"Should We Judge?" (Intro to Catholic Morality)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hello and good day, everyone. This is Father David, and I'm Mark Turnus. We're here for another episode. Uh another type of conversation of unveiling Christianity. We're happy to have you here with us no matter where you're listening from. So I think we uh we do have a bit of listeners from all around the area, too. Have you been looking at our uh the stats?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

I have. I I have. You told me not to, and a lot of times when you start a podcast, they say don't look at the stats. But I have, and you're you are correct. We have we have a lot of coverage. Um we are we are actually listened to in more than just this country. We've we've gone international. We have gone international. We have several listeners. We have uh we have someone listening in Italy. Now, I'm not saying it's the Pope, but we but it is there is someone listening to us in Italy.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

That's fun. Yeah, yeah. I was telling Mark, you know, it's in the sense of, you know, we're not doing this for the for the listens and the stats and the numbers. You know, we do it because we really enjoy it and we feel the Lord calling us to it. Uh at the same time, it is learning a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

This is my little private tutoring session. So I uh I uh enjoy it for that reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, no, but it it's fun. It's fun to look at uh yeah, who's listening and from where and and all that. So we definitely have people all from all around the country at this point. Uh I know some uh some listeners uh over in uh listener over in California for sure. Uh shout out to uh Nicole and all these things.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

So it's it's it's fun. There's a lot down in Tennessee where my son lives. Yeah, that's right. Hickson and uh Chattanooga. It's good. It it is fun to look at that though. It is kind of fun to see that we're we're reaching people all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So that's good. Anything fun, anything exciting this week?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Well, the only thing uh that really just sticks out and comes to mind is the power outages. I lost power in my home for like a half a day, but a lot of people lost it for a lot more than that.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, yeah. We uh they we did the fish fry here too, you know, the Sherma's and the Knights of Columbus, they they kept it going, you know. I told them we had, you know, we had propane and accordion, so we're all fine, you know. You did not have it. Yeah, till 530. Oh, did you have it till 530? Yeah. So a lot of the other ones had to close down because of obviously the power, but they kept it open until until we couldn't see anymore, you know?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yep. I always look at power outages where the man can create all the power he wants, but the power of God trumps man's power, and all he has it's the breath of God in that wind can blow out entire grids.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

It is the humble reminder of how kind of powerless we are. Yep. That uh certainly we have a lot of great benefits and luxuries and um things in our in our society today, but yeah, even just going out without power for a little bit is kind of crazy, you know, just how it changes everything, you know. That oh go ahead. Yeah, so that, and that wasn't the other crazy thing that happened this week, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:14

All right, now now I'm I'm gonna I don't know if I'm gonna go down the right road here, so you have to stop me if I don't. The meteor. The meteor. I heard it. I heard it. I was dropping my grandson off and I heard it. I'm like, what is it?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

So we were just I didn't I got my haircut after mass on that, was it Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday morning. And yeah, I I I must have heard it. I think I thought because we were finishing up Mass, the daily mass in the chapel, and I think I thought that it was something on the roof. So we have these the the the heating uh elements on the roof and things. And then when they when they turn on, they kind of make a bunch of noise. I think I remember hearing something, but I assumed it was the roof. But yeah, kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

It didn't sound like thunder, but it sounded it sounded like a cross between thunder and fireworks.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

That's what what I've done.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

They said it was a massive seven ton explosion.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

It was it was it was pretty weird though. It was pretty weird. And then you saw the video, and that was kind of it, it it kind of was freaky.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

You ever you ever thought you'd experience a meteor?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

I never thought I would I would experience it live, like not on television. I mean, I heard it. I was sitting in my truck and I heard it, I rolled down the window. I'm like, what is that? It was cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

It's on St. Patrick's Day of all days, right? Yep. That'll be that'll be burned in the memory, if you will. So that's uh yeah. It was kind of cool. Maybe St. Patrick's Day. Do you have any uh any Guinness? Any corned beef?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

