Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 88: The Knowledge of God

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Show 88: The Knowledge of God · The Uncensored Catholic

0:51
A Hey, y'all, welcome today's show. I got a bit of an
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announcement today. It's sort of a preview announcement. As most of y'all know,
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I write at least once or twice a week the Gospel Reflection for the
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online publication of Missy Oday, and I enjoyed doing that, and it hit
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me sometime around this past May or so why not go ahead and write them
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for the next six months and put it in a book. So I'm going
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to have a new book coming out. I'm doing final edits this week.
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God will and I can wrap it up this week. But it's one of
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those things where it seems like the harder you try, the harder it gets.
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You know, like everything just for a thousand things coming up in a
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day that I hadn't planned on. But at least by the end of next
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week I should have final edits done, So look forward to that. You'll
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be able to either get the e book from me for nine to ninety nine
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or to be available in paperback through Amazon. If you want to read my
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Gospel Reflection for every single day the first six months the next year, it'll
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be there. And I enjoyed doing It's been very spiritually enriching, and by
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the time you finish that one, I'll have one out for the second half
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of the year. Now I want to bring this in. You know,
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yesterday I talked about how buying my books or my spoons and baskets that I
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make at Justin Carrollwoodcraft dot Subject dot com make great Christmas gifts. One thing
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I didn't mention is paid subscriptions to my Subject newsletter. Now I do the
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subscription. Well, you can do it to help support my work for one
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thing. But when you do subscribe, I give you a free e book.
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So whereas I said the e book, it's a PDF for the new
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book or for my conversion story if you'd like to have that nine ninety nine.
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A subscription to my newsletter is only eight dollars a month. And even
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if you were just subscribed for one month, I'm going to send you for
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ebook if you want it. If you tell me you don't want it,
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that's fine. So you can actually save about two dollars if you want to
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just buy a subscription, said by in the book, But what a great
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Christmas gift, especially for like you know, last minute gifts people at a
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distance. You can buy them a subscription to the Uncensored Catholic Subsect newsletter.
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They'll get these regular newsletters with my podcast, and I'll either send them or
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you a free e book. And actually, you know what, if you
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email me and tell me it's a Christmas gift, I'll send you both an
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ebook, you know, for Christmas. I think I can run that special.
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It's like I said, a one month subscription is eight dollars, a
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year is eighty, and of course you could choose anything in between. So
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if you have like a friend or a cousin or somebody out of state,
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and I mean, shoot, it's better than sending them a gift card for
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a you know, a lousy chain restaurant or something, send a subscription to
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my subsetec newsletter and they can be enriched in the Catholic faith and you get
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to help support my work if that's something you'd like to do, and you
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get free books. So check it out if it interests you. I think
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it's you know, I will respond immediately. I check in even when I'm
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out of town, I'm traveling. I make a point of stopping into like
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a Wi Fi hotspot or something where I can check my email at least twice
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a day. So even if it was like the day before Christmas or something,
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and you need to get somebody a last minute gift and you want to
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do that, I'll get them sign up, subscribe information and the ebook.
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I'll be in touch with them right away. So consider that, you know,
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like it's like I said, it's better than a gift card. You
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know, that's what a lot of people do these days. They buy them
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online and have them sent to somebody's phone, or use them as a stocking
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stuffer. Well, you could just print out a note saying you've been given
5:16
a gift subscription to the Unsensored Catholic newsletter and email this address to receive your
5:23
free e book. And really they wouldn't even necessarily have to get one of
5:27
my Catholic books. If they wanted one of my herbal books or my cookbooks,
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I'll do that. But I mean, I think it would be a
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good way, especially I guess I have in mind if you have like younger
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relatives, maybe somebody going up to college or something, and you want to
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make sure they have a good foundation in Catholic apologetics and in Catholic informed conservative
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politics, because you know, I do get into politics a little bit,
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although it's like not my main focus. Or if you have someone that you
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think maybe wanting to convert to Catholicism, maybe willing to even consider it,
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my conversion story or my gospel reflections would both, you know, I mean
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I write as a convert, So in my gospel reflections I often say and
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when I was a Protestant, when I learned this about the Catholic faith,
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that caused me to change my mind, That caused me to become Catholic.
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So I think it'd be a really good gift for you know, friends,
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children, grandchildren, relatives, or maybe strayed from the faith or a little
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bit, or someone who's who's on the verge or at least open to considering
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conversion. I think it would be a very good gift, especially for them.
