Scott Hahn on whether COVID-19 is punishment from God
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Summary
Dr. Scott Hahn is a scripture scholar, convert, and author. In this episode, Dr. Hahn talks about not only his new book, Hope to Die, but also about the current coronavirus crisis, and what he thinks of what's going on right now.
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.
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We're talking with Dr. Scott Hahn, scripture scholar, convert extraordinaire, and we're
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going to talk to him about not only his new book, Hope to Die, but also about the current
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coronavirus as a chastisement and what he thinks of what's going on right now.
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Just before we begin, let me encourage you to like this video, also to hit the subscribe
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button below this video, and remember to click on the bell when you're done so that you can
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You can also subscribe to it at lifesitenews.com under the blog section of John Henry Weston's
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It is quite the book, quite a book for our times.
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It's called Hope to Die, and it's released right now in the middle of our coronavirus
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In fact, just as it was launching, we came on to Easter weekend, and we were, of course,
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Give us, if you can start with, the genesis of this, how this happened that you wrote this
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You must have started it over a year ago, and yet it's released right now, seemingly
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In fact, right before we began to record together, you and I were talking about that Authentic Reform
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Conference in D.C. back in the fall of 2018, sponsored by the Napa Institute.
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And I was there, and I spoke and heard wonderful talks by others, too, Janet Smith, Curtis Martin,
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And at the end of it, near the tail end of the banquet, I was leaving, and a couple of
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friends of mine stopped me and just said, hey, would you ever think about writing a book
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that deals with death and the body and cremation?
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But what I heard coming out of my mouth was, yes, I'd be very open to that.
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So when I got into the Uber and went off to the airport, when I finally got to my gate,
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I turned to my friend and I said, what was I thinking?
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Why in the world would I give consent to writing a book like that?
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And he said, well, you and I talked about this a year or two ago.
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And I said, okay, well, it wasn't a book so much as a presentation.
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And so later that year, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in downtown New York City
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in Manhattan, I gave this talk that came together in the last 24 hours or so, and I was speaking
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to chaplains, to philosophers, theologians, and ordinary lay people who had a lot more
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experience about these matters of death than I did.
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And I don't know exactly where it came from, but three and a half hours later, we just felt
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like we had shared an enchanted evening discussion filled with all kinds of insight, most of which
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had not come from me, but through me from on high.
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And so afterwards, I gave some thought to, well, could that become an article or something
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And the two friends approached me and said, you know, would you make it into a book?
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And so I spent most all of 2019 working on this book with my co-author, Emily Stimson-Chapman,
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a dear friend, a former student, and now a collaborator on a variety of projects.
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And she would stop by and I would dictate into a recorder and kind of feel like I was reliving
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I was kind of excited and pleased and proud, and she was too.
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And as it was sent off to the printers, you know, suddenly everything hit in January, but
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especially the last week of February, it was a leap year, you remember this year is.
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And so on the 29th, I realized that this coronavirus crisis was something that was epoch making.
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And so I did something I'd never done before with my 40 plus books.
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I called the printer and I said, stop the presses.
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And so I had a sense of timing with this whole book for the last two years, but suddenly I
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was really shown a sense of divine timing that I had my reasons, but God had his.
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And his, I thought, were more poignant, more dramatic, more important.
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And so I basically rewrote the last chapter in light of this crisis that we're all kind
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You know, it's strangely blessed and eerie for us, I suppose, for me and for my family,
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it was the lengthiest Lent I have ever known, a strangely blessed and eerie time.
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But now that we're on the other side of Easter, I am really chomping at the bit to see the mystical
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body of Christ come out of this tomb, come out of this crisis, and to rediscover the glory
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of the gospel, most especially with the resurrection of Christ's body.
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Because what I've discovered in the last couple of years of research and writing and editing
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is that the resurrection is so much more than what we think.
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It's so much more than a historical reality, an empty tomb with eyewitnesses.
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He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
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It really is more than the resuscitation of Jesus' corpse like Lazarus experienced.
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It really is the transfiguration of human life, of human existence.
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And so God takes what is ours, human nature, in order to give us what is his, and that is
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But most especially, we receive this mystery in the Holy Eucharist, because the Eucharist,
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we believe, is the real presence of Christ's body, blood, soul, and divinity.
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But what I've come to see more clearly, and I try to communicate more clearly in this book,
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is that it's the same body that was in the upper room on Holy Thursday.
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It's the same body that was on the cross on Good Friday, buried in the tomb on Holy Saturday.