I well, I've I've given up, I don't drink any more, but I I ate way too much corned beef. Corn beef, wow. Oh my goodness. And then the cabbage, which is like cooked in the corned beef sauce. A little bit of sodium there for my heart, healthy diet, but you know, we're soul and body, Mark, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

You know, it's that's right. You gotta do things good for the body, but you know, everyone's we were talking before.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

You don't do it every day, you don't make a habit of it, and you're all right. Corn beef isn't bad, it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Indeed. Versus I didn't I did kind of more fully realize the distinction between the corned beef sandwich and the Rubin. Oh. So the Rubin more has more like uh Krout and Cheese and uh Thousand Island. So they're both good, but I would definitely do the Rubin.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Yes, where where where was your favorite corned beef sandwich? Well, I don't know if I'm Corky and Lenny's closed, unfortunately. It would be the best. And then they had those pickles to die for there.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

So I was uh out in the east side hanging out with some friends from St. Gabriel's, and uh we we had we had some good corned beef over there, the the Eagles Club over over in Painesville. But it was a fun, it was a fun time. Meteors and all kinds of things. Yeah, it's been a week.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yep, you know, it has been a week. It has been a week.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Well good. With that, uh we'll jump to our our our topic today. So at the end of the, well, at the end of last episode, we said we would be kind of jumping into uh some other things. I don't know what we said. I forget.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

No, we we were gonna go forward with the book, which is uh morality, okay. A lot of that stuff. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

So the next the next chapter was uh a conversation about you know why we're pro-life essentially uh as Catholics and things. Yeah, I remember so we we were reflecting on the gospel and we kind of reflected on some different things. My my prayer kind of went differently for the weekend, and because it was the the gospel about Jesus and uh healing the blind man and the Pharisees and kind of all the back and forth. Well, my prayer went a little different, uh, and I kind of wanted to actually kind of go back to that gospel, reflect on that a little more, and and then kind of tie it into a conversation about uh just morality in general and and uh and specifically do we judge as Catholics? Maybe we're kind of reflecting on that question. So like kind of a general kind of moral conversation before we kind of jump into maybe the particulars of any of any topics we would like set that up then for future for future podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Like an appetizer. Oh, an appetizer. I like that. If we're speaking about food, we are speaking about food, right? That would be the pickle at Corky and Lenny's, yeah. The appetizer.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Oh you oh oh you eat the pickle first?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Well, I I I hate the pickle first, during, and after, yeah. Oh, I wait to I love them things. Anyway, I'm sorry, I digress.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

That's okay. Okay. Okay, yes. A little appetizer, if you will, on uh just ca just uh Catholicism and morality. And maybe the the again the the uh title of this episode could be, you know, Do we judge? Why do we judge? Should Catholics judge. Should we judge, yeah. So with that, so going back to the gospel from again last weekend. So we had Jesus and the blind man, and so he he cures this bul this blind man with spit and saliva and mud and all these things, and he does it on a Sabbath, and the Pharisees find out and they're you know, who is this man? They don't know who Jesus is, and they make this comment, you know, uh, which kind of highlights their insecurity. You know, we don't know where this man's from. So they know some things about him, but they don't really know him totally, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

And but so they're kind of questioning And by that they mean they don't know if he's from God even.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Not uh not only locality, but is he even f of God, from God?

