My Friend the Friar
A podcast where we learn about our faith and share what it takes to live a Catholic Christian life through conversations and contemplations with my friend the friar, a Discalced Carmelite Priest.
My Friend the Friar
Alien Life, Mary's Assumption, and Divine Encounters with Mark Gansle
In this episode, John and Mark's discussion ranges from the philosophical themes inspired by "Groundhog Day" to pondering whether intelligent alien species would be considered children of God. Can the gospel be preached to alien beings? What are the theological implications of extraterrestrial life? They also reflect on how Christ’s redemptive act might manifest across different species and the perception of Christ in heaven. Sci-fi fans and theology enthusiasts alike will find this segment particularly intriguing.
Finally, they tackle the profound topic of integrating spiritual and theological reading into everyday life, with practical tips drawn from their own experiences. They ponder details around the Assumption of Mary and consider the significance of shepherds in the nativity story. Their conversation then turns to the reactions of biblical figures to divine encounters, with special focus on the silent obedience of Joseph. This rich tapestry of discussions promises to leave you both entertained and contemplative. Tune in for an episode that blends humor, deep philosophical questions, and spiritual insights!
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Welcome to the my Friend the Friar podcast and thanks for listening. If you like my Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us. If you haven't already done so, and if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless Record Is it working? Yes, I hate technology. Thanks again and God bless Record Is it working. Yes, I hate technology. People who work in IT hate technology.
Speaker 3:It happens, people who stay on the phone all day never want to take a phone call.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, I am positive. I know Father Stephen and I have recorded whole episodes and forgot to hit record or something like that, but I feel like you and I and him we tried it one time and then something went wrong and so we had to do the whole thing again.
Speaker 3:We did it online.
Speaker 1:Was it remote?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did it remote, and then he was in town, so we had empanadas and had a great morning, that's right.
Speaker 1:That's right, right. I definitely want to get him to come talk about liturgy. I do too, that, oh my gosh, I really would.
Speaker 3:I mean, one of my favorite things about your podcast is listening to father steven and just leaving feeling like I've been educated, I know about like so much of the, the, the behind the scenes, so much of like how does this all fit together? How does it integrate together?
Speaker 1:Um, which for me is always really helpful because that's the way I tend to think, like I want to see the, see those elements in the bigger picture I guess when you got, I'm gonna this is so unfair way of saying this when you got nothing else to do all day but sit around and contemplate things and study. I think that's actually his vocation. No, that guy, he is so bored all the time he does nothing. I hope he's listening. He does nothing literally all day long. Um, what's the?
Speaker 3:nature of the charism of his order. Again, is it content?
Speaker 1:sleeping in, um eating, uh, whenever you feel like it. Cutting wood, yeah, chopping brockery. Um watching battle on nine yeah, yeah, babble on nine. And and uh, watching Babylon 9. Yeah, babylon 9. And I can't think on the spot. I was going to try and make fun of Star Trek or Star Wars or something. His sci-fi movies? Yeah, the dude literally does nothing. Now, when you have as much, because he lives such a blessed life, he has so many opportunities to study and think and learn, and so the guy learns. He knows so much and the way you're like oh, I have to relearn how to take notes when I read stuff. I think that's the only way he reads, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so, well, part of that's probably because he's an itinerant preacher and he's because he's so engaged in terms of like supporting his order, yeah, in um, in holding retreats and stuff. He's also being blessed with this opportunity to then start, try to explain it and then you know and try to sharpen that, and so that's only going to make whoever you are like you're a teacher, you know, yeah, yeah, the more you have to try to teach something, the better ultimately's only going to make whoever you are like you're a teacher, you know the more you have to try to teach something, the better ultimately you're going to understand it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it's almost he's moved a couple of times now and it's like he has this personal library that kind of follows him around because of all the notes he's taken and all the books that he's read and stuff like that. And and he'll you just be talking to me? He's like, oh, I think I got a book on that, you know, I mean, and or I think I've got notes on that. Let me, I'll go find something and then send you an 11 page long email, kind of thing. Um, who does that? But uh, but anyway, now I don't even remember we're making fun of yeah, I was picking on. Now I don't even remember we're making fun of him. Yeah, I was picking on him. Now, I don't remember where I was going with it. Oh, he knows so much, and so sometimes not because I'm a super fan or anything I'll go back and listen to our old episodes and it's just like learning something all over again. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:There's so much here that I could listen to this over and over again your episodes on the Protestant Reformation were. That historical stuff blew my mind because I just I had no idea the consequences of the Renaissance and we're literally still dealing with it. Yeah, it was amazing. It's amazing stuff, that's right, anyway. Yeah, so we'll definitely have to get him on. You know something else that I'd love to do? I'd love to do a retreat at Mary Lake, but I don't know how to.
Speaker 3:I think we've even talked about this before, I think we just need to get on the trip list and start asking people who would be up but I think what we talked about is we need to set out here's when it would be, here's how much it would cost.
Speaker 1:Here's what we're looking at thoughts it's just beautiful out there, and especially the pictures that father sent me in the fall how long is it drive?
Speaker 3:Five hours, that's not terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not Well for Texas, right?
Speaker 3:That's like going anywhere in Texas. It's barely outside the border. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so because you can drive 12 and still be in Texas, so it's not too too bad, it's just so beautiful. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3:But I thinkansas is. I think it's an underrated gem, like every every picture you see of arkansas. You're like, wow, why doesn't everybody live there?
