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
The Primacy of Christ in the Catholic Church
In this episode, Father Stephen and John discuss the centrality of Christ in the Church and its mission as a sacrament of God's love. Drawing insights from Sacrosanctum Concilium and theologians like St. Cyprian, they explore how the Church, as the new Eve born from Christ's side, aims to unify believers.
They also tackle the complexities of getting involved in church communities, especially for introverts. The conversation sheds light on the challenges and rewards of community engagement, referencing the ecclesiology and pneumatology from the Second Vatican Council's documents like Lumen Gentium. Finally, they wrap up with a thoughtful discussion on navigating forgiveness and self-protection within faith communities, offering insights on personal growth, communal faith, and the journey toward unity and understanding.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend, the Friar Father Stephen Sanchez, a Discalced Carmelite Priest. Good morning, father. Good morning, uh-oh, hold on, I may have done that wrong. I think Bertha's here again. Oh no, she heard me. That cat's so funny. If I turn and look at her, she'll just sit there and look at me Like if she's across the room. But if I blow her a kiss she starts meowing. I don't know if she likes it or not, but she's like meow. And then she'll come like attack me with a laugh.
Speaker 1:I told you to stop doing that yeah. So what were?
Speaker 2:you doing out in Emory again. You had, it was a teaching, no, you were doing mass.
Speaker 1:No, it was a teaching, it was a conference. Okay, and the priest there in Emory and St John the Evangelist Catholic Church out in Emory, which is out in the middle, yeah, I was going to say Of pastures, right, just all pastures.
Speaker 1:It's a very rural church, small church, and the church was basically destroyed a couple of years ago by a tornado and so they're trying to rebuild the sanctuary, and so they have all their services in their I don't know what you call that building activities building or multipurpose building or whatever. Anyway, so the Knights of Columbus were sponsoring a men's retreat.
Speaker 1:And so the pastor there, father Michael Ledesma, used to be one of my directees when he was at Holy Trinity Seminary, and so then he reached out to me and asked me if I would be willing to give a conference to this retreat of men. And it's entitled Eucharistic Warriors, so basically it's about entering deeper into the mystery of the Eucharist and exploring that. So it was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and so there was three speakers. I was the first speaker and so I drove out there to give the conference, and so it's about an hour and a half a little bit more than that from Dallas. So I drove out there early in the morning to get there by a little bit before 8 to be there and make sure I found my way there and got there to the right place and didn't get lost in the middle of a lake or something. And so I went out there.
Speaker 1:And so when I looked it up on Google the day before, like okay, let me look it up on Google, right? So I looked it up on Google Maps and all it shows is this destroyed building right, it's after the tornado. Everything is torn down and scattered and there's everything. I'm like, so is this going to be outside, I better take a lot of water with me or something or other. But anyway, and so obviously Google Maps hasn't updated their maps of the photo of the place, and so I gave a talk on Necrist, so that's what that was, and I came back and heard confessions afterwards and then there was about 30 men and then came back, got back to Dallas, I got about 130. Then I had to get ready for the parish masses, parish confessions. I had the vigil mass last night and then had the mass this morning at nine. So trying to get all that done, trying to all get together, was a little, a little Hectic.
Speaker 2:Yes, Anyway, that's what I was doing in Emory. Yeah, yeah, I just looked it up on Apple Maps and it doesn't look too destroyed on this one. Okay, but it's a little town, it's 1,200 people yeah, tiny, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's where I was.
Speaker 2:If you had to pick between a gigantic place like Dallas or a little bitty out in the middle of nowhere, what would you pick?
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know, I'd be hard-pressed right, because I like where we are here, because basically they leave us alone. Nobody knows where we're at.
Speaker 2:It's very hidden.
Speaker 1:So I like it here. The problem with a small community is that everybody knows everybody's business right it's like that would be difficult right um.
Speaker 2:But anyway, I don't know, I don't know yeah, there's, because even I think with small places, small towns, like where the castle is out of Mary Lake yeah, it's in a little small town kind of thing. You know it's just south of Little Rock but something about that feels even more secluded, like you think of the European monastery on top of some mountain peak or something like that.
Speaker 2:That's kind of what Mary Lake has that feeling to it because it's so secluded, and so I think, yeah, you all have a nice location in Dallas because you have access to anything that you might need Medical food, whatever Libraries, things like that that you wouldn't have in a small town. So I think, yeah, I would have to pick either something very secluded like Mary Lake or something in a place like Dallas.
