Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 95: The Motives of Faith

Transcript

Show 95: The Motives of Faith · The Uncensored Catholic

0:51
A Hey, y'all, welcome Todave's show. I am very pleased to tell
1:03
you that I actually made my deadline of finishing my new book, edits and
1:11
cover design and everything by the end of November. This is the last day
1:19
of November, and I literally just finished it. So I have a big
1:23
announcement next week about my new book, which is going to be a gospel
1:29
reflection for every day of the week of the first six months of twenty twenty
1:34
four using the daily mass readings. I think you're really going to enjoy it.
1:40
It has been an incredible amount of work. This has probably been the
1:42
hardest book I've ever written, But I guess it's just the beginning, because
1:48
I plan to keep going with it, put up two a year from here
1:51
on, if I can, you know, God willing. Now let's get
1:56
into the radio, replies the atheist asks of the priests, or makes a
2:07
statement, Actually, there is nothing more heated more in Heathendom. There is
2:13
nothing in Heathendom more pagan or cruel than the story of job They answer.
2:19
I grant the apparent cruelty in the sufferings of job taking themselves, how the
2:24
circumstances justified them? I shall show in a moment. You cannot say you
2:29
know of nothing more pagan, for pagan means without the true God, and
2:32
this story is very much one of the true God. If you know of
2:38
nothing more cruel in Heathendom, then you know nothing of Heathendom. Approaching the
2:43
sublime moral lessons and lofty principles included by this book, person says, Satan
2:50
wagers with God that he can make Job curse his maker. They answer,
2:54
it is certain that Satan and God did not meet and make a wager.
3:00
That is but a literary expression, driving home the truth that Satan is opposed
3:05
to God and resents that others should serve him. Job was a good man
3:09
devoted to God. Satan wished to rob God of the honor and glory given
3:15
by such an adherent if necessary, by special and extraordinary efforts. Even Satan
3:20
could not do so without God's permission, and God, who knows all things,
3:23
permitted his efforts. The person says, God takes the wager and delivers
3:30
his servant to all the fiendish cruelty the devil can devise. Firstly, God's
3:36
allowing Satan to inflict Job or afflict Job, I should say, is no
3:40
more difficult than his permission of other temporal afflictions, such as the suffering of
3:46
an individual from cancer or a thousands from an earthquake. It is the ordinary
3:51
problem of suffering, the difficult of reconciling a merciful God, who certainly does
3:57
exist with the fact that physical and moral with the fact of physical and moral
4:00
evil, which certainly also it does exist. The answer to the problem of
4:06
suffering in general is also the answer to the story of Job to a great
4:11
extent. Secondly, in this world there are certain things better than bodily health
4:15
and worldly goods. Many a man has thought more of his honor than of
4:19
his life before today. The asset of a noble character is better than the
4:26
asset of a properest earthly career. And God gave Job the opportunity of supreme
4:32
nobility, to be attained only by way of the cross, similar to that
4:38
of Christ. A brave man feels honored when selected for some noble duty fraught
4:43
with danger, and is grateful for the trust reposed to him by his leader.
4:47
Thirdly, Job was Thirdly, Job was enabled to glorify God more by
4:56
fidelity when things went wrong than by fidelity when things are going right, and
5:00
God more than compensated Job for his temporal trials by eternal happiness. Job would
5:05
not have been without his experience for any earthly good once it had been accomplished.
5:12
And they say, do you maintain that Job really existed. Yes,
5:16
he was chosen as a type and really did serve God in the midst of
5:19
great trials. But the incident has been described in a poetical form, allowing
5:25
for one allowing for the use of literary description and amplification. I could tell
5:30
the same facts in dry technical language, or in glowing prose, or in
5:33
a highly polished verse, and the literary form would not affect the objective historical
5:40
value of the events described. The person asked wherein did God show himself kinder
5:46
or more reliable than Satan. They answer all through God permitted affliction for the
5:50
greater good of Job. Satan inflicted suffering for the greater misery of Job.