Speaker 1:that's amazing I know it. Arkansas is a silly place, um in my mind, because it's so beautiful and you have family in oklahoma or you spend much time up there I've been um to um beaver dam um that's what it's called, right, oh, beaver, uh, beaver's bend yeah, like broken bow, like up there, yeah, yeah, yeah, we actually just that's where we went a couple weeks ago for vacation.
Speaker 1:It's gorgeous, yeah, um, but it's it's. It's real similar to like small town, east texas kind of thing. Oh, yeah, um, but it's like everywhere. So it's. It's weird. You got like little rock which is a decent size old town and then everything else is just kind of east texas. It's just kind of yeah, it's so it's.
Speaker 1:It's such a an interesting place to me, but it's gorgeous. I would consider I, I would consider living in Arkansas. I don't know if I would, but I'd consider it at least. Yeah, just because of how beautiful it is.
Speaker 3:If I was the kind of person to have a summer home, I'd consider that, although ultimately I think Robin would say, no, we're doing it in Tyler. Tyler's not a bad little town. It's where she grew up, is outside Tyler, really yeah. So I mean, she's got a lot of, a lot of heart for Pine East Texas woods. It's just, I mean, and it is. It's insanely gorgeous out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that whole east side of Texas Is like all up and down the I guess it's the Red River still. Yeah, that's the eastern border. You get down towards Sam Houston and stuff like that. It's just still so pretty, yeah. So what's going on, man? Are you still working in the same place? Are you still with USAA?
Speaker 3:No, I went to Wells Fargo.
Speaker 1:Wells Fargo yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's important to work with somebody who's got your back Right, um, and I mean there's lots of studies. People don't leave jobs, they leave managers, yeah, um. So I've worked with a few bosses who absolutely were sponsors, like they wanted what was best for me and I knew it and they saw value in me, they appreciated what I brought to the table, and that's like any relationship right. Like you want to have that kind of a relationship where you both see the good in each other and you're both getting you know being improved in that relationship. And so I lost that when he left and just, for various reasons, did not want to stay, yeah, where I was at, and an opportunity came, uh, came up to, to come join him and to help him with that. For me, like most of my professional life, like what I've been interested in is how do I help drive true transformation?
Speaker 3:to improve what's there? Um, probably a part of my personal need to control things and to make them better. But, yeah, they're doing that, they're doing that, so I followed him over there.
Speaker 1:So I've been a year over there. Nice, nice, you're still in your old pickup truck. What's Grant driving?
Speaker 3:A Versa Note. Hatchback Versa Note.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Nissan.
Speaker 1:So it's a Nissan Verso which is smaller, smaller than you know the standard sedan is it?
Speaker 3:is it still four-door? It's a four-door um and a hatchback yeah um, but it was. I mean, honestly, it's been ideal for him because you, you, you fold down the seats in the back, you've got the hatchback like he can move some stuff in there. He basically moved himself out of the dorm and, uh, into the apartment with that grant's a cool kid man.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I say kid because your kids are supposed to still be not anymore dude I mean 19 and 23 it's it. It's so weird, is it? Well, it's like we were just saying like time goes by real fast.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 1:Real fast. I remember Sophia. I remember teaching her I was going to say teaching her to ride her bike. I think it was kind of a collective effort because she got a lot of instruction from various places, like her grandparents and like her dad, dad and so lots of people. I think kind of worked out. But I remember working with her to get good at riding her bike and it just seems like yesterday, yeah, you know, and I think, um, I remember her drawing pictures. I'd get the weirdest pictures. Little kids make the weirdest pictures. So I don't know what would you if uh, here here's a loaded question If you could do, if you could have done something with your children while they were?
Speaker 3:younger that you didn't do, or you wish you had done more of what would it be? Probably especially when they're quite young probably more of like family vacations to interesting destinations, because I got to do a few of those things when they got older, like when they're teens. They don't want to spend any time with you anyways. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But like we went to Montana together to to big sky and that you know, I've got a lot of happy memories from that and we went to Rockport right before the hurricane tore it up For a summer vacation and that was beautiful memories. I got to go with Jillian when she was in sixth grade I think to DC after I'd lived and worked there, and it was a school tour basically of all the sites Kind of wish I'd done more of that.
Speaker 1:Did you know? The one of the largest? Largest is kind of a arbitrary term, but one of the largest trees in Texas is in Rockport. Is it still standing? Yeah, it's an Oak tree, and when I said so, when I say largest, it's um diameter, yeah, just the diameter of the trunk. It's just this massive old oak tree that just has a huge base. But then it's not super tall and it just sprawls out everywhere. You've been on A&M's campus. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's like an engagement tree or something like that. It kind of makes this little bridge over a pathway and lots of the kids like to get engaged under it kind of thing.