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But more specifically, the body of Christ that we receive in the Holy Eucharist is the resurrected
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body, that which is ascended on high, which is enthroned at the right hand of God the Father
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And so this body is not just resuscitated, his innocence is not just vindicated, his humanity
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And it's not just divinized for himself, it is divinizing us.
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When we receive his body, we get his blood, his soul, but also his divinity to fulfill
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what we read in 2 Peter 1, 4, that we have been made partakers of his divinity and nothing
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We are made sons of God to share in his own sonship and to fulfill that pledge.
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He said, my flesh is food indeed, my blood is drink indeed.
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And then he goes on to say, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and
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Then he concludes by saying, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, I will raise him
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Because the Eucharist we receive is his resurrected body.
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But it's also the instrument by which Christ will resurrect our bodies and cause us to share
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in the joy and the glory that has been his for the last 2,000 years.
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Only for us, it will be 20 trillion years and that will be the first minute of eternity.
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This is the gospel according to the Catholic Church.
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And it's good news that's almost too good to be true unless it's all true.
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And the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting is, you know, these aren't just
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This is the purpose for which every one of us is made, not just to float about as disembodied
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souls like angels, not just to have a staring contest with God to look at his divine essence
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for eternity, but to enter into a kind of covenant communion, interpersonal love with
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God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but with all of his sons and daughters who become
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This will make the happiest vacation, the most joyful family reunion look miserable by comparison.
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This is the reality that we profess when we as Catholics recite the Creed.
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And now that I've been pondering it much more, I realize, you know, there is gold in them
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thar hills, diamonds and rubies and emeralds as well.
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I didn't mean to go on so long, but I tell you, it's like rising up within me, like so much
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Now, one of the most interesting things with regard to the time that we are in right now
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is that this essential thing, the giving of Christ's body and blood, is not being made
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I just finished speaking to some COVID-19 patients who have told me they were there suffering,
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And there was a garbage man, a janitor, who came in to clean the receptacle and to wipe
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Yet, the priests were forbidden from coming to provide last rice.
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This man who I was speaking to was in danger of death and begging for a priest, but couldn't
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Couldn't have a priest come in to give him last rice or anything like that.
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And what are your thoughts on the essential nature of the sacraments and perhaps getting
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this provided somehow, at least to the dying who are so begging for extreme unction and
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To give you an answer, I've got to admit from the outset that I've got a kind of traffic
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jam at the intersection of my mouth because I've got like four or five or six thoughts that
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First of all, I want to say I've got six kids, five sons and one daughter, as I always say,
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And two of my sons are in the seminary studying for the priesthood for the Diocese of Steubenville.
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So I feel like I've got a lot of skin in the game.
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But I also want to express my gratitude to God for the gift of holy orders, because for
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mortal men to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to transform earthly matter into the body,
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And so I'm excited for my two sons who are pursuing this priestly vocation.
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I am grateful for all of the men I have known through the years who are fathers, not in a
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natural way, but fathers in a supernatural way.
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I'm a father as a breadwinner, but I can't speak the words of consecration and give to
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And so let's just be grateful for the priests and for the seven sacraments that they do dispense.
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At the same time, I would say this, that we were all caught off guard and we don't want
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to jeopardize the lives of our priests or our bishops, obviously.
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And we don't want to jeopardize the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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And so we ought to avoid any kind of congregating that would put people at risk.
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At the same time, you know, I'm a father and I long to not only provide for my kids, but
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to feed them, to protect them, but to make sure that they're fed.
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And so for me to not have the Holy Eucharist through most of Lent and now through the beginning
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Like my daughter said to me a few days ago, she said, Dad, I had no idea how much I took
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I have never hungered for holy communion this much.
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And I'm like, well, Hannah, you know, so far so good, because I mean, this takes us out
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of that stage where we take things for granted, you know, where you can almost be
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unscrupulous and just assuming that you can receive.
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You know, at the same time, I do wish that our spiritual fathers, our priests could be
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more creative in imagining ways to dispense the sacraments instead of simply shutting
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But at the same time, as a son of God and as a brother in God's family, I can ask our
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Father in heaven to give to our shepherds, you know, a greater energy to creatively imagine
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And so hearing confessions and also giving us holy communion and also especially anointing
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the sick as they approach death, these are matters of some importance.
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And I would say some matters of some urgency as well.
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But at the end of the day, I want to say, God, preserve our priests.
