Catholic Church
- 9:22prevented them from having a Bible. No, the Church was
- 9:25teaching people to read and making copies of the Bible
- 9:27as fast as they possibly could. Anyway, He continues that
- 9:33the priest says, if knowledge of religion and truth and
- 9:36faith in it dependent upon brains, Heaven would be filled
- 9:39with the intellectual and hell with the dull witted. Goodness
- 9:42and brains do not always go together. You can have
- 9:45intellectual and cultural, intellectual and cultured scoundrels. Christ appeared to
- 9:51men of goodwill. He demanded humility of all the human
- 9:55children who wish to be children of God. God resists
- 9:59the and gives his grace to the humble. Where is
- 10:02human wisdom before God's infinite knowledge? Where is old age
- 10:07before his eternity, or human strength before his omnipotence. God
- 10:12rightly demands that we acknowledge our true position. Mckab forgot it.
- 10:16He forfeited God's grace, left the church, and in so
- 10:19doing left the Christ who established it. Meantime, McCabe left
- 10:24the church after twelve years in a monastery. I joined
- 10:27the church and have been twenty years in a monastery.
- 10:30I became a Catholic with nothing to gain. From the
- 10:32world's point of view, entered religious life and took the
- 10:35same three vowels which mckab renounced. The odds against insincerity
- 10:41when a step is costly to human nature, should say
- 10:44the odds are against insincerity when is against human nature,
- 10:48But not when a man leaves the church for an
- 10:51obviously lower standard of being. And finally, the person says,
- 10:55but when two intellectual men disagree, how can the ordinary
- 10:59man hope to decide and the priest answers him. The
- 11:03fact that mccab and myself disagree means simply that you
- 11:06must not reject the Catholic Church because McCabe rejects it,
- 11:10nor accept it because I accept it. McCabe's rejection of
- 11:14it does not make it false. Acceptance of it does
- 11:17not make it true. It is either false or true
- 11:20independently of McCabe and myself. A man with ordinary elementary
- 11:26education can arrive at a sound judgment as any other,
- 11:30as sound of judgment days the other, provided that he
- 11:33has a sincere desire to know the truth, to love,
- 11:35and to serve God and praise earnestly for God's guidance.
- 11:39Any ordinary man can easily ask a priest to explain
- 11:42Catholic doctrine to him. If he be sincere in his inquiry,
- 11:46he will notice how it rings true of its very nature.
- 11:50God's grace will enlighten him, and he will experience a
- 11:53distinct inner sense of obligation to accept the doctrine of
- 11:57Christ as taught by the Catholic Church, true, true for me,
- 12:00without a doubt. In other words, God will offer him
- 12:04the gift of faith to be accepted or rejected. If
- 12:07he accepts, he becomes Catholic, and all later reading of history, philosophy,
- 12:12and scripture will not but confirm the choice he made
- 12:15under the influence of God's grace. Cardinal Newman, a Cardinal Newman,
- 12:20and a bricklayer can equally become Catholic. A Joseph McCabe
- 12:24and a chimney sweep can equally lose a gift of faith. Thus,
- 12:28the Catholic Church, in her various phases, can appeal equally
- 12:31to the highest intellect and to the simplest of men,
- 12:34which is as it should be with a Church established
- 12:37by Christ for the salvation of all men, and all
- 12:40men remain free to accept or reject the Church, even
- 12:43as they were free to accept or reject Christ in
- 12:46the days of his life upon earth. Each man has
- 12:49responsibility of saving his own soul. And now we will
- 12:55return to Father Sparrago's exhaustive explanation of the catechist with
- 13:00the Catholic Church. And this is such an important part
- 13:03of it. This is, you know, this is the stuff
- 13:06we as Catholics have that no other church has. And
- 13:09it's under the title of the means of grace. And
- 13:13while grace comes from many means, it comes most strongly
- 13:17through the Euchus, through the Mass, the Uchros received in
- 13:21the Holy Mass. I guess I should say no other
- 13:24church on earth has a valid Eucharist. Well, you could
- 13:27say the Orthodox still have valid sacraments. There's a lot
- 13:32of difference in understanding. Just as a Catholic can receive
- 13:37the euchers unworthily if you don't believe in the Euchurus
- 13:41or if you're in a state of mortal sin, the
- 13:44Orthodox Church has some issues in that regard. I mean,
- 13:48Jesus said no divorce. Orthodox say, well, you can have
- 13:50a trial marriage. Not all some of them, do you know,
- 13:54some believe in the real presence of the Euchris, some don't.