Speaker 1:The in-between I think is rough, yeah, because nobody knows really where we're at in Dallas. I mean, like how do you know y'all were here Like yes, thank you, yep.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's so funny that there might be something that we should talk about one of these days, because you, um, just when you're here, carmelites it doesn't feel like you're in dallas.
Speaker 1:It just really doesn't yeah, because it's it's separated. We have a nice piece of property here, uh, and it's kind of visually secluded from everything else. And so it doesn't really feel like you're in Dallas when you're here. You forget that you're in Dallas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unless you see the skyline.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got a visitor.
Speaker 2:True, oh, you should. Oh, yeah, that's Bertha, she'll be back, she'll be back. But, yeah, yeah, so, like carmelites are kind of funny creatures too, because you're friars but you're contemplative and so you have to. Well, I guess it depends on on the necessity, like the need of your, your house, right, you either are very self-sufficient because you've got some kind of enterprise that keeps you guys sustained, or you have to go out, right, but you have to balance that with the quiet solitude.
Speaker 1:Yes, the contemplative aspect. Yes, exactly. So the thing is we are friars who live in monasteries, not friars who live in friaries, and we're not monks who live in monasteries, we're friars who live in monasteries. So that's part of the weirdness of it is that we still hold on to our monastic roots from the East, where we started, so interesting.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting.
Speaker 1:Tertium quid.
Speaker 2:All right, well, we are back on Lumen Gentium Intro Right Well, chapter one, I think, the last thing. Yeah, we got through on Lumen Gentium intro, right Well chapter one, I think the last thing we were on chapter one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're going to start talking today about the primacy of Christ and I still am just, it's just so silly to me that we're having to do all this so we can talk about something else. Well, it's silly in a good way, like it tickles my mind, because so many people ask questions and they want the one-line response. They want this is the thing that answers my question. Right, and with our faith, that's not possible. It's so insufficient to just say, well, here's the answer, because if you're really being thoughtful and you really want to know the answer, then whatever you're given, you have to go. Well, what does that mean? Right, right, right. Okay, so we've talked about the church and now?
Speaker 1:We talked about the Holy Spirit. This is still chapter one of the Mystery of the Church. Yes, and we talked about how the Holy Spirit dwells in the church.
Speaker 2:right, yes, and how the.
Speaker 1:Holy Spirit sustains the communion within the church. So we talked also about the renewal of ecclesiology, sort of like the study of church or community, or, uh, basilia, uh, so all that, those are all things, and I mentioned briefly the, the influence of Johann Otto Moeller's uh understanding of uh church right and how he is a great influence right. He's from the school of the university of Tübingen in.
Speaker 1:Germany. So then we're moving on to the next section, or the next part of chapter one is the primacy of Christ. The church, or the conciliar fathers needed to reemphasize this. The church or the conciliar fathers needed to reemphasize this to declare probably to make sure that people don't misunderstand Catholics right, but the primacy of Christ in the church. In fact, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:I just thought of this right now and I was preaching at St Anne's several years ago. There was a one of the musicians, uh, was not a catholic and was there with the ministry of music playing, and so I was preaching and after mass, went up and to thank the musicians, as I usually do so, to go thank the musicians and stuff, and so they introduced me to this young man who was not a Catholic, right, and so I said oh, welcome, how did you think of our service and what faith tradition do you come from? He said I have never been to a service where people talk so much about Jesus. This is refreshing. Yes, this is what it's about. It's about Jesus. So, anyway, the primacy of Christ.
Speaker 1:So, as we look at the documents, or as the document is developing in this chapter one again, the primary idea or the concept that is trying to be taught, catechized, is that Christ is the primary sacrament. So what does that mean? So we know that the sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible reality. And so then, if this is true, then Jesus, who is the visible sign of the invisible reality, is the primary sacrament, just as he is the gospel, right. So Jesus reveals himself as the source of redeeming grace, but also he reveals himself to be God, the Father's love. That's who Jesus is, the incarnation of this love.
Speaker 1:To the extent that the church is, in Christ, a reflection of that same light continues to shine forth for all humanity. And again, connecting this to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit calls us together in unity and stuff so this is part of that same truth is that we, as church, are called to be the reflection of the light of Christ to all of humanity, so that when the church imitates the self-emptying love of Christ, she, the church, becomes a sacrament of that same love. The church, the community of believers, is called to be an instrument of this saving love in the world. So, yes, christ is the primary sacrament, but we, as the body of Christ, as the bride of Christ, having the spirit of the risen Lord dwelling in us and uniting us to Christ, then we are called to be this sacrament for the world, and so that's one of the questions that has to be continuously re-asked is are we being a sacrament of love for the world right?