5:56
God intended the justification of the right principles, Satan their destruction. God was
6:02
more reliable than Satan, for he was ever prepared to assist Job by his
6:06
grace as often as Job demanded it, while Satan intended only the degradation of
6:13
job and the insulting of God. God is always reliable, Satan never,
6:16
and above all when we view the lasting results of their influence. All right,
6:25
let us now get into Father's arrago's exhaustive explanation of the Catechism, and
6:33
we're starting a new chapter today, and that chapter is entitled the Motives of
6:43
Faith. One. The external motives which move us to believe are chiefly miracles
6:48
and prophecy. It is true these that we attain to a certain knowledge that
6:53
this or that truth of the faith is really from God. The veracity of
6:58
God is, of course the ultimate motive of faith. For we make an
7:02
act of faith and truths revealed by God because we know that God is true
7:06
and cannot deceive or be deceived. But no reasonable man can make an act
7:12
of faith in any truth until he is quite sure that it is one of
7:15
the truths revealed by God. For this reason, the external evidences through which
7:19
God establishes the fact that He has really spoken are for men most important and
7:25
necessary motive of faith. It was in great measure because the apostles had seen
7:30
the countless miracles work by Christ, and had seen the prophecies of the Jewish
7:33
prophets fulfilled in him that they believed in him without doubting him. He said,
7:39
this is my body, this is my blood. The miracle of the
7:43
gift of tongues at Pentecost moved three thousand men to believe in Christianity. That
7:46
of the healing of the Lame Man at the beautiful Gate of the Temple moved
7:53
two thousand more. The wonders wrought by the apostles. The apostles induce the
7:58
heathen to accept the Christian faith. How many were led to believe or confirmed
8:03
in the faith by the fullfillment in the year eighty seventy of Our Lord's prophecy
8:09
respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, and again by the failure of the attempts to
8:13
rebuild the Temple in three point sixty one. Besides miracles and prophecy, there
8:20
are also other motives of faith, such as as the constancy of the martyrs,
8:24
the wonderful spread of Christianity, and it's still more wonderful permanency in the
8:30
face of all persecutions and opposition that the Church has had to endure. The
8:35
four attributes of the Church, et cetera. The greater number of miracles were
8:39
performed in the early days of the church because they were the means God employed
8:43
for the spread of Christianity. That's it. Miracles still happen today. That's
8:48
why I'm sitting here. You know, if you know my story, you
8:52
know I was essentially more of a Taoist than anything in college. And a
9:03
severe injury blew out my back, left me paralyzed and there was no way
9:11
the doctors were going to be able to fix it. You know, that
9:15
was an extreme pain, and it was through a miracle, miraculous healing,
9:18
when someone prayed for me that my back was healed better than it was before
9:22
it was injured. I had scoliosis before then. I actually grew an inch
9:28
when my back was healed. Believe it or not, this wave of heat
9:31
spiraled up my spine. Disks and vertebra that were severely damaged were healed in
9:37
the blink of an eye, and I actually grew an inch. So he
9:45
says, God is like a gardener who waters his plants while they are still
9:48
tender and small. Number two. Miracles are such extraordinary works as cannot be
9:54
performed by the mere power of nature, but are brought about by the intervention
9:58
of higher power a higher power. The extraordinary work is one that fills us
10:05
with astonishment because we have never seen or heard anything like it, and are
10:09
unable to find any natural explanation of it. E g. The telegraph and
10:13
the phonograph were extraordinary wonders at the time of their invention, but their unwanted
10:18
character is not sufficient to constitute these things as miracles. A miracle must also
10:24
surpass all the forces of nature. Thus, raising the dead to life is
10:28
not only an extraordinary fact, but it is one that no amount of skill
10:33
or knowledge will enable a man to perform. Miracles are thus exceptions to the
10:39
ordinary course of nature. They appear to transgress the laws of nature, but
10:45
they do not really do so. The laws of nature still hold good,
10:48
but they are suspended in their action by an intervening power. There are true
10:56
and false miracles. The former are worked by the power of almighty God.