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God, bless them and help us to really be grateful in serving them for sacrificing so much for us
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to really grow through the sacraments that they administer.
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I hope I got most of the vehicles through that intersection.
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Now, one of the other things that is fascinating in your book is the talk that would be somewhat
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troublesome for your former Protestant brothers and sisters, but also for a lot of Catholics
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for whom the idea of praying for the dead is still somewhat foreign.
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And we say, you know, the innermost prayers for their souls and for the souls of faith we
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But many, I would say most, even Catholics, don't really think too much about this.
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And yet you mention it very strongly in your book.
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I mean, the souls of the faithful departed who are in purgatory have a joy that exceeds
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But they also experience pain that exceeds anything that we've experienced on earth.
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And so our suffrages on their behalf are concrete expressions of divine charity far more than
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When we get to the other side, we're going to wake up and realize, wow, we squandered a
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Now, I would also say to our separate brothers and sisters that even though you don't have
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2nd Maccabees in your Bible, 2nd Maccabees is a reliable narrative that communicates the
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historical truth that we find in chapter 12, where you have the Jews who are praying for
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Now, even if that is not inspired in canonical scripture, it's a reliable narrative that shows
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And Jews to this day still pray for their dead in every synagogue, orthodox or conservative.
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Now, if they're in heaven, they don't need our prayers.
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And so if they're in an intermediary state, which they may be, in the Hebrew, that was
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It's translated in the Greek as Hades, the gates of which will not prevail.
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But Jesus does not confuse Hades with hell, because hell is Gehenna, and that is irreversible.
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But Sheol in Hebrew, or Hades in Greek, is that intermediate netherworld where the souls
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of the faithful departed go, and our prayers, our sacrifices, our suffrages are not only
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beneficial to them, they are concrete and powerful expressions of divine love that cause us to
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And also, I think, increases that awareness, that spiritual sensibility, so that when we
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die, if we should find ourselves there, our kids, our grandkids, our godchildren are going
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to know enough to offer up suffrages and sacrifices and prayers for our sake as well.
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Now, this is the communion of saints, not only in heaven and on earth, but under the earth
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We're not talking about GPS coordinates when we speak of those under the earth, but we're
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So when we hear about Holy Saturday, when Jesus descended into Hades, he does so triumphantly,
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not only to deliver the souls of the faithful departed from the Old Testament shadowy realm,
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when he ascends into heaven, as Paul states in the Ephesians, he carries captivity captive.
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In other words, what Christ does is to repopulate heaven, because until the resurrection and the
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ascension, all of the visions of heaven show us only angels.
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The only exception is Daniel 7, where Daniel has this vision of what happens after the Son
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of Man returns to the Ancient of Days on the clouds of heaven.
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And suddenly we see the saints of the Most High in heaven.
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Well, that is the prophecy that Christ fulfills, especially in his ascension.
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And so we have taken for granted for the last 2,000 years, something that was almost unthinkable
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for faithful Jews in the Old Testament, that in heaven, angels and saints stand alongside
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of each other, offering prayers and songs and sacrifice.
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What we experience down here that corresponds to that up there is what we call the Holy Sacrifice
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I wrote a book called The Lamb's Supper, The Mass is Heaven and Earth, which tells all about
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I mean, the composite of all of the elements that make up our faith present us with a picture
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of reality that is just too good to be true, unless, of course, it is the gospel truth.
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And the Catholic gospel took the gospel, I believed as a Protestant, to an entirely new level.
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In fact, it was more like multiplying exponentially.
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The good news got not only better, but so good that it exceeds our highest hopes and goes
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You know, and so what I want to do in this book is to kind of trace a trajectory from Rome's
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sweet home where I describe our conversion to the Lamb's Supper, where I discovered that
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in the Mass, heaven comes to earth and we are raised to heaven to share in the songs and
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the prayer and the praise of all of the angels and saints.
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But to recognize in this new book called Hope to Die, the Christian meaning of death and the
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resurrection of the body, I want to basically look at the finish line, how it is that when
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we cross the finish line, when we enter heaven, we're not home fully and truly until we get
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Not like Lazarus got his mortal body back after four days, but much more like Christ got
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a body back that wasn't just simply a resurrected corpse or a resuscitated body.
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And so I think we've got to recognize that our bodies are much more than we realize.
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They're not just disposable wrappers or cartons that we kind of, you know, have for now and
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No, our bodies are almost like sacraments of the soul, not like the seven sacraments, but
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in and so far as our bodies are visible signs of the invisible reality of my soul and your
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soul, we recognize that the body is much more than what Plato thought of it.