- 13:56I know a lot of really good Orthodox that do.
- 14:00But other than those two churches, no other church on
- 14:03earth has a valid has valid sacraments other than baptism
- 14:06in marriage, because those predate the Church John the Baptist practice.
- 14:11Baptism marriage has been done from the beginning of time,
- 14:14I mean beginning with Adam and Eve presumably, but confirmation,
- 14:20the Eucharist, confession, the last Rites, ordination such those are
- 14:28exclusive to the Church. And the reason some Orthodox and
- 14:32the reason I keep saying some is because there's not
- 14:35a lot of actual unity in Orthodoxy, believe it or not.
- 14:39I mean, they kind of present a solid front, but
- 14:42parts of the Church at different times have had to
- 14:44be ruled or have accepted rule by a Muslim caliph.
- 14:49And we're talking a few centuries there. They had to
- 14:51submit to Islam. Pretty hard to remain a valid Christian
- 14:54church when instead of accepting the pope as a final authority,
- 15:00you accepted a Muslim as the final authority. Other parts
- 15:03had to do the same with the Soviet Empire, and
- 15:08there's a lot of question about you know, the reason
- 15:12they had. The ones that do have valid sacraments have
- 15:17it is because their churches were founded by the apostles,
- 15:21just as the Catholic Church was Just because there's a
- 15:23schism doesn't mean they weren't founded by the Holy Apostles. Well,
- 15:28we're not sure if that succession remained entirely intact when
- 15:34Soviet bureaucrats could remove a person from a priesthood or
- 15:38from a bishopric or whatever, simply because they would not
- 15:42accept communism or the evils, the genocides and just horrors
- 15:49of Soviet communism. So I can't say that all Orthodox
- 15:54have valid, valid Eucharus. Some do, That's all I can say.
- 15:58That's the best I can say. I'm not an expert
- 16:01on the subject. But for some reason, like I know
- 16:06some great Greek Orthodox folks and a few Russian Orthodox,
- 16:10and they claim to have perfectly valid sacraments. But when
- 16:13I say, and to be unified, like as one church,
- 16:17but they're not. When I say to them, but what
- 16:20about the difference here between you know, the Eastern Orthodox
- 16:23and this and and you know the Greeks here and
- 16:25the Russians here, And they kind of shut the conversation down.
- 16:29They don't really seem to want to admit that they're
- 16:32not a unified body. And so I'm not really inclined.
- 16:37I mean, honestly to investigate the subject further. I'll just
- 16:41let them do their thing and pray for their conversion,
- 16:43because eventually all Christians will return to being Catholic, the
- 16:47one true Church. You can't have two true churches. You
- 16:51can have a church that's got a division, but you
- 16:54can't have two churches, all right. So under the topic
- 16:58of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, of course
- 17:01we're in Lent, we're coming up on East or what
- 17:03can be more appropriate. The sacrifice which reconciled God with
- 17:08man was that which Christ offered upon the cross. The
- 17:12life of our Lord upon the earth may be said
- 17:15to have been one of uninterrupted sacrifice. The sacrifice was
- 17:21commenced at the incarnation, for then he divested himself of
- 17:25his divine dignity that was his as the son of God,
- 17:29and took the form of a servant. It's Philippians two seven.
- 17:33He gave up his free will, becoming obedient to his
- 17:37heavenly Father, unto death, even death on the cross. This
- 17:41sacrifice was continued throughout his whole life. He relished, relinquished
- 17:45all earthly possessions. He himself says, the foxes have holes,
- 17:49and the birds of the air have nests, but the
- 17:51son of Man hath not where to lay his head.