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Right, right. There's a misunderstanding or just an unknown. So they they interview different um uh the person, the man himself, and then also his parents, and uh and then eventually uh there's a re-encounter of Jesus and and the man. And so to say there's all kinds of judgments being happened uh being made here, right? But then after at the end, when when uh Jesus re encounters the man, he says Jesus says, I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

That's a powerful statement.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Right, right. Uh and really, so not to give too much flack to the Pharisees, uh, because really the Pharisees are us, right? Yes. Uh so it's not to to scapegoat them, right? Uh don't Pharisee. It's a point of reflection for our own hearts. At times we are Pharisaical, right? Absolutely. Okay, so yeah. So what's happened here? So I went I I went to to preach on judgmentalism. So, you know, people will share that, you know, I struggle with this, I struggle with that, I struggle with judging this person or that person, you know, about uh whatever, something they did, something they said, just how they are, you know. People can people can be annoying sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

So right. I didn't look at you and say, yeah. You were kind of looking at me. Oh, I wasn't referring to you, I was just prompting you with a response. That's okay. Okay. Uh universal human experience that we are annoyed at something at some point, right? Right. The question is, what do we do with that?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

And but but in the are you are you done with the gospel or not quite yet?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

No, no, we'll no, we'll we're gonna keep going here. I'm just kind of flushing this out. So so we have someone right that says or does does something that's either hurtful or annoying, and we can take it in two directions forgiveness or judgment.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Uh or judgmentalism, right? So, you know, what when we're judgmental, why is that a bad thing? Why is that a why is that a temptation for us? Well, it's we take an aspect of someone or something or a situation, you know, and in a sense too, I kind of talked about how you know in today's age, you know, we have all kinds of technology that enables us to quote unquote see. We have social media, we see all kinds of things. You know, we have a 24-hour news cycle from from whichever perspective uh we desire, right? That total saturation gives us a sense of being able to quote unquote see, but it's a question of do we really see? Do we really know what is happening in these people's lives in this situation? Ultimately, it's not to call into question everything, it's just to say we can make judgments, easily make judgments that are maybe prideful from our own vantage point when we don't know the whole story, we don't know the situation or the person, you know, particularly, right? And that's the issue with the Pharisees that they're making all kinds of judgments about Jesus, but they don't actually know. They say we actually don't know him, right? Don't know where he's from. We don't know where he's from. So so the gospel is really inviting us to uh to not be judgmental, right? Uh and and to receive another person, to receive a situation, to to do our best at you know, loving them and you know, and then in the case of people doing things that are are hurtful or annoying or whichever, that we uh don't strive to hold on to it in a sense of judgment because if we do that, it turns into resentment or hatred kind of these things, right? The other path is is f forgiveness and kindness. That we take that thing that's that's hurtful or annoying, uh we can pray a simple prayer in the name of Jesus. I forgive this person for doing this, saying this, not doing this, not saying this, being this way or that way, right? Uh and then that can help hopefully help us to approach them with a sense of kindness or even investigating, you know, what's behind some of this that I that I I see and experience. So I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

It does. So I think.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah. So uh just as an as an encouragement to not feed it into judgmentalism, because it's really something that hurts us and eats us. Right. Uh so that's what Jesus is calling us to. At the same time, Jesus says, I have come for judgment. This is not being judgmental, this is actually judging. And okay, so maybe what's what what does it mean to judge something? It just simply means to make a declar declaration about what is. Right? So a judge, if you go to a court, right, they get all this they get all this and evidence and investigation and witnesses and things, but ultimately then they make a decision, right? They make a judgment about this is what happened, this is what, you know, this is what will play out because of whatever happened, right? So Jesus is the judge and he's the just judge, right? He's the ultimate judge because he says what? I am the way, the truth, and the life. You know, he is uh the fullness of of truth and and he also has divine knowledge in the sense of he knows hearts, he knows situations, right? He doesn't just see on the surface that plays out in the woman caught in adultery. Right, right, yeah, right. So the Pharisees are ready to stone her because of on this outside, you know, this this this thing that happened that was objectively wrong, right? But Jesus says, you know, he who cast the sin, he who uh commits committed a sin that no sin cast the first stone. Commits no sin, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:48

He was without sin. He does it at the well with the woman, too. He calls her out, he knows she's not married, right? And he calls her out, and he's actually judging her, but it's a fact, and she comes to agree, yeah, you're right. He does this, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