Speaker 3:That's not where Robin and I got engaged.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where'd y'all get engaged? At my apartment in Bedford Perfect. It's no better place. That's where Betty and I got engaged At my apartment in Bedford. Yeah, in Bedford, that's so weird yeah random, no, but I just learned that the other day. It's either the biggest or the oldest or something like that, but it's. It's like they've got documentation of it from I don't know like spanish captains that were like exploring the gulf coast and stuff way back in the day, because it's just this massive, beautiful old oak tree kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah so I have a much greater appreciation for where we grew up than I did when I was like in my 20s yeah yeah, my 20s, it was just painful to go home, but now, like that's such a beautiful area and it's so full of history, and you know, yeah, it's not like, it's not like a big resort area but it's a, it's a little arkansas, you know, just it's this little kind of silly place down there it's I mean, you know, if you're not from the coast like going into a hotel and it's smelling like seawater is a little bit weird yeah, yeah, I was having a conversation with someone else the other day and they were.
Speaker 1:We were talking about what it would be like to live kind of groundhog's day, that the same kind of day over and over, and, over and over again, but just meaning nothing really ever changes.
Speaker 1:It's just day in and day out. It's the same old thing. If you lived on the coast, if you lived at a beach, would it be so bad that nothing ever changes? And the other people are like, oh yeah, eventually you just get tired of it. You'd be wanting something more. And growing up down there for me, I was kind of thinking, yeah, I don't think it'd be that bad, I don't think it'd be bad, but I think you do take it for granted.
Speaker 3:I remember we took a band trip to Colorado and somebody like we were talking to strangers, some other kids, and they said, oh, you grew up on the beach, like you must go on the beach every day. I'm like, do you go make build snowmen every day? No, of course not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so maybe when you're young you have a certain perspective. But thinking about it now, I don't know as we, as you get older, of like, oh, that's nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, If it's the right, I mean if it's a happy circumstance yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's a very simple life down there. It's very I kind of wish well in Corpus it's starting to get a little bit big, like 300,000-ish, but I love the little places like Rockport, port Aransas, ransas, pass, these little fishing towns. Yeah. And I hope they always just stay like that, Because when you get too big you kind of lose your identity and it's or your identity changes.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's kind of like with kids you know things are going to change. They do change, um, I think what was interesting about groundhog day was, um, something changed. It was bill murray, I think you had, didn't you do an episode where y'all talked a little bit about how, like, there was people who talked about that's kind of an actually a fairly Catholic movie?
Speaker 1:I don't know. We talked about a lot of movies. You do, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Maybe you do If you were trapped in that movie, if you were trapped in the same day, every day, legitimately the same day every day what would that do to what you think about God? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that was us, but that's a very interesting see. I think the reason I don't know if that was us talking about is because in my mind that's a very novel, interesting thought to like. Now I want to go watch that movie again. But yeah, how you're the thing that has to change, cause you can't as much as you try to change everything else, you can't Right, you're not in control.
Speaker 3:Well, and not only that, but when did he finally start to find joy Is when he gave up on all of his past and all of his illusions of control and started appreciating and being grateful for the opportunities that he had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well and yeah, and as he sought love more than self right, and he's like you know, was he's like I don't want to wake, I don't want to go to sleep, because when I go to sleep it's going to be over, kind of thing, right?
Speaker 3:so I hit the cord on the mic. I think that's going to come through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably terrible. We'll fix it in post-production. I will have to say Father Stephen was a little bit concerned about how you're being educated in your formation. When you were asking me the other day about space aliens, he's like oh no, what are they talking about? Surely?
Speaker 3:he appreciates, Okay.
Speaker 1:So the question is yes, and I do think he's said something on this topic already in some early episode Did he Maybe?
Speaker 3:I don't think so. Well, if he did, I didn't make the connection, but my question was like I've got lots of, you know, betty-esque kinds of questions.
Speaker 1:Yep, why is it purple? Why is it purple? That's what Father Stephen always says. Why is it purple? That's a Betty question.
Speaker 3:If we knew that there were aliens and they were intelligent, what would that mean in light of the crucifixion and resurrection? In light of that, Would we believe, for example, that they each had a Christ who died? And like I'm assuming, like they're not exactly like us, you know, I mean that doesn't mean like they're tentacle monsters. It may, maybe it means that they're Klingons or whatever, but if they're not really of our species, would it mean that Christ would have to die as one of them?
Speaker 3:and rise Would it mean that, um, they're not truly sons and daughters of God? Would it mean, because that didn't happen, mm-hmm? Would I mean we would still be like? Obviously, we're told to preach the gospel to all of creation so we would still preach the gospel, yep, but what gospel we preach, would we preach? Would we preach? But sorry, jesus didn't die for your sins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're like a dog, yeah. So I say let's pull this apart and let's look at each piece. I have another friend, stephen. As Father Stephen says, you have no other Stephens. He's not possessive or anything, no, I have a Stephen I grew up with real close. Anyway, he had told me once upon a time of this book, and I can't remember the name of it for the life of me, but what was interesting, it was a sci-fi novel, and what was interesting about this book is there were either three alien races or humanity plus two, I can't remember, maybe it was, but I feel like the number three is what's coming out my head. So there's three different races and each of them had a conception or an understanding of there being one God. And that's part of this theme of this book is trying to understand like well, if there is this one God, do we all have the same God? What does that look like for all of us?