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You know, the Soma is the Soma, was the Greek wordplay, that our bodies are like prisons
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and that when we die, we escape from the prison.
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What Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, is how the perishable
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That Christ gives to us in the Holy Eucharist nothing less than his own resurrected body.
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So, when I eat ordinary food in this life, I assimilate it to my body.
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When we receive Holy Communion, Christ assimilates us to his body.
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And so, it's sort of the reverse of the natural process.
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And that's how Christ will fulfill that pledge in John 6.
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Because the flesh and the blood that we share in Holy Communion is his resurrected body, blood,
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It becomes the means by which our bodies are going to be eventually resurrected like his.
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And even now, our bodies will be assimilated to his body so that we'll have the power of
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love, the Holy Spirit, so that all of the little ordinary things I do and that you do,
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at home, with our family, at work, with our co-workers.
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All of these things take on an extraordinary meaning, a value that exceeds anything they
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would have on their own, precisely because this communion with Christ is so real.
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I mean, I do believe that this crisis is a wake-up call to see what all of us have at
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times taken for granted, but not only to kind of be more grateful, but to seize the opportunity
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and reappropriate these sacred mysteries and realize we're not sure of most of the things
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that hover around this virus, but what we are 100% certain of are the sacred mysteries
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that constitute a reality that exceeds this world even at its best.
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And so I would just say, Lord, increase our faith, increase the endurance of hope, purify
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and perfect this charity, most especially in the sacrament of your love, which is the
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I'm sorry, I don't mean to go on and on, but it's sort of like a backlog of stuff that's
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been within me, not just since I became a Catholic some 34 years ago, or when I wrote
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Lamb's Supper 20 years ago, but I just believe that this is why I'm on the planet and you
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are too, to discover the things that are going to get us home to heaven.
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But we're not going to be like disembodied angels.
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We're going to have our bodies back, and we're going to experience the first 10 trillion
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years of heaven in such a way it will make the happiest homecoming, the most joyful family
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reunion look like sheer misery in comparison to the happiness that we will have that will
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bless God our Father more than we can possibly realize.
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Yeah, one of the beautiful chapters in your book looks at, and I'd really encourage people
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to read it, if and only for this, you have this incredible depiction of heaven.
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You're working off of St. Thomas Aquinas, but it actually reminded me right away of C.S.
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Lewis's The Final Battle, where he sort of has this description of a heavenly vision, and
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you have that elucidated in your book through Thomas Aquinas' words.
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You know, I am a devoted student of St. Thomas Aquinas.
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He is my favorite theologian, next to St. Paul, who I think is his favorite theologian.
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And the Summa Theologiae is like my favorite work.
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And so I draw from the section where he describes the resurrected body, you know, the three qualities
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that all resurrected bodies will share in terms of quality, identity, and integrity.
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But the four properties that those who are resurrected into glory will share, you can summarize
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I stands for impassibility because our bodies will no longer be able to suffer, much less die.
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S stands for subtlety because our bodies are not going to be weighed down at all.
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A stands for agility because the power of our mobility will make it look like, you know,
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And then the C stands for clarity because we're going to be able to communicate our thoughts,
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our love to each other in a way that is so utterly clear.
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You know, if we were ethereal beings, pure spirits like angels, we would not lack any ability.
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But when we get our resurrected bodies back, the angels are going to stare in wonder and
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awe at what God has done through the incarnation of Christ, His Son, through the Paschal mystery
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of His death and resurrection, and how His resurrection body becomes the source of all this glory that
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ends up being downloaded into our dead bodies so that our dead bodies are resurrected and raised
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You know, we all seem to have a kind of love-hate relationship with our body.
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Either we indulge it too much, or when we feel sick or weak or tired, we just kind of resent
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the fact that we are weighed down by these mortal frames.
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But what we see is what St. Paul describes as a kind of seed that is sown perishable, but
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And he's obviously echoing our Lord's words in John 12, that unless this grain of wheat falls
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Now, obviously, the fruit that is born by a grain of wheat falling into the earth and
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dies, the edible form is what we would call bread.
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And this points to the bread of life, the Holy Eucharist, Christ's resurrected body.
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Just as the disciples back in the first century were empowered by the Spirit to recognize the
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resurrected Lord and to testify to the risen Savior, there's really a sense in which we
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We are disciples called to be apostles, to bear witness to the risen Savior.