And I think there's a there's a a candid uh kind of a charitable candor to Jesus, right? It's not a judgmental listening.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

I know you're living with this guy, he just said you're you're right. Uh you don't have a husband.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Right. And then even at the end of the gospel, it says some of the Pharisees who are with him heard this and then said to him, Surely we are not blind also, are we? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you are saying we see, so your sin remains.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

That is a major judgment.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

That is a judgment of their action. He's not like yeah, and again, there's no sin in Jesus, right? So he's not being judgmental in this moment.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Not judgmental.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

It's a major judgment. He's making a judgment. No, because because you're saying this, you're you're still blind, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:44

That's the truth.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yes, he wants the conversion of the Pharisees too, right? He wants the conversion of all people. It's a question of whether we're willing to change our lives and minds and hearts and decisions to reflect our living life with Jesus, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Okay. So in a sense, so should Catholics judge? Um, yes, but in a particular sense with Jesus and not to be judgmental. And and this is where um sometimes as Catholics we can get uh kind of a bad rap, and and we have to be very careful to not be judgmental of people and situations and things, just because people are different, and they might even be choosing things that wouldn't be uh in a sense uh in line with God's plan, the commandments, you know, whichever. But it's it's it's being uh making a judgment about the actions and also doing that with a sense of charity. You know, that always has to be the that always has to be there. Because if it's without charity, then it's judgmentalism. And that can hurt people and that can push people away from the church and can push people away from Jesus because then they think Jesus is being judgmental too, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Right. I mean it's it's a fine line. We're we're we're actually called to judge. We're we're called to proclaim the truth as Catholics, as Christians. We are called to judge. We are never called to be judgmental.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Right, right, right. So uh key distinction. Uh yes, we're called to judge, but but not being judgmental always with charity. But truth and love always have to be together.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Authentic judgment is truth telling.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Right. And that's where uh it's it's walking with it's walking with other people. First, letting ourselves be walked with, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Uh and so that's why, like, yeah, coming to know the church's teachings and uh and then also you know pressing into the sacrament of reconciliation, you know, admitting the places where I have fallen, I have not been I have not lived well, and coming to Jesus for mercy, right? That uh that's the only way we are going to be able to propose the truth to people and and and and all that.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Right. You're you're actually when you're heading into the confessional, you're doing a little bit of self-judging there. You're saying this is where I fell short, and you're going to a priest. We're making judgments about our sins, right? You're making judgments. You're like, I did this, this is not right. It doesn't feel right, it isn't right. I'm going to confess this to Jesus through this priest.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Right. Right. And we make judgments of our own hearts, not to just simply shame ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

But because we want to experience the mercy God has for us, we want to be absolved. Right. That's why we make that judgment.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

And you make that act of contrition, like, I I'm I don't want to do this again. I'm going to try as hard as I can not to do this again. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah. So with that, that's kind of reflecting on the on the gospel. So with that, that's kind of a I suppose kind of sets the stage towards just a conversation about you know Catholicism and morality. You know, morality being, you know, that we we should act in certain ways and we shouldn't act in other ways. It's making judgments about human actions and activity. And you know, if you think back to the be almost the beginning of the podcast, right? What was the first what was the first chap first episode we did? Besides the intro.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Okay, the intro. The first one was um unveiling beauty, goodness, and truth.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Well, after that.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Um we did why do we believe in truth. That's the third one.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Okay, yeah. So that was the first chapter, right? So we did a couple lead-in episodes. Truth and why we believe in it. Right. So right. So why why we believe in truth.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

And um That was the October 18th episode, if you guys want to go back and listen to it again.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