11:01
The latter appear to surpass the power of nature, but are really the effect
11:07
of the employment of the powers of nature by evil spirits, who, by
11:11
reason of their greater knowledge and power, are able to produce results that deceive
11:16
and mislead us. Miracles are divided into miracles of the first class. Miracles
11:22
of the second class. The former are those which altogether surpass the powers of
11:26
nature, as the raising of dead to life. Miracles of the second class
11:31
are extraordinary actions which might have been performed by the powers of nature, but
11:35
not in the same way or in the same space of time, as the
11:39
healing of a sick man by a word, or the sudden acquisition of the
11:43
knowledge of foreign languages. I'm not really sure where our Pentecostal brothers and sisters
11:50
get the idea that speaking in tongues is babbling incoherently and throwing one selves down
11:56
on the floor and flailing about as if one is demon possessed. But if
12:03
you've ever been to a Pentecostal church, you know what I'm talking about.
12:09
The gift of tongues was given to the apostles so that they could understand and
12:16
speak all languages of mankind, not weird languages that no one's ever heard of.
12:22
You know, I want to be careful here by my great great grandmother
12:26
founded a Pentecostal Holiness church. My Pentecostal Holiness great grandfather was the holiest man
12:35
known in my family at least, and I have no doubt that he I
12:41
mean, very devout Christian. He did not do the talking in tongues and
12:46
you know weird ecstatic dancing and running up and down the aisles as such as
12:50
that. He was a very quiet, saintly man. Actually, and when
12:54
he died, I've told this story before. I had a few heats srokes
13:00
as a child, you know, eastern North Carolina. So I was a
13:01
feeling well and it was late summer, it was hot, and my mother
13:07
took me over to the car to get some water. And we turned around
13:09
and there were three white doves flying up from his grave. They're not native
13:13
from North Carolina. What was that? Well, I mean, I believe
13:18
it was his soul going to heaven. I believe it was a sign that
13:22
he was in heaven at the very least, because you know, obviously he
13:24
had been bit, you know, dead several days and you know, so
13:28
his soul was not you know, hanging out about. But you know,
13:31
as I've said, many times, where is heaven. Heaven is where God
13:35
is, Where's God, God's in your heart. Heaven is right here with
13:39
us right now. Saint Padre Pio and many others have talked about Saint Fustina
13:46
wrote very extensively about all the angels and demons around us, and the saints
13:52
you know, in the Bible were called a cloud of witnesses. If we
13:54
could see reality as it was, Heaven's right here with us. We're only
14:01
separated by like a veil put before our eyes. So that was. Yeah.
14:11
Never do I ever deny that there are good Christians and Protestant denominations.
14:16
They just don't have the fullness of the truth. I'm sure if my great
14:20
grandfather had ever been taught anything about Catholic doctrine, that was true. A
14:26
lot of anti Catholics in the area, a lot of you know, Mason's
14:30
and the k Klux Klan was very powerful, and you know all that,
14:33
a lot of you know, I've told you before. You stop into any
14:37
gas station or restaurant on the interstate in East North Carolina when I was a
14:41
kid, and there'd be those Jack Chick books, the anti Catholic little comic
14:46
books in all the bathrooms showing you know, Catholics killing children drinking their blood,
14:52
and you know that's that's yeah, that's kind of the environment. But
14:56
anyway, and it hasn't changed that much. In honesty, Uh, they're
15:01
more Catholics in North Carolina now than there were. But yeah, in most
15:09
of the rural areas, you're still going to run into Seven day Adventists,
15:13
Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of God, Southern Baptists. Uh. You know,
15:18
even your polite country club Methodist finds out your Catholic is gonna, you know,
15:24
till you're going to Hell, and probably offer to help you get there
15:28
a little faster. And I'm not kidding. I mean it really is with
15:31
a lot of prejudice, a lot of prejudice, and you know, it's
15:37
honestly, it's easier to be Jewish in these areas and it just to be
15:41
Catholic. They actually have respect for Jews. You know, what do you
15:45
go to do? It's amazing. And you know, I've never experienced anti
15:50
Catholicism from a black person. No, I mean they're usually just as you
15:56
know, respectful as can be, and you know, you talk the Bible
16:00
together and you get along just fine. Yeah. Never once have I experienced
16:07
an anti Catholic black person, which is you know, probably for the best,
16:11
considering that I think the black population North Carolina is about thirty to thirty
16:15
three percent or so. So at least that's one third of the population that
16:18
doesn't hate our guts. Anyway, the point three miracles are wrought by Almighty
16:29
God only for his own glory and especially for the confirmation of true doctrine.