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Not just on the other side of the tomb, but in the tabernacle, on our altars, upon that
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And we can testify to the real presence of the resurrected Lord of Lords and the King
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of Glory, because when we get to the other side of heaven, we're going to discover that
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His body does not possess more glory in the end than it possesses now.
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We just can't see the glory of the resurrected Lord, except through the eyes of faith.
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But when we get to the other side, we're not just going to see with our resurrected eyes
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We're going to see with our glorified eyes what our own resurrected bodies are as well.
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This good news is more than our world can contain.
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Like new wine that bursts old wineskins, we have got to let the lion of the Catholic faith
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out of his cage and allow the gospel to be roared.
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Because I tell you, we have been taking a whole lot of grace for granted.
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And I'm sorry, I do feel like an ocean being squeezed through a funnel right now, but that's
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Even 34 years after I entered into this Catholic faith, I knew it was true back then.
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But I got to tell you, 34 years later, it is more powerful and more meaningful and more
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beautiful than I could realize back then or that I can express right now.
00:26:52.580
But again, John Henry, thanks for another good question.
00:26:55.880
And if you've got another one still, fire away.
00:26:58.340
I do, because now you're just talking about evangelization, the need to sort of let go
00:27:06.360
Really, like perhaps never before in history, we had this opportunity.
00:27:11.140
I'd say during World War and crises like that, even during regular war, more people in society
00:27:18.100
pay attention to the four last things, to death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
00:27:22.080
Now, and today, like with your book's timing, but more people are paying attention to the
00:27:30.880
And I think your book adds to that sense, but also the ability for people to reach out
00:27:39.000
You know, 9-11 did that in a day, but a month later, it was practically over and done.
00:27:43.760
Whereas this crisis is lasting days, weeks, and now months.
00:27:47.540
And it's forcing us to recognize not only the inevitability of our suffering and death,
00:27:54.180
but there is also a sense in which we can recognize what God wants to do with it.
00:28:01.160
You know, we have such an inordinate fear of suffering and dying, and that's understandable.
00:28:06.780
But at the same time, what we can hear from the lips of our Lord in the words of the gospel
00:28:11.820
is that there is life that we love, rightly, and that's the gift of life and it's sacred.
00:28:17.540
But there's another life that is not merely human and natural, but divine and supernatural.
00:28:23.160
And that isn't less valuable, but infinitely more valuable.
00:28:27.060
And so when Jesus tells the people, Jairus' daughter is just asleep, and they suddenly
00:28:31.140
turn on him and begin jeering, it isn't because he hadn't gotten adequate medical training.
00:28:36.820
No, just like Lazarus, when he says to the disciples, he's sleeping.
00:28:42.560
Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?
00:28:44.500
Because what you know to be death, what you fear so much as death, I see as a kind of sleep.
00:28:52.520
What you don't dread enough is that kind of spiritual death that you commit by misusing
00:29:02.380
You go back to the beginning and you look at our first parents and what God gave to them.
00:29:06.260
In Genesis 2, verse 7, God took the dust from the ground and made our first father, but
00:29:12.560
then breathed and it was not also the breath of life, so that the first breath that the
00:29:16.560
first man drew was not just air or oxygen like the animals were breathing.
00:29:24.400
He had supernatural life or what we call sanctifying grace.
00:29:28.200
And so when God says 10 verses later in Genesis 2, verse 17, the day you eat of this forbidden
00:29:36.240
He wasn't issuing an idle threat that he didn't follow through on.
00:29:44.780
First John 5, verse 17, the sin unto death, thanatos, the same word that is used there in
00:29:52.620
When our first parents committed original sin, they committed spiritual suicide.
00:29:58.680
They forfeited life that was not just natural, but supernatural, not just human, but divine.
00:30:03.440
They experienced a death that was not merely metaphorical, but much more of a death than
00:30:09.520
They lost a life that is eternal and infinitely more valuable than our own finite human life.
00:30:15.520
So when we get original sin, which we contract, we don't commit, we're not born depraved like
00:30:22.620
But we are born deprived of the divine life that our first parents had, but then forfeited.
00:30:28.260
That's why in baptism, when we get that life back, St. Paul can describe it in Romans 6 as
00:30:36.800
Because in the waters of baptism, an infant or an adult is resurrected more than Lazarus
00:30:48.340
But in baptism, we get the supernatural life that is divine and eternal that our first
00:30:55.020
This is why Paul calls Christ the new Adam, the last Adam, because he not only did what
00:31:00.780
Adam should have done, he undid what Adam did for all of his progeny.