For those counting at home. Yes, for sure. Uh what did we say about truth? There's kind of two aspects of it.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Well, there I remember doing this because you asked me the question during that podcast. Uh, there's two aspects of truth. There's subjective truth and there's objective truth. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. We're talking more about objective truth. But the difference that was pointed out by the author of the book was subjective truth is saying something like, Strawberry ice cream is the best ice cream. It might be true for you, it might be true for a whole lot of people, but it's not true for everyone. Objective truth is ice cream is cold. Nobody's gonna argue with you because if ice cream isn't cold, it's not ice cream anymore. It's melted, it's melted.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah. No, good. Thanks for bringing that up. So, yeah, so we talked about truth. And so as Catholics, we believe that truth is objective. We do have a subjective approach to truth. You know, you know, we do have we do have our own perspectives, but but the journey of growth and knowledge is how we take our uh our subjective kind of perspectives and align them with what is what is actually true, right? Um at least in the in the ways that are essential, right? We can have our own perspectives and keep that and we can be different and that's fine, right? But when it comes to uh maybe in a sense, when it comes to morality, but you know, morality is founded on objects that there is an objective truth, right? A judge can only be a judge if there's an actual truth to be had.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

He's not rendering his opinion.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Right. There's a there's a fact that that needs to be that needs to be come to, right? So yeah, so the the the the reality is truth is objective. Uh Jesus says himself, I I'm the way, the truth, and the life. So Jesus wants to come into conformity, into relationship with him, who is the fullness of truth, right? So with that, we have a whole tradition of of of moral teaching, right? And a lot of times this can get a very bad rap, right? In a sense of, you know, the church is uh just kind of uh saying no and I can't do imposing their morality on us, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, it can it can kind of get that rap sometime. Um but I would I would invite us to see that there's there's maybe a little more than that, right? That the church's yeses and no's come from more of a more the more a place than simply just the church wants to tell us what to do, right? And I think to approach that, I want to talk about freedom. That's all that's a good word. Yep, that's a positive word, right? We all we all like. We all want to be free. Like uh William Wallace, yeah, if you will, right? Yep. Braveheart? Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah, I I was never a fan of the movie, I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, I I don't know, that makes me like sound like a horrible person, but in any event.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Kind of no, that would that would be judgmental.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Yeah, don't don't be judgmental.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah. Uh William Wallace, right? Freedom, right? I don't know. That was a bad impression. Sorry. That was not good. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

That's okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

That's a judgment. That's that was objectively bad.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

That was a judgment. It was a bad impression.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Okay. Freedom, right? So how do we define freedom?

SPEAKER_02 21:33

We have uh we learned a lot of confusion about what freedom is.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yeah, so let's define the word. Whenever there's confusion, there might be like, okay, we're not actually talking about the same thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Correct, correct.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So in our morality class in the seminary, we talked about this word freedom. What does this mean? Uh, and how do we how are we using it within the church? So there's a distinction between freedom uh for excellence and freedom of indifference. Okay, what does this mean? Well, first, freedom of indifference. We know we have a free will, right? I can choose to do what I would like to do because I can choose to do it, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

I can choose to join me and the free will to do that.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