- 17:54Matthew eight point twenty. He often denied himself the food
- 17:58of the body. For instance, on the occasion of his
- 18:01converse his conversation with a Samaritan woman, he told his disciples,
- 18:05when they pressed him to take some refreshment, my meat
- 18:07is to do the will of Him that sent me,
- 18:10that I might perfect his work John four thirty four.
- 18:13Even when wearied with his Apostolic labors, he denied himself rest.
- 18:18We read that not unfrequently he went up mountain and
- 18:22passed the whole night in prayer to God. Luke six
- 18:25twelve willingly renounced honor, saying I seek not my own
- 18:30glory John eight fifty. He bore scorn and derision in silence,
- 18:35especially when brought before his judges Luke twenty three eleven.
- 18:41He allowed himself to be put on par with murderers
- 18:43and crucified between two thieves. Mark fifteen twenty seven. He
- 18:48suffered a notorious criminal to be preferred to him Matthew
- 18:54eight twenty seven seventeen. Finally, upon the cross, he surrendered
- 18:58all that he had, even his life itself, and he said,
- 19:01greater love hath no man than this, that he laid
- 19:04down his life for his friend, John twenty five thirteen.
- 19:09Well might he exclaim immediately before his death, It is
- 19:12consummated the actual sacrifice of the propitiation began with our
- 19:16Lord's passion and ended with his death upon the cross.
- 19:19On the cross he gave his body to be offered up.
- 19:22It was not. It is true, the slain divided and
- 19:25burned with fire, like the bodies of other victims, the
- 19:28previous sacrifices of the Jews, you know, with lambs and
- 19:30goats and bulls and all that. But it was cruelly
- 19:34tortured and deprived of life. When hanging upon the cross,
- 19:39the Redeemer might echo the words of the Psalmist, I
- 19:42am a worm, and am no man. I am poured
- 19:44out like water, and all my bones are scattered Psalms
- 19:48twenty one, seven fifteen. It was in reference to this
- 19:51expiatory sacrifice made by the Redeemer that the Prophet spoke
- 19:55of the Messiah as a lamb brought to slaughter. When
- 19:59John the Baptist saw Christ approaching, he exclaimed, behold the
- 20:02lamb of God, Behold him who taketh the way the
- 20:04sins of the world John one nine, and Saint Paul says,
- 20:08christ Our pash is sacrifice pash pastor Lamb's sacrifice. The
- 20:14sacrifice of the Cross is, however, differentiated from every other
- 20:17sacrifice by the fact that in it the officiating priest
- 20:22is the victim himself. Also because the value of this
- 20:24sacrifice is infinite. Christ himself, as Saint Augustine says, was
- 20:28both priest and victim. The soldiers were only instruments of
- 20:32which it pleased him to make use had he willed. Otherwise,
- 20:36they would have had no power at all over him.
- 20:39This he manifested on Mount Olivet, For at the word
- 20:43I am he they fell to the ground. The soldiers
- 20:46could not, indeed have been the sacrificers, because by putting
- 20:49Christ to death, they did not perform a work pleasing
- 20:52to God, but committed one of the greatest of all crimes.
- 20:56Christ was emoliated because it was his will to be emoliated. Isaiah,
- 21:02I can't remember what chapter. That is not all the
- 21:05sacrifices offered under the Old Testament had the power to
- 21:09reconcile God and man. Their value was but finite Saint
- 21:13Paul says, it is impossible that with the blood of
- 21:16oxen and goats, sin should be taken away he Brews
- 21:19ten four. These sacrifices could only serve as means of
- 21:23recalling sin to men's minds and awakening compunction. They had
- 21:27no cleansing power with the sacrifice Christ offered. It was
- 21:30quite otherwise. The sacrifice of Christ upon the cross was
- 21:34a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, and
- 21:37a sacrifice of superabundant value. Christ suffered in our stead
- 21:43of him. The prophet spoke when he said he was
- 21:46wounded for our iniquities. He was bruised for our sins.
- 21:50Christ the second Atom, as also from Isaiah. By the
- 21:53way Christ the second Atom, the head of the human race,
- 21:56suffered for his members, the good shepherd gave his life
- 22:00for the sheep. John ten point fifteen. We know by
- 22:02the experience of daily life that vicarious atonement is possible.