00:31:05.580
And again, this is how the Bible and Catholic doctrine come together like nitroglycerin and
00:31:11.680
explode in a luminous way and show us this is not plan B.
00:31:16.420
This is the only thing for which every single man, woman, and child was made.
00:31:21.040
And we've been preoccupied by the stock market, you know, or by the NFL.
00:31:28.920
But I'm a bigger fan of the Catholic gospel because, you know, my wife, she loves bargains.
00:31:34.800
But you'll never find a greater deal than what Christ has done.
00:31:40.300
But you'll never find a more exciting victory than what Christ has won.
00:31:43.880
We have got to get this lion out of his cage and re-evangelize ourselves in order to re-evangelize
00:31:51.600
Because I tell you, this is the one thing for which every single man, woman, and child was
00:31:57.020
For them to be deprived of the fullness and excitement and the beauty of the Catholic gospel
00:32:05.040
We owe it to Christ and we owe it to all of our brothers and sisters to share the fullness
00:32:12.380
And again, I feel like, you know, an ocean through a funnel.
00:32:15.480
But still, you know, I just, I really believe that this is the moment that we should be seizing.
00:32:22.980
Now, you've mentioned that this is a sort of wake-up call from God.
00:32:27.780
And the bishops, various bishops, Bishop Snyder, Cardinal Burke, and Archbishop Vigano, have
00:32:33.720
mentioned that this is some kind of a chastisement.
00:32:41.980
Well, you know, when people ask, is this a divine punishment?
00:32:48.620
You know, I would say, is God getting even with us?
00:33:02.700
It isn't their fault, their most grievous fault.
00:33:07.460
And so when you read the penitential prayer of the prophet Daniel in chapter 9 of the book
00:33:12.440
of Daniel, you don't see him pointing his prophetic finger at all of these sinful Israelites.
00:33:17.500
He's basically saying, we have grievously sinned.
00:33:22.640
And so he's begging God for mercy, but not for them, but for himself and for all of us.
00:33:29.180
And so I would say, you know, we've got to see that God is a loving father.
00:33:36.200
And so when I punished my six kids, you know, I didn't punish the neighbor's kids.
00:33:41.960
And even when it was more their fault, I punished my kids, but I didn't punish them because I
00:33:46.140
stopped loving them or I started loving them less and less.
00:33:49.600
No, I punished my kids because they're my kids and because I love them.
00:33:53.840
Hebrews 12 explains this, that if you go unpunished when you sin seriously, that proves you're an
00:34:08.820
Once we realize that, we'll understand what Paul is describing in Romans 1.18.
00:34:13.560
When he speaks of the wrath of God that is unveiled from heaven against all ungodliness,
00:34:19.360
he's not talking about, you know, earthquakes and famines and, you know, all sorts of volcanic
00:34:26.200
And this, you know, three times Paul says that the form God's wrath takes when it's unveiled
00:34:32.140
from heaven is found in Romans 1, verse 22, verse 24 and 26.
00:34:41.900
God's wrath is when he lets us have what we want, especially when it's contrary to what
00:34:49.000
God's mercy is when God gives us what we need, whether it's a virus, an epidemic, an
00:34:55.600
earthquake, or a volcano, or a cop pulling us over and giving us a DUI.
00:35:00.860
When we are finally forced to accept responsibility for all of our misused freedom, that is not
00:35:10.780
And it usually comes wrapped in what feels like a punishment.
00:35:14.680
When I punished my kids, I didn't punish them perfectly like God does.
00:35:21.260
You know, they didn't feel the love, you might say, but they wake up and they grow up and
00:35:26.660
they realize that those who go unpunished don't end up more righteous, more reliable,
00:35:34.720
And so God wants to make us saints, not spoiled brats.
00:35:38.460
And so if we recognize that this is a moment of grace, a season of mercy, we can say not with
00:35:44.760
a guilty conscience, but like a heart that is set free by the medicine of God's mercy,
00:35:53.180
Through my own fault, through my own grievous fault, God is not willing to forgive us.
00:36:00.360
He wants to forgive us and heal us more than we want him to, and he's capable of healing
00:36:06.940
So if we just simply avail ourselves of his mercy, he can heal us more than we could possibly
00:36:19.800
And so instead of running from God and feeling a fear that comes from, you know, abject servility,
00:36:25.600
as sons and daughters who have willfully rebelled, we ought to just kind of come to him like the
00:36:31.400
prodigal son and expect to be forgiven, but also wait until we find out how much more he
00:36:42.060
That amazing sort of juxtaposition of mercy and justice is something that you mentioned
00:36:49.360
While we're at the Napa conference and the discussion was around the abuse crisis, the
00:36:55.560
cover-up of bishops, you mentioned something very challenging.