I have the the ability to choose to drink either water, coffee, beer, or vodka. A vodka, or or what I had, uh some sweet tea, right? So I can choose any any one of these things, right? So it's a freedom of indifference. You know, I can choose it because I want to choose it, right? There's a certain sense of freedom in that, right? But freedom of excellence would be would be different. Is that I'm not I don't have the ability to choose anything just because I have the ability to choose it, but ultimately what is freedom, it's the ability to choose the good. It's the ability to choose what is excellent, you know, for me. And I suppose then then gets into anthra anthropology and like who are we as human beings to say what is best for us. But I think uh well, in a certain sense, we know what is best for us when it comes to food, right? That we know for our bodies, certain things are good to drink, uh, certain things are good to eat, you know, for nutrients and this and that. Uh we do have the the Rubin, we do have the the Guinness or, you know, whichever, and uh and that's good for the soul in a sense, right? It's not just the the mechanics of the body that we're trying to fulfill.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Unless you do it repeatedly and addictively.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Right. And if you choose those things all the time, you're gonna be less free because you're gonna be unhealthy, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Uh and you could maybe form an addiction, which is you'll fall into the slavery of addiction.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Right, which is not free.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Which is not freedom, right? Correct. So we want to have freedom for excellence. We want to have the ability to choose what is truly best for us. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. I like that choosing the good. Choosing the good, choosing what is excellent, right? Mm-hmm. And so I think that's a sense of where the church's uh framework, tradition, teaching of morality comes from. That ultimately the church is um, you know, at least traditionally, a mother, right? Holy Mother Church. And the tradition, she wants to orient us towards what is most good, most excellent, uh, most healthy in the sense of both body and soul, right? Right. So wants to lead us away from things that would not be so good for us and hurt us, uh, and towards things that would help us. So but you know, law and that's where the church has laws. The church has has rules uh in a sense. And that's not a bad thing, right? Because we have driving laws, right? Right. Traffic laws are helpful.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Yes. You don't want everybody driving around uh 120 miles an hour and running through stop signs, not observing right traffic lines and things.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

We're driving on the left side of the road, all those things.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah. So yeah, we have we have rules and laws so that we can actually live a well-ordered and safe life, right? It is all it is, yes. So if that applies to driving in a sense, it also just applies to other human actions and decisions. I think there's a sense of uh even so the the football field, right? You have referees and rules. If you didn't have referees and rules, football would not be well safe, but also wouldn't be very interesting either, because everyone would be doing whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

We we we teach our children those rules from a very young age. You know, don't touch a hot stove, you will burn your hand. Right. Don't stick a fork in a light outlet. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

And so and to go back, like there are judgments there, right? Don't do this because this will happen. That's exactly and we have law enforcement, so yeah, we do get speeding tickets or we do get whichever if you're being unsafe. You know, uh, they're there to make judgments about what is good behavior within the system so everyone can have the right to safety as they're driving their car, right? So that's uh yeah, that's kind of a sense of okay, morality is rate related to truth and freedom in the Catholic kind of vision of things. Yeah, and kind of with that though, you know, just a sense of it's also giving people freedom, right to be at the same time. That we, yes, we have a teaching, yes, we have uh kind of this whole framework, and we have the yeses and the no's, but you know, John Paul II, um, Saint, Pope, John Paul II, you know, he talked about how we should uh never impose but always propose the faith, you know, or what Christ is calling us to. That ultimately, yeah, we're well, first we allow ourselves to be walked with, right? We we allow ourselves to come to know what the truth is and and then call ourselves to follow that and you know, rely on God's mercy when we don't follow that well. Uh but after receiving it ourselves first, then we can walk with others. Then we can invite them into this way of life that God has for us. That yes, does mean saying no to certain things, certain ways of living that the culture has been supporting, you know, for uh for a number any number of years, right? Uh certain things that that there is something wrong about this.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

It's it's very easy to let your freedoms enslave you. Right. If you're not careful. It's it's very easy to let that happen.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Right, right. So uh so I think that's the key. Um so we'll we'll touch on some some topics from here that would go into some specific areas.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah, we we opened a big door here. So we can take this anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

The book goes into you know being pro-life, uh, talks about sexuality uh and and marriage. Yep. And then ultimately uh heaven and hell, so the the last things. So that'll be the kind of the background is how we kind of talk about some of these things.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

That the church has teachings, they are true, good, and beautiful, but it's gonna take some time for us to maybe kind of dive in and understand some of the background so we can more deeply appreciate, you know, why the church says it and kind of all those things. So very good.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Make sense? It does. It does. Cool. I hope it does to our listeners as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's just we we take it in small bits, right? Yep. We we can only be where we're at and we grow from there, right? That's a very good way to look at it. Yeah. All right. With that, let's go to our gospel. Okay, so we have our gospel this weekend from John and uh kind of crazy, fifth, fifth Sunday of land, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:36