- 22:07Not only property, but disgrace or glory may be bequeathed
- 22:11to prosperity. In other words, you can inherit property, or
- 22:15you can inherit a bad name from your family. A
- 22:19family name. More, a whole nation will be proud of
- 22:21a great man born in their midst and on the
- 22:23other hand, nations are sometimes severely chastised for the sins
- 22:27of a single individual. Original sin has become the heriage
- 22:31of humanity, and in like manner, the merits of one
- 22:34man may become the heritage of all mankind. Christ made
- 22:37atonement for sins of the whole human race, original as
- 22:41well as actual sin. The Apostle says he is a
- 22:44propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but
- 22:48also for those of the whole world. First John two
- 22:50to two. Christ is the true past Lamb, the sacrifice
- 22:56of which did not liberate one nation from the yoke
- 22:58of Pharaoh, the whole human race from the servitude of Satan.
- 23:03Although Christ died for all, yet all do not receive
- 23:06the benefit of his death, only those whom the merit
- 23:09of his passion is communicated to whom christ atonement was.
- 23:15And there's a reference to the Council of Trent there.
- 23:19I think it's chapter six three. If I'm not mistaken.
- 23:23Christ's atonement was more than sufficient. He suffered beyond what
- 23:26was necessary. A single drop of his blood would have
- 23:29sufficed to wash away the sins of all mankind, for
- 23:32he is very God, and the least of his actions
- 23:35is of infinite value. Christ suffered more than it is
- 23:39possible for any human being to suffer. Hence our Lord
- 23:43cried upon the cross, my God, my God, why hast
- 23:45thou forsaken me? And very interestingly just happened to be
- 23:50reminded of this the other day, or really happening. Put
- 23:52two to two and two together. That's the beginning of
- 23:55one of the psalms. And I can't remember the number
- 23:58of the salm off the top of my but I
- 24:01go and check out the psalms and read find the
- 24:03one that begins with My God, My God, why self
- 24:06forsaken me? You have to remember it his time, at
- 24:09the time of his crucifixion, I guess, I'd say, because
- 24:11christis before all time, and you know, outside of time.
- 24:15The songs were not numbered. The songs were recited by
- 24:20the first few words of each song. One would say,
- 24:23we're gonna you know, we're gonna say together in union
- 24:28the psalm my God, My God, why self Forsaken Me?
- 24:31And people at that time would memorize the psalms and
- 24:33would be, you know, as as a body would begin
- 24:36to there's a word I am trying searching for. You know,
- 24:42when you say something together that you've all memorized, recite,
- 24:46that's the word recite, so very important as we go
- 24:50into you know, the end of Lent is leading up
- 24:56to Good Friday. Go back and read that, and it
- 25:01really it makes a lot of things make a lot
- 25:03more sense, because how could God forsake God? Right? Well,
- 25:07God can't forsake God. Christ did not lose his divinity
- 25:10upon the cross. He was referencing a psalm that they
- 25:13would have all known, And yeah, it makes a whole
- 25:16lot more sense. Actually, our Lord suffered so much in
- 25:20order to show how much He loves us and how
- 25:22greatly God is offended by sin. A single word of
- 25:25Christ would have fully sufficed to redeem us, but it
- 25:29was not enough to make manifest the love of God.
- 25:32It is because of the great love Christ displayed toward
- 25:35us that we venerate the most sacred Heart of Jesus.
- 25:38The heart is the center of the physical life. From it,
- 25:40the blood flows into every part of the body, maintaining
- 25:43its vitality. And since there is an intimate connection between
- 25:47body and soul, the heart is spoken of the center
- 25:49of the spiritual life. Whence all thoughts and feelings take
- 25:53their rise. Hence we say my heart rejoiced, from my
- 25:56heart is grieved, etc. The heart is regarded pre eminently
- 26:00as the seat of love. When we venerate the sacred
- 26:02heart of Jesus, we call to mind his exceeding love
- 26:05for us and are stimulated to return love for love.