00:36:59.420
You talked about how those guilty of cover-up, it would be merciful to even excommunicate
00:37:07.200
If you can get into that a little bit, because it talks about the same issue of mercy versus
00:37:13.520
Oh, I remember that talk vividly because, you know, at the time we had a cardinal who was
00:37:19.100
very influential, very powerful, and he was also a predator and a protector of other
00:37:25.460
predators among bishops and priests, and one who promoted them in spite of their predation.
00:37:31.200
You know, and he'd already been kind of stripped of his cardinal status, and now people were
00:37:36.160
speculating as to whether he should be laicized or not.
00:37:42.020
You want to take a cardinal archbishop who was a predator of young men and a promoter of
00:37:47.720
other predators who protected them and laicize him?
00:37:52.040
What does that say about your view of laypeople?
00:37:55.860
I mean, I thought Vatican II renewed that sense of the universal call to holiness, not just
00:38:01.540
for the clergy and the religious, but for all the laity that God calls us to become saints
00:38:07.900
So if such a sinner as he should be reduced to lay status, that telegraphs what you really
00:38:15.060
think about laypeople, and I don't think you mean what you are saying.
00:38:19.400
I don't think that word means what you think it means, you know, like inconceivable in the
00:38:26.840
For our sake and for his, he needed to be excommunicated, not to get even, not to get
00:38:33.500
back at him, but to get him back into the confessional, you know, so that he, like us, could receive
00:38:41.480
And in spite of everything, fulfill what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 4 through
00:38:47.180
7, where there is a man who is guilty of maternal incest, who's attending the congregation
00:38:52.580
every Sunday there in Corinth and receiving holy communion.
00:38:58.980
For his sake, deliver him to Satan for the destruction of his flesh.
00:39:02.220
So in the day of the Lord Jesus, his soul may be saved.
00:39:05.680
For his own spiritual salvation, for his own spiritual sake, please don't allow him to
00:39:14.220
And reluctantly, the Corinthians eventually got around to doing that.
00:39:18.180
And when Paul writes 2 Corinthians, he's addressing the question that the Corinthians are raising.
00:39:23.440
Now that we did it, we excluded him from communion.
00:39:29.100
And Paul's point in 2 Corinthians 1 and 2 is, are you serious?
00:39:35.780
You should welcome him back as a prodigal brother and celebrate his own reconciliation.
00:39:42.980
You know, and so excommunication is a kind of redemptive instrument.
00:39:49.680
No, they don't understand God's punishments in the first place.
00:39:52.400
They tend to think of God as a kind of divine ogre, that his holiness is something to be feared.
00:40:00.600
It's the only way we can become holy ourselves.
00:40:03.920
But at the same time, I think we have got to rethink almost everything from the ground up
00:40:10.280
to realize that this Catholic faith is the only thing that will make sense
00:40:14.320
out of our lives and our world and our own sins and the sinfulness of this world.
00:40:19.720
And I believe that's exactly what Archbishop Viganel was getting at, as well as Cardinal Burke.
00:40:25.360
And I say Archbishop Schneider's book, you know, has opened my eyes to this as much as anything
00:40:32.000
So thank you for pointing to those three good shepherds.
00:40:38.000
But I'm not sure there are anyone who has been shepherding the flock as courageously as those three.
00:40:43.440
Beautiful. And I think that is really the point of your book, the turnaround in vision of death itself,
00:40:53.700
so that we see in it the hope to die, the hope for eternal life, the only crossing way into that life,
00:41:01.080
the beauty, if you will, of death in that way of looking at it.
00:41:04.760
You know, that is so important. I'm glad you put it that way.
00:41:09.440
You know, it not only makes sense out of why Jesus got the diagnosis wrong with Jairus' daughter and Lazarus,
00:41:16.340
but why he gets it right when it comes to dying in a state of grace, following Jesus,
00:41:22.620
not only watching him take up his cross, but then watching him as he not only bears a cross for us,
00:41:32.060
You know, we tend to view Calvary in a single lens, that that is a sacrifice.
00:41:37.940
And as I point out in the book, you know, Calvary would not have been seen as a sacrifice by anybody there on Good Friday,
00:41:48.680
For it to be a sacrifice, it had to take place in the Jerusalem temple on top of an altar.