16:33
Sometimes it is to show that a man is a true messenger sent by God.
16:38
Sometimes to bear witness to the holiness of one who is dead, or
16:42
the virtue of justice, or to his virtue or justice I should say,
16:47
the virtue of justice of the person who's the saint. In other words,
16:51
God never works a miracle in confirmation of false doctrine. Remember that. Remember
16:56
that A lot of controversy right now about metri Go Orgy, whether it was
17:03
real or not, and apparently the Vaticans saying that it wasn't real. I
17:08
know, it's gonna upset a lot of people to look into it. I'm
17:11
not saying it. They think that the miracles were not real, may have
17:18
been manifestations of demons. Apparently the priests that were involved were pretty corrupt.
17:26
A lot of scandal involvum uh not, you know, like the Holy Children
17:32
at Fatima, and anyway, look into it. That's you know. I
17:37
was talking with John Benco, a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month
17:41
ago. Actually. You know, he does the Four Persons Catholic radio show,
17:45
of which you know, I'm a guest every now and then, and
17:48
he was explaining that to me and really eye opening. I'm pretty amazed,
17:55
actually, but you know, this is to be expected. No, I
17:59
was just I get the a little newsletter from the Divine Mercy, folks,
18:06
little excerpts from Saint Faustina's diary, and a very interesting one. Today.
18:11
She was walking up the stairs, i think, she said, and suddenly
18:15
she heard a voice telling her to stop spreading the word of the Divine Mercy.
18:18
That basically she was going to hell and so was everybody else and she
18:26
was only making things worse for them, and to stop immediately. And then
18:32
appearing before her was an apparition for Guardian Angel saying that, but she realized
18:38
it was actually Satan or a demon, and she called him the Father of
18:42
all lies, and he immediately started like screaming and cussing at her and then
18:47
disappeared. So I mean, even, I mean, apparently you can be
18:55
deceived by the devil or his demons appearing as you're Guardian Angel. That's pretty
19:02
actually pretty scary. Actually, one of the reasons the Church encourages us not
19:07
to try to learn the name of our guardian angel is well, that's not
19:12
really something we're necessarily meant to know, but demons will often tell their names.
19:19
The name of a demon is when you say it, you're conjuring them.
19:25
And if they can actually masquerade as angels, you know, that's really
19:30
something you shouldn't dabble in. So definitely don't try to learn the name of
19:36
your guardian angel. It could be very dangerous. Yeah, I mean,
19:40
that's what Saint Faustina would lead me to believe, and that actually is official
19:45
church teaching that you're not supposed to try to learn the name of your guardian
19:48
angel. For some reason, some Catholics do. Really probably a very bad
19:55
idea. So all important documents bear the stamp or signature of the person sending
20:02
them as a mark of their being genuine. God also has his stamp by
20:07
which he certifies that some of the doctrine is from him, or that some
20:11
messengers sent by him. This stamp consists in miracles. It is one that
20:18
cannot be counterfeited. Our Lord himself appeals to his miracles as proof of his
20:23
divine mission in Gospel of Matthew and John. See Elias did the same thing
20:32
in King's Miracles still continue to be worked in the Catholic Church in proof of
20:37
the truth of her teaching. God also works miracles in proof of the holiness
20:44
of the dead, often at their graves, as at that of Alicias.
20:48
Yes, Alicia, he uses again, he used the old spelling. It
20:51
always confuses me. Elias is Elijah and Elysius is Alicia. So I tried
20:57
not to say the wrong name, or for those who invoke them. Two
21:03
miracles must be attested as having been worked by the intercession of a servative God
21:08
before he is beatified, and others before he is canonized. Under the Jewish
21:14
Covenant, the saints work miracles chiefly during their life. Under the Christian Covenant,
21:18
they work a greater number after their death. God also works miracles to
21:23
manifest his goodness and his justice, as when the water flowed in the desert
21:27
to supply the thirsting Israelites, and when Annias and Sapphira were struck dead.