- 26:09God made use of a French nun at paray les
- 26:14parae les monial. I'm not familiar with that one. Yeah,
- 26:20you quator Catholics probably laughing at me. I don't know
- 26:22the names of all these places, but anyway, her name
- 26:25was Margaret Mary Alacoquay. Of course I know her to
- 26:30propagate this devotion. She's the one that propagated the devotion
- 26:32of the sacred Heart. Very familiar with her, just not
- 26:35familiar with the town and where she lived. Our Lord
- 26:38appeared to her repeatedly showing his heart pierced by the lance,
- 26:43emitting flames of fire, surrounded by a crown of thorns
- 26:46to signify the pain sinners caused our Savior, and surmounted
- 26:50by a shining cross. Our Lord intimated his desire that
- 26:54pictures of his heart be exposed for veneration and promised
- 26:58signal blessings to all who should devotion. If you don't
- 27:01have an image of the Sacred Heart in your home,
- 27:04you really do want one, and read on that. He
- 27:08also commanded the festival the Sacrecred Heart be kept on
- 27:11Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christie. This day is
- 27:16the most appropriate one, for it was on a Friday
- 27:19that our Lord, by his death, gave the greatest possible
- 27:22proof of his love, and his heart was pierced by
- 27:24the lance. Moreover, the adorable sacrament of the Altar affords
- 27:28abundant testimony to the love of the Savior. For as
- 27:32the sun's rays or focused in a lens, so the
- 27:35rays of the Sun of divine Love are concentrated on
- 27:38the sacrament of the altar. Hence, the feast of Corpus
- 27:41Christi is a special memorial of the love of Christ
- 27:43for man. The devotion to the Sacred Heart, opposed at
- 27:48the outset, as are all works that are of God,
- 27:50spread rapidly all over the earth, and was attended by
- 27:53signal blessings. Another reason why our Lord suffered so much
- 27:57was that he might be a pattern to us in suffering.
- 28:00Christ suffered for us, leaving you example first Peter two
- 28:03twenty one. He himself said, I have given you an
- 28:06example John thirteen fifteen. The graces which Christ merited for
- 28:12us by his death are communicated to us by the
- 28:15means of grace, that is to say, the holy sacrifice
- 28:18of the Mess, the sacraments, and the sacramentals in prayer.
- 28:23Sacramentals very important, holy water, blessed oil, blessed salt, a
- 28:29picture of the sacred Heart of Jesus, religious icons of
- 28:33the blessed Virgin Mary and other saints. Those are sacramentals
- 28:37that we should the crucifix that should be blessed by
- 28:40a priest, that you know you should be wearing every day,
- 28:43and or the brown scapular. Sometimes I always wear the
- 28:46brown scapular. Sometimes it's really hot and sweaty, I'll take
- 28:49my crucifix off, you know. But yeah, the brown scapular,
- 28:53that's a sacramental. Look into that. If you're not enrolled
- 28:56in the society, the brown scap hero yet, we'll talk
- 28:59a lot more about that later. Do be sure to
- 29:02do so. Because our lady, way back I was one
- 29:06of the first apparitions, I believe at Mount Carmel, and
- 29:08it's a very ancient practice promised that those who made
- 29:13the devotion and were the the scapular, she would advocate
- 29:19for them and intercede at the hour of their death.
- 29:21You know, it's really important. Same with the miraculous metal
- 29:25and so many things, blessed candles. That's another one, wonderful,
- 29:30wonderful things we have as Catholics that others do not have.
- 29:33They just don't have them. Again, some Orthodox, of course,
- 29:36but you know, not the Lutherans, not the Anglicans. Even
- 29:39though the Anglicans have beautiful art and cathedrals, many of
- 29:43which were stolen from the Catholics, and all that, they
- 29:45don't have these means of grace which were given only
- 29:49to us through the Eucharist and through the the Well,
- 29:55all the sacraments and the sacramentos and prayer. All Christians
- 29:58do have access to prayer, however, and man reading the
- 30:02Bible the Word of God and do receive a measure
- 30:04of grace, especially those who have been baptized. The means
- 30:11of grace are channels whereby the Divine Redeemer conveys to
- 30:15us the grace as he marrid for us upon the cross,
- 30:19His side was open that the means of grace might
- 30:21flow out. It is because the Church, through the medium
- 30:25of the appointed means of grace, communicates to the faithful
- 30:27the grace is flowing from the Cross of Christ, that
- 30:30in dispensing them, she always makes use of the sign
- 30:33of the Cross. And I don't understand why Protestants get
- 30:37so upset when you make the sign of the cross.