00:41:53.360
So the question is, how did a Roman execution get turned into a sacrifice,
00:41:58.240
one so holy and supreme that it retired all the animals that were offered in the Old Testament Jerusalem temple?
00:42:06.320
And the only way to answer that question is by looking at Good Friday in the light of what Jesus did on Holy Thursday.
00:42:13.000
He didn't just celebrate the Passover one last time.
00:42:17.820
But he fulfilled it by transforming the Passover of the Old Covenant into the New Passover.
00:42:26.500
Just ask any lamb if he could talk, he'd tell you.
00:42:31.140
And if that's true in the Old, it's not less but more true in the New,
00:42:35.320
where the Lamb of God is not some irrational animal who has his throat slashed and his body roasted and then consumed.
00:42:44.740
And the proof of that is the words that he speaks.
00:42:48.380
This is my body which will be given up for you.
00:42:50.900
This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant poured out for you and for the forgiveness of sins.
00:43:02.500
There was a reality that Jesus initiated there by instituting the Eucharist.
00:43:07.040
And if the Eucharist is just a meal, then Calvary is just an execution.
00:43:11.860
But if the Eucharist is, in fact, the Passover, the New Covenant, that's where the sacrifice begins.
00:43:17.600
And then you can see that Calvary is where the sacrifice is consummated.
00:43:23.640
And if the Eucharist is what transformed the execution into the supreme sacrifice,
00:43:29.120
Easter Sunday is what transforms that sacrifice into the blessed sacrament of the Holy Eucharist
00:43:34.660
that we celebrate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because his body is raised.
00:43:41.180
It's enthroned on high where he is not just the King of Kings.
00:43:44.340
He is the Royal High Priest who's offering in a heavenly liturgy what we receive in this earthly Mass every single time we go.
00:43:53.140
And so the Paschal Mystery is the memorial of his death and resurrection.
00:43:57.940
The memorial is the first day of the Triduum, Holy Thursday.
00:44:03.680
And then Easter Sunday is the memorial of his death and resurrection because in every Mass,
00:44:10.700
what we commemorate, what we re-presentate, what we re-present is exactly his death no longer as the loss of life.
00:44:21.800
He wasn't the victim of Roman violence and injustice and cruelty on Friday.
00:44:26.840
He was the victim of divine love and mercy on Holy Thursday.
00:44:30.760
The Eucharist is what transformed my understanding of Jesus' death,
00:44:35.540
not as bearing the brunt of God's wrath, but as revealing the depth of his love.
00:44:42.960
He was making it a gift of love and salvation to redeem the world.
00:44:47.700
When the human race did its very worst against God,
00:44:54.860
The single greatest crime of all history is the crucifixion of God's beloved Son.
00:45:00.200
The single greatest grace of salvation history is when God took the greatest crime
00:45:04.780
and made it the greatest gift for the redemption of the whole human race.
00:45:09.620
This is more than making lemonade out of lemon.
00:45:12.240
You know, this is God doing the best with our worst.
00:45:19.340
The light of his love shining in the darkness of our sinfulness.
00:45:23.460
And not just back in the first century, but right now in the 21st century,
00:45:31.380
we're going to seize this moment and realize that the stock market is not unimportant.
00:45:38.660
But all of these natural joys pale infinitely in comparison to the sacred mysteries
00:45:45.120
that constitute not only our faith, but will reconstitute sinners like us
00:45:49.660
and make us saints and nothing less and not just disembodied souls,
00:45:56.780
And the lowest body in heaven will be more beautiful than Miss Universe
00:46:06.060
I mean, this is not kind of exaggerated rhetoric.
00:46:09.560
This is simply deducing from the sacred mysteries,
00:46:12.300
the conclusions that we ought to be contemplating
00:46:14.700
for as long as we have time, life and breath on this planet.
00:46:20.300
I don't feel strongly about any of this stuff, by the way.
00:46:26.580
Drs. God Hunt, thank you so very much for being with us on the John Henry.
00:46:31.660
And I think that God, as you said, will make straight with crooked lines.
00:46:38.240
And these coronavirus times are surely a hardship,
00:46:40.840
but I'm sure he will turn them into something glorious for his people.
00:46:46.140
God always, everything works for good for those who love him.
00:47:03.800
I'd like to invite you to subscribe to the John Henry Weston Show YouTube channel
00:47:10.020
There you will find all the past episodes and much more.