Speaker 1:So, that's something that we always need to sort of ask ourselves and convict ourselves of. And so, in Sacrosanctum Concilium, on the Reformer, the Liturgy, on the Constitutional Liturgy of the Church, number five in Sacrosanctum Concilius tells us that, for it was from the sight of Christ, as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross, that there came forth the wondrous sacrament of the whole church. Okay, so this is then the image of Christ as the new Adam, the bride of Christ, the new Adam, the bride of Christ, so the church being the new Eve. And this is where it gets layers and layers of confusing images, right? So the church, then, is the new Eve that is born from the sight of Christ. But just as Christ is the new Adam and the church is the new Eve, christ is the new Adam and the church is the new Eve. Now, the new Eve is also the bride of Christ, just as Eve was the bride of Adam. And so this is where that imagery goes, and we talked about typology once, right?
Speaker 2:So this is kind of the idea of typology again. Yeah, and at the end of our last episode, moeller, is it Moeller? Is that how you say his name, or?
Speaker 1:Moeller yeah.
Speaker 2:Moeller. Moeller was saying how he was considering that the church is the continuation of the incarnation. Yes and so. Yeah, it is interesting all the layers, because you have to ask yourself as an individual, but then the church has to ask itself as the whole organism.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we have to respond individually and as a community. Correct, and that's just so easy. So not a problem at all.
Speaker 1:So I have a quote from Gilarditz in his book on the Second Vatican Council. So this is a quote from his book. For this reason St Cyprian, the third century bishop of Carthage, could refer to the church as the sacrament of unity and as sacrament of salvation. The expression sacrament of unity is taken up first in the dogmatic constitution on the church, or Lumen Gentium, in Numbers 9, number 48, and Number 59. Those are those paragraph numbers. Also in the pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world, or Gaudium et Spes, in Paragraph Number 45, and in the decree on the Church in the Modern World, or Gaudium et Spes, in paragraph number 45, and in the Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, in paragraph 1. So the unity is not just the unity between all those of us still in spatio-temporal reality, but includes those who have preceded us, marked with the sign of faith this whole idea of communion of saints.
Speaker 1:So this unity, is not just us going to church together, or all the diocese of the world together, but all of us, those of us in what we call the church, militant with the church triumphant, with the saints right and the church suffering the souls in purgatory. So then, the action of the liturgy is understood as the work of the whole body of Christ Again going back to the whole idea of the primacy of Christ and the liturgy cannot be privatized.
Speaker 1:In other words, we should not think of the liturgy as something that I am doing or my community is doing or I'm doing in this church or in this small chapel, whatever. We always have to think of it as the celebration of the entire church Okay, the entire church, okay. So even if I would celebrate a Mass by myself, which I sometimes do, because sometimes I find myself- alone and I want to celebrate Mass. I might be celebrating Mass alone, but it's not really alone. I'm celebrating the liturgy of the Church, With the Church triumphant as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, we should always think of it that way, right? So then, when we live in accord with the saving grace of God, our relationships are transformed, we are reconciled not only to God but also to one another, and are enabled to live in greater harmony with the world around us Excuse me, the world around us. So, since the church is in Christ like a sacrament, or as a sign and an instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and the unity of the whole human race, the council fathers remind us of our baptismal call to be living examples of the unity God desires for the entire human family. That's the prayer that we always pray at the Eucharist.
Speaker 1:There's always that that we may be one that we be united in the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit make us one. There's always a continuous prayer for unity right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, can I ask a question real quick, of course. So the question is what advice would you give to somebody who's struggling to live out their faith in an interpersonal way? Because you know, just like religious, there's different religious groups, attract different types of people because we're all so unique. So there's some people that are introverted, there are some people that are very social, there are some people that are right. But regardless of how you are, you have to live out your faith interpersonally right. Even the hermit, to some degree it's interpersonal. Still, he's still a member of the church community. So when somebody who is maybe they're doing a lot of studying, they really feel like they've got a lot of growth going on, maybe they're doing a lot of studying, they really feel like they've got a lot of growth going on, but they struggle to engage with the church Like what advice would you give to someone like that?
Speaker 1:Well, that would be a very okay. I can give a very broad answer to that hypothetical situation, but then it would depend again on the individual. What are the yeah, what is the root cause in the individual?