Speaker 3:I'll have to ask him what the name of the book is, but anyway, so if so there is a series written by Julian May about basically higher mind powers and she was greatly influenced by Catholic thought. Like she quotes Pierre de Talhard, like constantly, and like one of her main characters is Catholic who explains to her son that the other races of this galactic milieu all had Christ events in their history and they all, you know, they all believed, in one way or the other, that that was you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That they had been saved that way. Yeah, so something that so with. So let's look at this. Um, the the bible is our salvation history, right? Yes, it's not like scientific history, it's our salvation history. So the bible talks about how humanity falls and how humanity is saved, right? So does that mean that there are no other beings in the universe that God made in His image? Not necessarily because it doesn't talk about it. Does it mean that they fell too? Not necessarily, because it doesn't talk about it. Does it mean that they fell?
Speaker 3:too, Because I guess the question is did creation fall. Did God create more than one garden? Did he create more? Than one creature, that was both physical and spiritual.
Speaker 1:Because if creation fell like we like and a lot of people say, well, that's why lions eat sheep or whatever right Like things kill each other, because creation changed at the fall of humanity, but does that necessarily mean that another race is fallen as well, or could they have been preserved from it? So if they were preserved from it, then they don't need a Christ figure. If they if as creation, if they were preserved, from it.
Speaker 3:Then they would be living in communion with God.
Speaker 1:So that could be interesting.
Speaker 3:Which, at least in this world, in this universe, I think creation is fallen, like, I think creation, this creation is, which doesn't preclude God from having created other creations, but I think, necessarily if they were on a planet, in our universe, like that's a part of this creation, and we know that this creation, like the spiritual beings and the corporeal beings, both fell. Yeah, the spiritual beings and the corporeal beings both fell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay. So then, if that's the case, then Christ's crucifixion then is redemptive to humanity, not creation. Right, that's the second coming when everything is redeemed. And like re. I mean not fish and trees and birds, right? So then the question is can you have a conscious being, highly intelligent, physical, all that kind of stuff? But are they necessarily made in the quote-unquote image of God? Well, I mean, so do they have that kind of soul we know?
Speaker 3:that they have to have a soul. We know that they have to seek to discern the. We know that they have to have. You know, seek to discern the truth, they would likely have a conscience, right I?
Speaker 3:mean if we met like a bug race that just you know, like I don't think we you know, regardless of how intelligent they appeared, um, but I also like christ died once and for all for our sins. But we are made present, we are represented to that. Every time we celebrate the mass, it is because god is outside of time, because god is not constrained by time. He created time. I could envision a scenario in which you know, eight foot blue creatures or whatever the avatars were, oh, yeah, yeah. I can imagine a scenario where they had a Christ figure and that passion was united, outside of our comprehension, to the one passion that it is all, one passion that just occurred in different places, because his passion is occurring all around our globe at the same time, 24 hours, yeah, all the time, yeah, so it could be possible.
Speaker 1:So the conundrum lies in if Jesus, if the human Christ, was assumed bodily into heaven and then alien Christ was assumed bodily into heaven, now are there multiple Christs in heaven.
Speaker 3:Well, Christ on the road to Emmaus did not look like Christ on the cross, and Christ appeared to the apostles multiple times in ways that they didn't initially recognize the gardener and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:So if he could change his human appearance. Why couldn't he change his appearance to be a big, tall alien with a tail Like? Why would we already know that his, that our glorified bodies will be so completely different than you know, than what we've got? Because of that reunification with God, because of the restoration of justice and holiness? Why couldn't he be all of those things? Because the mystery there isn't that he became necessarily human in heaven, it's that he became unified, like we are body and soul in heaven, and now that means that God is body and soul.
Speaker 1:Do you think, by the way, I'm like I'm not, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3:As somebody who's in formation. I probably feel like I have to say I don't know if any of this is doctrinally correct. Yeah, astral footnote, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if any of this is doctrinally correct, yeah.
Speaker 1:Ashton's footnote yeah, yeah. So I wonder if it would be like you're a human, I'm a space alien and we're in heaven and I'm looking at Jesus and you're looking at Jesus. You see him as a human, I see him as an alien, right? Maybe our perception is such that it's particular to.
Speaker 3:Or maybe you know, our perceptions will change such that we'll see beyond the flesh when we're fully resurrected. And like actually know each other the way God knows us. Actually see all of who you are and not be distracted by the accidents of. Well, you got a beard, yeah.
Speaker 1:Or you're overweight. You got 16 arms. Yeah. Or space alien eyes or something. Yeah, I would look amazing with 16 arms. Yeah, that'd be cool, it is interesting.
Speaker 3:What? There was actually another hard sci-fi book by a Canadian author I can't remember his name and the entire premise of this was we met these aliens. By a canadian author I can't remember his name and the entire premise of this was um, we met these aliens and the scientists that were working with these aliens were shocked to realize they took the existence of god as a proven, undeniable fact, as axiomatically true. Like the aliens kept getting confused because the human scientists were arguing there's no such thing as god, like why would you possibly believe that? That's so unscientific, to believe that there's no God. So I think about that sometimes, just because of the stuff that I've read, and I wondered what would that look like? And if they had no history of that, would we say, well, of course they have no soul? Or would the church say, well, of course they have no soul.
Speaker 3:Or would the church say well, maybe they're just not yet incorporated into it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What if baptism, what if water, was deadly to them? How do you baptize them? You know what I mean. So if they didn't have a Christ figure? And then Christ's like well, you're welcome to join the church, you're welcome to become a son and daughter of Christ, or, yeah, of God, but I can't baptize you because then you'll melt or something like that, I mean as a thought exercise like that would be interesting, although I mean the way that the universe is constructed.