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So enough self promotion, shameless self promotion. We actually need to be
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doing a lot more self promoting as Catholics. And I don't mean on the
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you know, business side. You know, the Catholic Church does not encourage
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what do they call it prostlyization prostilyism whatever. Like you know how evangelical Protestants
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are very can be actually you know, quite in your face about trying to
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convince you to convert. Catholic Church really doesn't encourage you to go out and
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argue with people and prostaalize them, as they say. But standing boldly for
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your faith, explaining to other people why you're Catholic, correcting error is actually
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an act of charity. It's one of our Catholic duties. And yeah,
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we should absolutely live our faith by example so people want to be like us,
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but we should also we also have a duty to inform other people.
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I mean, if you put in the physical world, imagine if someone was
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blind or had a blindfold on and they were walking toward a cliff, you
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would have a Catholic duty to warn them and say, hey, look out,
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you're about to fall off the cliff. And that's the cliff can just
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kill the body. There's a whole lot going on in our culture and society
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that can kill the soul, and we really do need to be much more
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outspoken about such things. So let's start with a couple questions and questions and
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answers from radio replies. Now, you remember I mentioned before that in the
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nineteen thirties there was a Colonel Ingersol who was very popular anti Catholic, agnostic
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atheist. I guess I believe he was. Let me look him up real
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quick. I believe he had a lot to do with Salvation Army as well.
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I think he was a temperance guy. Ah. Yes, Colonel Ingersaw
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I'm looking at Wikipedia, of course, was known as the Great Agnostic,
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an American lawyer and orator during the Golden Age of Free thought, who campaigned
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in the defense of agnosticism. So he was actually, yes, quite influential
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as a lawyer, as a politician, as a speaker, and yes,
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did quite a bit to degrade christiandom an enemy of the Church, without a
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doubt. He was a friend of Walt Whitman. He was actually very influential
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in American secularism. We'll put it. You know what. Wiltman was a
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homosexual, and you know, the morals of our country changed a lot after
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the Civil War, and he was one of those great crafters of the American
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thought. And I was mistaken about the Salvation Army. He was very influential
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in the progressive movement and the Masonic Order, so well, he may have
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had something to do a Salvation army as well. They were quite progressive and
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anti Catholic. I'm not sure. I'm just saying he I was mistaking him
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for another guy, this person, says Colonel Ingersoll has pointed out the mistakes
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of Moses. He says, I am probably the only man who has read
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the Bible this through this year in the United States. Everybody talks about the
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Bible, and notably nobody reads it. That is why it is so generally
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believed I have wasted this time, But I had a purpose. In view.
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Ingersoll was a man of great intellectual power, and had he lived earlier,
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he would have been put to death, as thousands of others by the
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Catholic Church when they dared to challenge priestcraft. Wow, okay, so this
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is a true anti Catholic one. The Catholic Church never put thousands of people
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to death who challenged Catholic doctrine. You know these myths about the Inquisition and
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such. It's like, show me the graves. Where are all these people?
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I mean, it was really just a handful, and they actually had
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a choice between being tried by a secular court the court of the government or
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being tried in a religious court, and they chose the religious court because the
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religious short court was more fair and equitable and etc. Regardless, these great
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slaughters of innocence by the Catholic Church that Protestants are always talking about have absolutely
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no basis in history. But for Colonel Ingersoll to say that he was the
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only man in the United States that read the Bible of that year is blatantly
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insane. I mean, well, I mean just in my practice is to
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read the Bible each year from beginning to end, five pages a day,
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five days a week. You can knock it out in a year. But
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I know many many Protestants who read their Bible every single day, and many
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many Catholics who read their Bible every single day. So Ingersoll was obviously quite
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given to exaggeration and quite a bit pompously should say, let's see what the
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precepts say. Here's the basis for the probable opinion of Ingersoll that he alone
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had read the Bible through that year. An opinion to be probable must have
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good reason, and guests won't do. Ingersoll's only reason was that other men
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did not come to his own conclusions. Therefore they could not have read the
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Bible. If he can get a probable opinion out of that, he is
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not a fit guide to other men's thoughts. Again, it is certain that
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not everybody talks about the Bible. Whilst it is nonsense to say that nobody
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reads it, many do believe in the Bible without knowing why. But their
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reason is not because they have not read it. What that Ingersoll had a
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purpose in view supplies the key to almost all his writings. Where others read
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to learn to know God and to love God, he reads with one idea,
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to destroy religious belief. This purpose colored all his views and rendered him
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about as fit to interpret religion as a Russian Bolshevik or a British or the
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British Constitution. Let me assure you that despite this great his great intellectual powers
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they put in quotes, Ingersoll is one of the easiest adversaries to refute.