21:33
You may remember they lied to Saint Peter and he said, you lied to
21:36
the Holy Spirit, and they dropped it. Yeah. God never works miracles
21:41
in proof of false doctrine, though he sometimes permits a wicked man to be
21:45
deceived by the false miracles worked by the devil. Thus the devil sometimes heals
21:48
the sick rapidly or suddenly through his superior knowledge of the powers of nature.
21:53
Now, before you freak out and say, wait a minute, that's occult
21:56
stuff, yeah it is. And you may remember Sign and the magician in
22:00
the Bible who wanted to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. He went
22:04
on to call himself the Messiah and found his own church, and they called
22:12
him Simon the miracle work or he did many magics through magical acts, through
22:18
his trafficking with demons. And actually that's the genesis of the Gnostic churches,
22:23
which were the big heresy and like the first two three hundred years of the
22:29
Church, and they were finally condemned, and really they sow seeds of Protestantism.
22:33
There's a lot of Gnostic doctrine that was condemned by say Irenaeus and of
22:38
the councils that followed that is really very similar to a lot of Protestant doctrine
22:45
and really continues to confuse people and seduce them to this day, even people
22:55
who are not mainline Protestants, they get a copy of the Gnostic Gospels and
23:00
they think they found some secret knowledge that is after all what it means,
23:03
and they feel superior, and they feel all big and everything. All I
23:07
got to do is go back and read. Well, I guess there are
23:11
four total books against heresy by St. Ironaus, and it was five not
23:15
that hard to read, and it would prove all that teaching is falts.
23:22
But you know, I would almost guarantee that more copies of the Gnostic Gospels,
23:26
so called the false teachings of Simon the Magician and his followers are printed
23:33
every year than there are the works of iron Aus, Saint Ironais. Yeah.
23:41
Well, one of the reasons is the Gnostic The Gnostics were a huge
23:45
influence on the Masonic order. And yes, the voice of the Devil,
23:52
and of course the devil is going to get more press, right all right,
23:56
Yeah, I'll wrap it up there, maybe if I'll be able to
24:00
a podcast tomorrow or not. But if I do, a wrap up this
24:03
chapter, and if not, we'll take care of it Monday. So y'all
24:06
have a great evening. Remember the words of Saint Padre Pio pray, hope
24:10
and don't worry, say a prayer for me, wish me well. With
24:12
this new book, the goal will be to start selling it on Monday.
24:19
Next Monday, they'll be like, well, that be December third or fourth,
24:23
I'm not sure. So you know, people have it in time.
24:26
They can buy it in December and they'll have it January one, when they
24:30
can start reading my daily Gospel reflections. If that's something you would like.
24:34
I'll also start sending them out on the Unscinsored Catholic Newsletter, So if you
24:38
haven't signed up for that, go ahead and do so. And you know,
24:44
paid subscriptions are totally optional on there. If you want to do a
24:47
paid subscription, I'll send you a free book. You know, the subscriptions
24:51
like eight bucks a month. The ebook will be nine to ninety nine on
24:55
my site and probably more expensive on Amazon and other places. So it's a
24:59
good deal, so good Christmas gift to give someone. You can give them
25:03
the Uncensored Catholic Newsletter for as little as eight dollars, or if you want
25:07
to buy a multi month subscription, they'll get daily emails from me and a
25:14
podcast and a free ebook. If you were to buy two months or more,
25:18
I'll send them two free e books. You know, so really great.
25:22
I mean, like I said, last minute gift if you've forgotten to
25:23
get something about somebody something, or if you suddenly find out that you've either
25:29
got a Protestant relative or friend considering conversion, or a Catholic considering leaving the
25:33
church, or just someone going out to college, or someone that really needs
25:38
you know, kind of common sense from a converts perspective that I offer when
25:45
it comes to Catholicism. You know, eight bucks, you can't beat it.
25:51
You spend more than that at McDonald's for lunch. You know, I
25:56
probably ought to charge a lot more, but then I want more people to
25:59
have access to it. It's not about, you know, trying to get
26:03
rich off of it. I'm definitely not getting rich off of podcast and ebooks.
26:07
I can guarantee you that God willing, eventually it will make enough money
26:14
to at least support itself, support the time and effort and expense that goes
26:18
into everything that I do. So y'all have a great even and I'll talk
26:23
to you next time.