Speaker 3:Like water is the universal solvent and it has such weird property. Like Lee Strobel, in the case for a creator, goes on and on and on about how bizarre water is like physically and how it's like yet another piece of the evidence of God, because without water life wouldn't exist. And water is such a bizarre thing to have to exist that it has to have been created. So I think that it's unlikely that that would be the case, but, like if it was, um, I think that we would have to say what the catechism says, which is you know, we, we have to put our hope and trust in god's universal mercy. Um, that the church puts its hope that nothing is beyond God. The only thing that's promised to us is baptism in water and the spirit, like that's what we're guaranteed. That doesn't mean that God's constrained by that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:See, I think that those kinds of reasons are why, if I had to pick a camp, if I had to pick a camp, I would say that Jesus and the Bible and all of that tells just very particularly of human salvation and faith history, right, and that if there was another race, alien race or races or whatever out there, that there would have to be something particular to them that made sense for them in their faith history, in God's creation and what their role is within all that.
Speaker 3:I think that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely wouldn't take any kind of elitist view where it's okay, well then, you're just a creature. Well, you're not a creature like we are creatures, right, Like you lack the soul that we have, and so we're better than you because we have Jesus and you don't. I think that would be very unhelpful. In the great grand scheme of things, it would probably cause a war that we would lose Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But the thing that would set them apart realistically is judgment, discernment, the ability to think about thinking, some of the things that make humans unique among God's creation. Yeah, humans unique among god's creation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and I I imagine we'd have some interesting sentence in the church.
Speaker 3:I imagine, though, that like what we would end up with is if they were obviously thinking creatures we would end up with. God told us to preach all of creation. God is not limited by anything that he has created. He's beyond his creation. That's why he's the creator, and so we're going to do what God told us, which is to preach to all creation, to spread the gospel.
Speaker 3:But I suspect that I feel like if we came across a race, especially if it was like a spacefaring race, somebody more advanced than us, I feel like my gut is, they would have had their own Paschal event that God would have manifested to all of his peoples. And the universe is so vast. You have to wonder what if he created all of this just for us? I mean, it's not necessary, we could have been, I mean we would have been fine, just you know, on the planet or in just the solar system? Or I mean there's so many just on the planet or in just the solar system? I mean there's so many. There's so much more out there than was needed for us to love and adore him, and maybe it's just because of his vastness and his greatness and his omnipotence that he would create such a vast universe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think about those kinds of things to a certain degree. The complexity of existence to me is one of the points where that point to God's existence. Right, and it would be interesting if the entirety of space is empty except for us. It'd be very strange, though it seems like it wouldn't make much sense. Or like multiverses and stuff. That would be kind of interesting too. What if, in every version of the multiverse, Jesus still did exactly like? What if that was the one thing that was consistent across every single multiverse? That Jesus died for humanity, instead of a version where we didn't fall, kind of thing?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, that's a hard one, I mean. I think that, um, again, if, uh, because God transcends time, because we know that, again, because God transcends time, because we know that his sacrifice rebounded throughout history, right, not just into the future but into the past. So much so that Mary was kept free from sin, yeah, so much so that those who are trapped in in hell were freed by jesus, yeah, um, that it's. I don't think it's possible that he didn't die for our sins, because he is beyond time. I think, ultimately, his intrusion into our world and into time is the, is the odd part, right, that's the specialty part, that's the, the, the discrepancy, the fact that he died for us is and always will be in a noise has been true. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Betty sent me this, this thing on Instagram, as she is want to do, and, um, it was. Somebody was talking about cs lewis and how aslan, is this christ-like figure, kind of thing? Right, and whoever is narratingi don't know if they're quoting someone or if they're, you know what are the pieces that they're connecting, but they're saying what's the more appropriate metaphor for Jesus in our lives is instead this different author who had written this book, and there's this male character and what she ends up doing is she writes into the story a character who represents her, the author, and I guess is like the love interest of the guy. But that's a more appropriate metaphor for what God did. He made creation and he loved us so much that he wrote Himself, he inserted Himself into our story and it was just a really interesting way of thinking about God entering into our reality through Jesus through Jesus and because he did that, necessarily making us, in our unified nature, a part of divinity. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which is, I think, probably the most flabbergasting mystery of the church, is that God is human and divine. Still yeah, forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Cause you didn't have to do that. No, it's so, it's so, it's it's bananas, man, it's just that I, I love our faith at on an intellectual level so much because it's you can. You can chew on it and chew on it, and chew on it and chew on it. You're never going to get all of it. No, you're not. Yeah, have you? Have you read any of the church fathers? Not yet. No, so I made the mistake of of starting and well, and so when I say starting, the starting was the mistake and the reason it was a mistake is because it was like, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get this guy's book and this guy's book. And now I've got a stack of books that, like you were saying when you're reading for the diaconate, like you've got to take notes, started reading and I'm like, oh, I have got to start over. I have to pretend like I have not even started because there's so much there and I have to read it differently than any other book you would ever read. Yeah Right, like you pick up some Catholic apologetic book or something like that or somebody writing about, like a Scott Hahn book you don't have to ever read. Yeah Right, like you pick up some Catholic apologetic book or something like that or somebody writing about.