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No one has been put to death by the Catholic Church, and had Ingersoll
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been put to death, it would not have been for challenging Priestcraft. For
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such action he would have been commended, but he would have been ordered to
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cease reviling the Christian priesthood, though he would have been free to announce any
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genuine abuses to the proper authorities. In other words, had he valid criticisms,
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he would have been welcomed another well, I think maybe it should be
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the same person says in the Story of Creation and of Adam and Eve?
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Is the story of creation in Adam and Eve true despite evolution? They answer,
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The account of creation in Genesis is certainly true, though men have not
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fully perceived the true interpretation of every detail given in that account. There is
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nothing in favor of evolution to justify doubt the direct formation of Adam and even
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by God, as we shall see on another occasion, person says Ingersaw paints
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the pretty picture. God made all animals walk before Adam that he might name
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them, And the animals came like a menagerie into town. As Adams looked,
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and as Adam looked at all the creatures and jumpers and creepers, God
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stood by to see what he would call them. I think it's an incredulous
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statement. They're stating it as if it's ridiculous. They answered the appeal to
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the gallery in the mention of the menagerie in town, and then the emission
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of all the names except crawlers and jumpers and creepers is evident. This God
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stood by is another little lapse. Ingersaw falls down on the simplest Hebraism.
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The whole passage means that God gave Adam a knowledge suitable demands of state,
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and that Adam gave names in human language to the animals of which God gave
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him intellectual vision. Ingersoll was out of his depth and had not the intelligence
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to know it. Well put, he was out of his intellectual depth and
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had not the intelligence to know it. It is far more difficult. I
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can say this with certainty as a convert to Catholicism, who's had to defend
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my faith against all manner of anti Catholic attacks. Let's get into what Father
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Spiago has to tell us today, and he begins with that essential of all
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Christianity, and that is faith the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God
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consists in his perfections, his works, his will, and the means of
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grace instituted by him. Saint Paul bids us increase in the knowledge of God
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from Colossians now only know God through a glass in a dark manner. Only
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in heaven shall we see him face to face and have clear knowledge of his
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perfections. It's references to Corinthians. The happiness of the angels and saints consists
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in the knowledge of God. Our Lord tells us this is eternal life,
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that they may know thee the only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom
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thou hast sent. That's from the Gospel of John. This is the food
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which the archangel Raphael spoke when he said to Tobias, I use an invisible
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meat and drink which cannot be seen by men. That's from tobd one of
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the books that was stripped from the Bible by Martin Luther because he didn't like
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the idea of men interacting with angels. I guess was okay for the angel
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Gabriel to speak to the blessed Virgin Mary, but none of the rest of
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us can have any interaction with angels. Even though even though so a big
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part of pre Christian Jewish tradition that's a been a part of Catholic Christianity and
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Orthodox Christianity for old two thousand years or so, he denied it and rejected
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it. And he also had a big problem with Tobias being blessed by God
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for doing charitable works. You know, his whole thing was faith alone,
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faith without works. And you know the Bible she says different the Bible,
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she says, God does appreciate when we do his will. Pretty plain on
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that, you know, I mean when Jesus says those who keep My commandments,
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etc. Yeah, but anyway, we'll save that for another day.
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In heaven, the saints and angels have the immediate knowledge of God in the
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beatific vision. We on earth. We know God through the medium of his
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works and what He has revealed to us. Our knowledge, compared with that
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of the saints and angels, is like the knowledge of a country that one
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gets from maps and pictures, compared with the knowledge of one who he has
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himself visited. The knowledge of God is all important, for without it there
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cannot be any happiness on earth or a well ordered life. The knowledge of
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God is the food of our soul. Without it, the soul feels hungry.
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We become discontented. He who does not possess interior peace cannot enjoy.
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He who does not possess interior peace cannot enjoy riches, help, or any
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of the goods of this life. And they all become distasteful to him.
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Yet few think about this food of the soul. They busy themselves, as
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our Lord said, with the meat that perishes. From the Gospel of John.
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Again, without the knowledge of God, a man is like one who
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walks in the dark and stumbles at every step. He has no end or
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aim in life, no consolation and misfortune, and no hope in death.