Speaker 1:now seeing a very broad stroke, I would say um, what is the cause of the difficulty? Is it expectation? What are your expectations? What is it that you're expecting? Is that expectation reasonable, right? Um, have you truly attempted to enter into dialogue or into a community, or engage with the community that you find yourself worshiping? With right, and depending where you're at in the church, there's different sometimes every mass. Us Catholics, we're very like all human beings. We're creatures of habit, so like we go to the same mass all the time, usually right. So, for example, at St Anne's, which is a humongous parish, you know, there's people that go to the 10 o'clock mass that have absolutely no idea of the people who go to the vigil mass they go to the 4 o'clock mass they go to, and sometimes it's been funny that we're all together, we're in a group of people and like, oh yeah, I go to St Anne's.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, what mass do you go to? I go to the 10 o'clock mass. I go to St Anne's. I go to the 4 o'clock mass. Oh yeah, I've should look into being a lector. Maybe I should look into being an usher. Maybe I should look into some of the ministries there. Maybe I should look into are there classes that are being offered? Do I want to commit to maybe going to an rcia class, even though I may not need it? It's always good to educate ourselves. There's different ways, right? So it's a matter of what. What is the expectation and what? What is it that that you are doing to engage with that community, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. So, like for for myself, I know that I like, I don't become energized when I'm around other people. For me, being around lots of other people makes me very tired. Yeah me too. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah me too, so there's a personal cost associated with engaging with all those other people and so, you know, I would hope people realize that they one, they'd realize the importance they still need to somehow connect. But it doesn't have to be in the middle of the chaos of a mass right. You don't have to go be a lector or go be an usher or something, when being around all these people is exhausting, like you were saying. Maybe it's I'm going to go learn or maybe I can go volunteer on the weekend or on a weekday or something like that and clean or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or you know, or go to adoration. If they have adoration you know, join an adoration team or something where you know you don't have to expend yourself socially if you don't want to an adoration team or something where you know you don't have to expend yourself socially if you don't want to.
Speaker 1:But I think part of it too, then, is to have the courage to go to or call the office or find somebody like, okay, is there like a welcoming ministry here somewhere? You know there's new parishioners or I'm interested, you know, so I'm a visitor here, and so do they have like a little social thing afterwards. Or you know there must be something right. And so part of it too is I think part of it too is are we expecting the church to read my mind and my needs when it can't? Right, it's a functioning organism, right, and so as I try to assimilate myself into this functioning organism, and so as I try to assimilate myself into this functioning organism, I have to be able to express and commit to my initiating that interchange right, or that new relationship with that community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and sorry not to get us sidetracked on that, it's just I was thinking about it because if the church is a sign of Jesus, right, if we are his body. He didn't come just to go, sit all by himself and do nothing with other people. He came to interact with other people. So we must find a way to engage with others with our faith.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and I think it's more difficult for introverts because we find it very difficult and challenging to even want to engage, right, so that's hard, yeah, okay. So getting back to the primacy of Christ, right, and this whole idea of the primacy of Christ, right, and this whole idea of the primacy of Christ, and this whole new ecclesiology, or the emphasis on ecclesiology, and pneumatology and the Holy Spirit, all these new things that the Council was rediscovering, the primacy of Christ, or this rediscovered understanding of the primacy of Christ, attempted to make itself known at the first Vatican Council, but the bishops were uncomfortable with the vagueness of the concept and instead turned to the Bellarmine, st Bellarmine, cardinal Bellarmine, his image of the perfect society, and so the church as perfect society. And it wasn't until 1943, with Pope.
Speaker 1:Pius XII very important pope, the Pope Pius XII's encyclical Mystici Corporis, or the mystical body of Christ, right that a more incarnational ecclesiology would be introduced into the Church teaching. So this would be further expanded upon during the Second Vatican Council. We see this incarnational approach in the first paragraph of number 8 of this document. So number 8 of Lumen Gentium says Ablumen Gentium says Christ, the one mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth his holy church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which he communicated truth and grace to all, delineation through which he communicated truth and grace to all.