It is.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Okay. Let's pray. Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord. The sisters of Lazarus went forth to Jesus, saying, Master, the one you love is ill. When Jesus heard this, he said, This illness is not to end in death, but it is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise. Martha said, I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus told her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I've come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming in the world. He became perturbed and deeply troubled and said, Where have you laid him? They said to him, Sir, come and see. And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, See how he loved him. Some said some but some of them said, Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died? So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and the stone lay across it. Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, Lord, by now there will be a stench. He has been dead for four days. Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? So they took away the stone, and Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you for hearing me, because I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd, here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me. And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, Untie him and let him go. Now many of the Jews had who had come to Mary, had seen what he had done, began to believe in him. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you. So this is uh healing of the the raising of Lazarus, right? Anything particular just kind of strike you about this?

SPEAKER_02 31:49

No, there's there's two really big things, and I know you're gonna say pick one. So I'm going to pick one. Um Jesus wept. I mean, and we know even the even the crowd said, you know, why did why why did Christ see how much he loved him? And yeah, he loved he wept because he loved Lazarus, but he had he was perturbed so many times they mentioned that. So he's crying because they're still so utterly confused. Everybody, everybody to to to me in this in this reading is so confused as to what's going on. So I guess I I would I would pray that um that Jesus grants me uh understanding to uh to know know what he's all about and what I desperately need.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, I point this out uh at the time of funerals and things. Uh I point out this the fact that yeah, even God knows what it's like to to grieve and to cry and to to lose someone close, right? That that that experience is not foreign to God. Right. Right. So that's um that can console us in a certain sense that God is with us and that uh and that suffering, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah, even you know, just uh the image of you know the burial bands that are they're taking off, you know, that to say, okay, we've maybe have these moments where we're a Lazarus and we uh experience God's power in some way and you know, in a sense of like what uh what are those burial bands kind of represent? You know, what are we what are we shedding, you know, when we when we have an encounter with God? What what are we what are we letting go of or we're doing without so that we can you know freely follow him, right? Correct. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

All right. Any uh any prayer intentions? Yeah, today I have a personal uh prayer intention. On the feast day of Saint Joseph, uh I invoke Saint Joseph and I and I commend myself and and all those who are dear to me uh to his special intercession.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, I'm gonna uh I think I have two maybe uh if I can. I'll do uh I'm not gonna say pick one. Okay, thanks. So yeah, I think you're just uh praying for you know, so every every diocese kind of has like a moral theologian in a sense of well, those who have seminaries. So Father Joe Koopman is our moral theologian of the diocese and kind of helping out with things. And I I learned morality, uh moral teaching from him and things, and uh he does a lot of good work around our diocese. You know, because there could be a lot of difficult situations to navigate and to work through and help people through, and just for him and just uh any other priests that are kind of helping to walk with someone in a situation, just uh the grace of the Holy Spirit uh may be maybe with them. Uh then I just invite prayers for uh Deacon John Green and his wife Carolyn, who are going to be speaking at our parish this weekend, uh just for the our parish mission. Uh so it's gonna be on Sunday night, five o'clock will be our uh potluck dinner in the in the caf uh not cafeteria, the uh chapel meeting space. And then we'll have uh the talk in the church and then adoration after. So uh just for his presentation and just our openness of mind and heart uh to what he'll share with us. Looking forward to that. Great. Let's pray. Name the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Kind of gracious God, Heavenly Father, we just give you thanks and praise uh for this day of our lives of the freedom that you have won for us through your death and resurrection, the freedom that you call us to in our lives. We ask you to be with us in this length and journey. May we continue to shed uh anything that is not of you in our lives. Uh, we give to you uh our our weakness, we give to you our judgments. Uh help us to work through those so that we can truly see uh our brothers and sisters, uh, that we may love, we be filled with faith, hope, and love. We ask this all in your name. Amen. Father and Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Alright, everyone, have a good week. We'll catch you around.