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He cannot have any solid, lasting happiness, or any true contentment without a
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knowledge of God or a well ordered life. It is impossible. Just as
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an untilled field produces no good fruit, so a man who has not the
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knowledge of God can produce no good works. Ignorance and forgetfulness of God are
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the cause of most of the sins that men commit. Ration and false oaths,
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neglects of the service of God and of the sacraments, the love of
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gold, and the sinful indulgences of the passions are all due to wilful ignorance
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and forgetfulness of God. Thus the prophet this morning one of those where he
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uses the old spelling c see. I cannot remember what that is in the
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modern Bible, but anyway, he says, there is no knowledge of God
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in the land, cursing and lying, and killing, and theft and adultery
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have overflowed. And say it, ignacious of Loyola cries out, Oh God,
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Thou, joy of my soul. If only men knew THEE, they
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never would offend thee. And experience shows that in the jails the greater part
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of the prisoners are those who knew nothing of God. When Frederick of Prussia
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at then at length recognized that the want of the knowledge of God was the
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cause for the increase in crime, he explained, then I will have religion
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introduced into the country. This is why the learning and understanding of the Catechism,
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which is nothing else than an abridgment of Christian religion, is all important.
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But a mere knowledge of the truth of religion is not sufficient. They
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must also be practiced. You know, this morning got Joel Salatin's newsletter.
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Love Joe Slaton. You know, I'm a big permaculture guy. If you're
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not familiar with him, he's a Protestant. He's up in Virginia. He's
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a small farmer who is also an entrepreneur. He uses natural methods, produces
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eight quality chickens and various other products to take to market, and has fought
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the government at every step because they want him to do things with a lot
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of chemicals and machinery, and he just doesn't want to. He's also very
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conservative, very much on our side culturally, very orthodox in his social beliefs,
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we'll say. And he sends out a great newsletter. It's called the
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second Smartest Guy in the World. Check it out on substackle. He's funny.
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I really like Joel Salaton. Okay. He pointed out that since well
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at least since twenty twenty, I think he started with like twenty nineteen,
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the American lifespan has been decreasing, and they really haven't even gotten into the
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COVID years. These are from the CDC data. We've gone from the average
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American lifespan being somewhere around seventy eight seventy nine years to now around seventy six.
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That's important because for the last one hundred years it had been increasing every
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year except for you know, obviously, you take out deaths in a world
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war or like the swine flu epidemic of the nineteen twenties. We're talking overall,
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and now men are dying on average seems like it was six years earlier
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than women. And that's a big increase. When we get into the twenty
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twenty through twenty twenty three, that number I think is probably going to basically
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fall off a cliff because well, not only did we have COVID and so
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you have to adjust for that, right that would be like the swine flu
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epidemic Spanish flu. But we have what's called excess deaths, likely vaccine related
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injuries that are also beginning to show. But far beyond that. Fentanyl it
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has become the number one killer of people under forty in the United States.
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As Americans have turned their back on religion, on the knowledge of God and
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allowed the destruction of the family, we're now seeing that, you know,
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as I mentioned the other day, almost eighty percent of people are on psychiatric
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medication or some sort of the other antidepressants, to sleep aids, to eighty
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d meds, to you name it. Right, people are turning more and
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more to illegal drugs as well, fentanyl being the number one. You know,
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we've legalized pot through most of the country now and no one's getting me
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happier. In fact, people are suicide and depression or at the highest level
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they've ever been so, and of course I mean the past couple of days
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about school shooters and such. School shooters didn't exist before the Late Night eighteen
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seventies. It never happened. Until we had no fault divorce and psychology taking
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the place of religion and a lot of drugs, we didn't have school shooters.
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And I don't differentiate between prescription meds and illegal meds. Yeah, okay,
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sure, methamphetamine and LSD are going to be different than something the doctors
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will describe you, but actually not that different. A lot of those,
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like any depressive medications, can cause hallucinations and sleeplessness. The very asthma medication
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I was given as a kid did some damage to my heart because it was
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the precursor that they made metha fetomin out of. So I really have to
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couch that statement in. You know, there's not always that much difference.
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But things are bad and getting worse, and this transhumanism AI artificial intelligence stuff
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is going to take that to oh and all the transgender stuff is going to
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take that to another level of insan and father Sparago has said was so simple,
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but it would be denied by every academic and doctor that you're gonna see
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on TV at least. I mean like probably ninety five ninety nine percent of
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them would disagree with a simple statement. The knowledge of God is all important,
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for without it there cannot be any happiness on earth or a well ordered
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life. He who does not possess interior peace cannot enjoy riches, health,
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or any of the goods of this life. They all become distasteful to him.