Speaker 3:Like a Scott Hahn book. You don't have to take notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so it's just amazing. So I've got like St Irenaeus, I've got Ignatius's letters, I've got St Vincent, and it's just so now I, and it's just so I. Now I've just got this stack of books and I'm sitting there looking at these books. They're like in in our office, like just sitting there, so I see them every day and I'm like, okay, now intellectually I've gotten to this point where it's it's almost like getting hit and you step back and you're kind of paused and you don't know what you need to do. Next kind of thing, um, but I started getting asked, betty, I said, do you have, um, what they call the little sticky note, like tabs instead of like dog earring pages?
Speaker 1:things are interesting, whatever those little sticky note things are yeah, I get the signature tags yeah, yeah like different colors of them and stuff I buy those all the time yeah, and so now I've to. I've just got to start over and just start digging in, because the thing that has been the most interesting to me is how integrated it all is over time.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, but you can. So, people, I think they get intimidated by I'm going to add prayer to my life. They get intimidated by I'm going to read these to my life. They get intimidated by um, I'm going to read these books, um, and we talked about how, like that's not, you're not adding that to your life. That's an upgrade to replace something else.
Speaker 3:The other thing that I have found useful is, um, when I was doing this training from the uh, stephen Covey, from the Covey Institute, they talked about the power of focus and they said, look, if you go outside with a magnifying glass and a piece of paper, you can catch the paper on fire. Leave that paper out all day and it's never going to catch on fire. You didn't create any new energy. You didn't do anything other than take a small fraction of what was there and focus it to a point and you set something on fire. So we could set our souls on fire if we just take a small portion of our week and focus it and look forward to it as a treat. Like this is, I get to go back and do this and you know, if you've got an adoration chapel, go pick an hour per week and you're going to take your book and you're going to sit with Jesus and learn more about what he's done in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's the same kind of concept with Mass. Instead of I have to go to Mass, it's I get to go to Mass.
Speaker 3:Right about the Sunday obligation under the rubric of justice that when somebody loves you that much, it is just to return that love. It is the only appropriate and human response is to return that love. And when somebody loves you as much as God loves you, giving him an hour is the least of what we can do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. What other weird thoughts do you have floating around?
Speaker 3:I talked to you about this one one time and I think this one is simpler Is it possible that Mary, is it actually possible, logically possible, that Mary would not have been assumed? And the premise for that question is Mary was preserved from sin, which means that she continued to live in original justice and original holiness. The only reason death entered the world was original sin, so is it possible? She could have died, didn't she have to be assumed into heaven as a logical consequence of what we believe about?
Speaker 1:her, yeah, so I feel, though, I've either read or heard something regarding mary, that and this is again, this is one of those I hope father steven's listening, because he can come clarify in a later episode notes like okay, before we get, I got to correct all these things at Gansley.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got to go fix some heresies here. So I feel like, though, that I've heard that she did die, but assumed into heaven after her death Because she aged and aging is. You don't just age to a point and then stop and stay there statically forever. You age to a point of decay and death, right. So as she grew older, like did Mary have the body of a 14-year-old forever, right when she, when Jesus, became incarnate? I think they probably would have mentioned that in Acts if that was true, probably so, then she has to have aged.
Speaker 3:The evidence for her assumption is partially circumstantial, right Like there's no shrine to her relics, there's no talk at all about any of her relics, which is a clear indication.
Speaker 1:Which I find really interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a clear, clear indication that her body is not known anywhere. Yeah, so under that, it's possible that the reason she aged isn't because of her sin, but because of the sin of the world around her. I still think she might have been assumed into heaven Prior to death. Prior to death. Mm-hmm. And taken out of this world like been restored to her heavenly body.
Speaker 1:So would it have been like falling asleep, as they say in the in the uh the Bible, like our brethren who have fallen asleep, kind of thing, Do you think? Maybe Mary just?
Speaker 3:went.
Speaker 1:I don't know when, night night, one time.
Speaker 3:I mean, this is all entirely speculative, but I think about it and I wonder like is it? Is it even possible? Like, could she have? But I think about it and I wonder like, is it even possible? Like, could she have been?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of.
Speaker 3:If she hadn't have been, could she have lived to 300 years old and just you know, maybe her body was wasted away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of scriptural support for, like Mary was by far, and Jesus was by far, not the only people who were assumed bodily into heaven, right? So Elijah, yeah, and extra-biblically I guess, but still in tradition Enoch would have been too, and so you have these other characters who were assumed into heaven. So, then, it's not far-fetched to think that Mary, preserved from sin through Christ's grace, would be assumed into heaven, and it's not something that was just made up 1,500 years later, right, it's been part of the tradition Right from the first century.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, I just wonder if she so. She would have had to have gotten old, or else somebody probably would have said something about it.
Speaker 3:Well, but maybe she matured. I mean, you've known like 60-year-olds who look like they're in their 40s.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Jerks.
Speaker 3:I mean half of them are actresses, right? Yeah. There's no way that woman's in her 60s yeah Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like that that one? There's no way. That woman's in her sixties, yeah Um, but I I do wonder, like is it, is it even logically possible that she could have died if she was preserved from sin throughout her life? Is it even logically possible that she could suffer the consequence of sin if she never sinned and she was preserved from the original sin? I do. I do think, like the world around us, like she had to live in this world, and it's kind of like, you know, if you had to immerse something clean in filth, like it's going to be covered in filth but at its essence it's still in and of itself it was clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wonder if the thing that I'm thinking is maybe from the catechism too, but it's the way it's said. At the end of her life she was assumed to have it Like. That doesn't explicitly say when she died. Right Just means at the end of her earthly life. Yeah, I think it's the catechism where I'm remembering that.