- 30:39Literally says in the Bible, Christians greeted each other with
- 30:42a sign of the cross. We make the sign of
- 30:43the cross, and which is a means by which we
- 30:45receive grace. It's actually a partial indulgence. And they freak out.
- 30:49Why is that? Why are they so offended by somebody
- 30:52making the sign of the cross. Why don't they make
- 30:54it themselves? I mean, they say the Bibles are only authority.
- 30:57Why aren't they making the sign of the cross. I
- 30:59don't get it, and you know I used to be Protestant.
- 31:01No one ever explained that to me. Anyway, He who
- 31:05neglects the use of the means of grace cannot be
- 31:08saved in spite of Christ's death. Medicine cannot work a
- 31:12cure unless the sick man swallows it. He who made
- 31:15thee without thyself, says Saint Augustine, will not save thee
- 31:19without thyself. The devil makes strenuous efforts to deprive men
- 31:23of the means of grace. He actually the general hal Offernies, who,
- 31:27when besieging the town of Bethulia, cut off the aqueducts
- 31:31in order to reduce the inhabitants through one of water.
- 31:34For he deters the faithful from drinking from the channels
- 31:37of grace by inspiring them with indifference or aversion toward them.
- 31:42And unfortunately, I think, I guess that's the answer of
- 31:46why I Protestants threek out when they see someone making
- 31:48the side of the cross, no matter how well intentioned,
- 31:52and you know, devout they may be. Through a very
- 31:59Satanic influence, they have been taught to hate the sacraments
- 32:04of the church, sacramentals, and yeah, it's a shame, and
- 32:10it's a real shame. And you can all you can
- 32:12do is try to talk with them one at a
- 32:14time and just explain, Hey, wait a minute, you know
- 32:17what does it say The Bible says Christians greeted each
- 32:19other with a sign of the cross. They made the
- 32:21sign of the cross to identify themselves as being Christian.
- 32:24Why why do you have such an aversion to this?
- 32:29Some you can get through to. I had one tell
- 32:31me recently the Catholics make the sign of the Cross
- 32:33upside down, which means they're Satan worshipers, And well, that's stupid.
- 32:39And I went, I looked in the mirror and I
- 32:41touched my forehead and you know, just below my stern
- 32:45them and my two shoulders, and it made a perfect cross.
- 32:48It wasn't upside down at all. But I mean, even
- 32:52if you were a little sloppy with it and didn't
- 32:54get your proportions straight out, that doesn't mean it was intentional.
- 32:57And besides, you know, Saint Peter has to be crucified
- 33:00upside down because he said he wasn't worthy to die
- 33:03like his savior was. I mean, that's the ultimate act
- 33:06of martyrdom and self sacrifice for the love of God.
- 33:10In no way could that be considered to be Satanic.
- 33:12But you know, stupid people say, well, I should say,
- 33:15ignorant people say stupid things. Well, anyway, y'all have a
- 33:20good one and I'll certainly be talking to you next week.
- 33:24God willing and the creek don't rise as Hank Williams
- 33:26Senior used to say, obviously anything could happen. Struck my
- 33:31light and are hit by a bus, you know, this afternoon.
- 33:34It can happen to any of us, which is why
- 33:35we always have to be mindful of thy death. Old
- 33:38man from Ashes, you came into ashes. You will return
- 33:42Mento Moury. But hopefully, and God willing, we'll be back
- 33:47to regular podcasts from here on out. So go, I
- 33:50have a good one, and remember share, share my show
- 33:52and my newsletter with friends and family. Let's let's grow
- 33:55the audience. Let's you know, it's good for Catholics listen
- 33:59as content. It's also good to share it with Protestants.
- 34:03You know, you might actually be able to make a
- 34:04few converts, which is an incredible act of charity. And
- 34:08that's one of those things we should be doing during
- 34:11Lent as well. So anyway, I'll talk to you next time.