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You know what, you would just pull an example of a hedonist.
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Let's look at Hunter Byden. Look at how he spent his life. He
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has spent millions of dollars on drugs and prostitutes and who knows what else.
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Does he seem like a happy guy to you? Huh? I mean not
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seriously, if you ready the emails and such he was sending back and forth
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that came out from the laptop from Hell, as they call it. He's
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a very angry, miserable guy. All the pleasures of the world have not
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given him happiness. Had he had decent Catholic parents, and by no means,
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as Joe Biden a decent Catholic, he should literally be excommunicated. If
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we had a pope who had any sense and guts testicular fortitude, perhaps we
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should say, he would not be. We had a majority of US bishops
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who had the same he would not be. He is an app apostate,
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He is a heretic. And look at what he produced, and now we've
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made him the so called father of our nation as the president. Right,
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look at his own son. Yeah, the knowledge of God is pretty darn
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important. And someone dropped the ball big time on the Bidens. Apparently,
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according to what Joe Biden said, it probably started with his own mother who
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said that he should never put his faith in the pope. She said for
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him to trust his conscience and not the church. That's what he said.
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You know, he says a lot of crap to you the truth. He
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lies all the time, He makes up stories. I mean, you really
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think this guy was fighting with corn pop. Come on, man, he
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said to the guy, if you don't vote for me, you ain't black.
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Well imagine Donald Trump had said that. Well, I'm just saying,
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if you believe what he says, you ain't got any sense anyway. All
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Osbaragu continues, we arrive at right knowledge of God through faith and the truth
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which God has revealed. It is true that by means of reason and from
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the contemplation of the creatures that God has made, man arrive at a knowledge
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of God. That's a reference to Romans, where Saint Paul says that the
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heavens show forth the glory of God. That's from the Psalms. But our
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reason is so weak and prone to error that without revelation is very difficult for
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man to attain a clear and correct knowledge of God. What strange and perverted
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views of the Deity we find him on the heathen nations. God, therefore,
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in his mercy, comes to our aid with revelations. Through believing in
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the truth that God has revealed, man attains to a clear and correct knowledge
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of God. Hence, Saint Anselm says, the more I am nourished with
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the food of faith, the more my understanding is satisfied. Faith is the
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divine light that shines in our souls. It is like a watch to are,
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from which we can see that which cannot be seen from the plain below.
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We learn respecting God that which cannot be learned by mere reason from the
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world around. It is a glass through which we perceive all the divine perfections.
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It is a staff which supports our feeble reason and enables it to know
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God better. There are two books from which we gain the knowledge of God,
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the Book of Nature and Holy Scriptures, which is the book of revelation
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that is so well stated. You know, I love my life in the
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woods. I love to be up on the mountaintops looking down at the valleys
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below. I love to be in the valleys by the creeks, fishing in
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the garden. And yes, the whole world. The whole world is essentially
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a grain cathedral through which we can see all the holy images and aspects of
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our Creator. But only through divine revelation can we understand them. And if
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you're not doing so already, try to take a walk every day, Just
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get outside and pray the Rosary as you walk. I do it while I'll
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walk my dog. I do it well. I take a hike or do
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some yard work. That will bring more peace into your life than anything.
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Accept adoration, you know, going to adoration of the Eucharist, I would
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put it only second to that, well, and of course receiving the Eucharus,
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going to Mass. But I mean as a just a contemplative time to
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spend a little quiet time in prayer, a little time and nature, praying
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the Rosary and divine mercy, chaplain whatever other prayers you like to pray that
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will give you more peace than anything save you know, spending time with Jesus
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and iteration. And you know, why wouldn't it. God is reflecting in
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his creation creation. You could see the beauty and the majesty and the power
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of God and everything and the divine order, the way He sustains this,
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the way He provides for every creature. Remember, the human eye can see
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all these colors that other animals can't. Now, birds and insects even have
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different eyes that can see different color spectrums. But no creature on earth can
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see just how beautiful the fall leaves are on a even a cloud in November
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day like this. It's breathtaking. I mean, He's absolutely wonderful. So
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y'all have may be able to do a podcast tomorrow. I'm not sure.
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I need to go out of town take care of some stuff from my mother
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someday sometime in the next two three days, so I'm not sure if I'll
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see you tomorrow, But either way, I'll talk to you as soon as
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I can. And remember the words of Saint Padre Pio, pray, hope,
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and don't worry,