Speaker 3:Maybe, but I think that. Yeah we need something father steven's gonna come into guys like the church has already written about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, of course and that goes probably not about the aliens part, though yeah, yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 3:That's too recent of an idea. Get another few hundred years yeah, what else?
Speaker 1:I love the weird stuff. I love the weird stuff. I love the weird stuff. Angels are still just fascinating to me. Yeah, they are Just trying to comprehend what it means to be a purely intellectual, spiritual thing.
Speaker 3:I've got one for you, Okay. So at the nativity, the hosts of angels came down and praised God to some shepherds. What do you think happened to them after that? If that happened to you, wouldn't you spend your entire life following that family around?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they just went back to work.
Speaker 3:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had an epiphany kind of moment one Christmas, because that's the scene, right, and I don't remember if it was something that I heard in a homily or whatever, but it just all of a sudden, like it clicked that who protects sheep, shepherds, and who was sent to watch over the baby Jesus Shepherds? Why? Because he's the Lamb of God, yeah, and just that mind-blown kind of thing just couldn't comprehend. I was like how have I never heard or seen this or understood this before? But it was just so fascinating to me that all the little details that they all add up make sense.
Speaker 3:But yeah, you would think if I mean, it's not like somebody said, hey, this is the messiah. Okay, great, it was glowing, lightning, bright angels came down from heaven, yeah, and they're like don't be scared yeah, don't be scared, but we need you to go to this place, right?
Speaker 1:because every because every time somebody encounters an angel, they're terrified and they fall on their face and they're you know, but you know who doesn't? Mary right, which I also find very interesting when gabriel comes to her, she's not terrified no, well, maybe he wasn't shining like lightning.
Speaker 3:um, could you imagine if somebody appeared to you and they were as bright as lightning, like blindingly bright. That's so outside of your human experience you couldn't even imagine. And they're just standing there talking to you while they're glowing blindingly? That would be incredibly scary. It's so scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how can you walk away from that?
Speaker 3:What did they go do after they stay a couple days and they're like all right, we got, we gotta go back, jesus just said come with me, and he got some of those guys to follow, like I would think that that that family would be following them around. Please, let us serve you. Please let us you know he is the. We gotta tell you about what we saw, because it's banana pants. You're not gonna believe what we're about to tell you.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of instances I think I guess about. Sorry. There's a lot of instances similar to that in the New Testament. Who's the guy when they take Jesus? Is it to be circumcised or whatever? And there's the old guy.
Speaker 3:Simeon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who's like, finally, I can die now because here's On Anna too, yeah, yeah. And so it's like, why wouldn't you if people could recognize the priest in the temple when he's 12, if this kid is teaching with such authority or talking with such authority?
Speaker 3:and then you're just like, oh was neat, go home, tell your wife about it, like, and that's it well, and maybe it's the next verse that gives us the hint, because then it's um, you know, he came away with mary and joseph and mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Yeah, maybe mary is the only one who is not so broken that she can see clearly. Maybe we're so broken that we're still going to get distracted. We're still going to turn to sin. We're still going to turn to like.
Speaker 1:Well, I still have to tend these sheep because I got to feed my family tomorrow. Yes, how many times have you strayed after you absolutely know God.
Speaker 3:We know the end of the story and we still sin. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we know the end of the story and we still sin. Yeah, yeah. So that's probably all the explanation you need, right? There is like oh yeah, we're broken About Mary. Betty always wants to know did she know? Did she know from the very beginning that he was going to be God, or just that there was something special happening? Did she know at this point that he was God? Did she know he was going to die? Like, at what point in time did he, you know? Did Jesus sit down with her once when he was you know 16 or something, and say hey, mom, just so you know, this is how it's going to play out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that part did not happen. I think it goes back to the conversations you and Father Stephen had about angels and perfect knowledge and perfect intellect. Is that our intellect is not perfect? Mary's might have been, although she wasn't created an angel, so I don't actually know that the church teaches about what our intellect would have been without that.
Speaker 1:Adam and Eve seem pretty stupid. Yeah, I think she would absolutely have had imperfect intellect.
Speaker 3:but perfect ability to consent Right, but not perfect knowledge. And so, of course, she knew, she put faith in what she had been told and therefore understood that he was the Messiah. But she, I think, had absolutely no idea about what that was going to mean, which is why, twice Luke tells us, she pondered these things in her heart, to like to to make sure that we understood. Even Mary yeah, it was born without sin. Even Mary had to consider this that God is constantly revealing things to us that we are never going to fully understand. That's part of what's going to make heaven not that single day on the beach forever is that. We're just going to continue to learn. We're going to continue to learn more about him and about his heart and about his love, and about ourselves and about others. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I mean I suspect that our curiosity will be be fulfilled, but not in the way that we think like I really want to know about these details. Okay, fine, you're going to learn about them, and then you're going to be suddenly full. I think it's going to be like we'll know those things, but, more importantly, we'll know how that all of those threads weave together into a single tapestry of God. And seeing that picture will be fulfilled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like when you have like a really good steak you're like, oh, this is so good. Or when you're full but you still want to keep eating because it's so good. Maybe that it's like you're fulfilled but you're not satisfied. You can never be satisfied. It's more because you're with God, so it's just nonstop, forever.
Speaker 3:Well like being in a marriage. Yeah, like you know, I love my wife and I'm joyful in her and I'm you know I'm never going to be done. All right, I think we know enough about each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Fiend, yeah, howiend, yeah. How much do you think Joseph knew?
Speaker 3:What's interesting? What's so interesting is he never speaks in the Bible. He's never really referenced other than God told him what to do and he did it with perfect, as far as we can tell, perfect obedience, right, um, I think, implicitly, there was something there, because he took somebody to wife that he normally wouldn't like, none of his peers would have. He did it in a way that protected her, in a way that most of his peers probably would not have like, or rather, he was going to divorce her in a way that protected her, in a way that none of his peers would have. He took, he took the word from the angel in a dream of the most preposterous thing you could hear, and said okay, and then, like when they said, get up, go to Egypt, he did Um, I think he must have, I think he must have realized that something was happening far beyond his ken and that, um, he fell back on trust and obedience to god, which seemed to be a big part of his character, of his makeup.
Speaker 3:I I mean I think that's, that's probably that.
Speaker 1:That that great, that great trust in god is probably his primary virtue yeah, because it is because mary having yeah, because Mary having that freedom from sin has the ability to perfectly assent to what God is inviting her to right. Joseph doesn't have that.
Speaker 3:We weren't told that he does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is a lot of early church tradition. They wondered if he had been assumed into heaven too, because again, there's no body or anything like that. Um, and how can you be that kind of parent figure without some supernatural help? And I don't necessarily think you have to be free from sin to have that supernatural help.
Speaker 3:We get it every day. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think a lot of what that must've been like and how much he understood and how much he just was like Lord, I trust you. Whatever in the world is going on right here, I'm going to keep trusting you, right. Well, and he, because you're literally the only one in that family who can mess up, you know.
Speaker 3:Well, he, but okay, so he. You know that's Iron sharpens iron, so he probably lived up to the standard of who he was. What's the saying that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with? Yep Like? His average was probably a lot higher than the rest of us.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a. That's a. I've never thought of that. That's probably a very good, very good point.
Speaker 3:But I think I don't think it's necessary that he was assumed to heaven, because if he died before Christ started his ministry, before Christ was 30, then he's just an anonymous carpenter who died Right, just like so many people around him and then, like Mary's, different, mary was there for the whole time, mary's there at pentecost, mary was there at the cross, mary was um given to the world as their mother, like I think that that's. You know, that's somewhat different because they were there for this, the whole story. Yeah, um, but it is, I think's, beautiful. I think our separated brethren are poor for the lack of devotion to saints, because of their examples to us, and St Joseph's example as a self-sacrificing father, as somebody who puts their trust fully, I mean man, like I need that every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well. And Mary? I don't think there's an instance in the Bible where Mary doesn't ask something and God fulfills it right. Or Jesus as God fulfills it, even and to have. And Jesus obviously would have had love for his mama and the thought that she watched him in his crucifixion and she never once asked for him to stop her pain. Yeah, because you know he could have Right.
Speaker 3:But she also. I mean she had a heads up from.
Speaker 1:Simeon, yeah, yeah, yeah, the sword will pierce you, or something like that. Yeah, it's so much to Yep. Hmm, it's so much to ponder, yeah. It is Well, man. We've been talking for a minute now, so I think we're probably good for a little bit. I do want to get Father to come and talk with us on liturgy. Maybe we'll go out and visit him. That'll be fun. When's the? Last time you've been at Mount Carmel. I've never been to Mount Carmel. You've never been to Mount Carmel. Alright, Father Stephen.
Speaker 3:Some of us aren't, you know, favorites. I think that would be fantastic and I would love to talk about the Berg's book, but also Cardinal Ratzinger's book, because I think that I think that the idea. So, if you read Rome, sweet home, Scott Hahn talks about liturgy and kind of how important it was and that's not really something for Protestants, you know, and so like people thought he was turning Catholic because of it, and um, and when you think about the thoughts that Pope Benedict gave us, um, and that the church has given us about the importance of literature, I think it just it's it. It convinces you that that what happens in mass is important, what happens at mass is more important than anything else, and like, that's why reverence is so important.
Speaker 3:That's why active participation or actual participation is actually how it translates. That's why that's so important is because there's something happening there. That is what we were destined for what we were made for and we're getting that chance finally to at least in part participate in it. It should be the very center of our universe, because it is the center of the universe. Yeah. I would love to do that. I'd definitely make time for that. You know, when he's not traveling.
Speaker 1:Golly, he just got back from Arkansas. He's been to North Carolina, south Carolina. He's all over the place. They're sending him all over the place right now. So I know he's busy, but, yeah, we're definitely going to squeeze some time in with him. So, father, get your appointment book out and pencil us in.
Speaker 3:And also your show notes. Yeah, the correctives.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the blasphemies that we uttered.
Speaker 3:He's got to come back and say John, I need you to stop teaching heresies, yeah Right.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for joining me, man. This is really enjoyed it. This is good and everyone thanks for listening and we'll see. We'll see you next time, Bye.