Speaker 1:But the society structured with hierarchical organs that'll be the next chapter and the mystical body of Christ are not to be considered as two realities. Nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly church and the church enriched with heavenly things. Rather, they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate word, as the assumed nature, inseparably united to him, serves the divine word as a living organ of salvation. So in a similar way does the visible social structure of the church serve the spirit of Christ, who vivifies it in the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:The human aspect of Jesus of Nazareth serves the word that became incarnate. So we, the church, serve Christ and the Holy Spirit and this whole idea of being the sacrament of unity and sacrament of salvation. So this complexity, right, and it's important that we always remember the complexity of our reality and not just think of ourselves as Church as just the hierarchical aspect, right, just the structure of bishops or the bishops around which the church militant is built up around, right. So this is important. So this goes back to the primacy of Christ and the reality of Christ and therefore the reality of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual reality that is very present, right, but at times that we don't think about or consider.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I loved this when I read it in the notes, because it's the same degree of complexity as is God fully, or is Jesus fully God or fully man or is he both? And it's one of those beautiful Catholic both ends right, and so the church is the same way, and so, and, and, as we were saying one of the other previous episodes, if you just if you don't, if you don't get the understanding right, then you can't even talk about it as an organizational group. Correctly, right, you have to understand the complexity.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so again. And that goes back to the whole idea of why we have to do all this, because I want to talk about Chapter 8. There's only one church and I wouldn't give her up for anything.
Speaker 2:You'd be bored if you were in anything else, anything else?
Speaker 1:true, exactly, okay, so then I'm looking at our time, okay.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're good, we're good.
Speaker 1:The reality of the church is compared, by way of analogy, to the incarnation of the word, using that whole idea of the two natures. Right? Not that the church is an incarnation of the word in the true sense, as seen in the sacred humanity of Christ? Okay so, okay so, but that just as in Christ you have the two natures united, so too in the church you have two aspects of the church which are inseparable, much like the understanding of our being that is a composite of body and soul, right?
Speaker 2:So this is what it is it's so.
Speaker 1:We are the incarnation, the continuing incarnation, but I am not jesus christ, but what they mean is I. There is that spiritual aspect of me as bride of christ and therefore united to christ, and there is that aspect that we are this we are called to be the the continued presence of christ in the world, right by the way that we live out our faith and interact with one another.
Speaker 1:Excuse me Going back again to Lumen Gentium and this chapter on the mystery of the church. The first schema or the first rough draft presented to the conciliar fathers in 1962 met with severe criticism because of its first consideration of the church's institutional people of God, or in Lumen Gentium, then, the first draft said like it defines itself as a hierarchy, as bishops and bishops is the hierarchy and this is, you know, the true successors of the apostles, which is in a later chapter.
Speaker 1:And so that's why they decided then that they don't want that approach. They don't want a juridical definition to begin this constitution. So the conciliar fathers wanted a more biblical and patristic understanding of the church, presented in an ecclesiology that was more catechized, more educated and more informed. And this goes back to the whole idea of. It's not that this is new, it's that this is rediscovered. We're going back to a patristic and biblical understanding of what church is. So it's not that it's new, it's a rediscovery of the original understanding of church from the patristics and biblical standpoint, and biblical standpoint. So then a second rough draft, or a second schema was presented in the fall of 1963, the Mystery of the Church, in which figured most prominently the idea of church as sacrament, but not to be understood as a sacramental reality in the same sense as the understanding of the seven sacraments, right, but as a sign, as a symbol of an invisible reality, right.
Speaker 1:The church, then, is a universal sacrament of salvation on more than one level of understanding. It is called to live the unity in itself that God desires for all of humanity to enjoy. And this is always the challenge, then, right? The challenge is are we living this unity? And that's why there's always this prayer in the Eucharist. It's always a prayer of the church, continually in all of our liturgical celebrations. It's a prayer of unity, right? So we need to work on our unity so that we be able to give a greater witness to the world. Right? That's something that we always have to be challenged in. So, then, that in the daily life of the Christian community member—, the member, each individual is reminded to be an example of unity to which all should aspire Respecting the dignity of all, stepping outside of selfishness and becoming aware of and tending to the needs of those around us, providing for the poor, for the marginalized and the vulnerable to work towards the just and equitable sharing of the earth's resources, challenging situations of injustice and violence so as to come to peaceful resolutions. All these are signs of unity that we should be living in, that we should be attempting to bring about in the world that we live in. That's how we influence the world and that is how we prepare the world to receive the gospel. This is sort of the preparation of society for the reception of the gospel is by trying to work on all these different aspects of unity, all these different aspects of unity. Lumen Gentium, number eight, says Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the church is called to follow the same path if it is to communicate the fruits of salvation to humanity.
Speaker 1:I think this is something that at times we fail to examine ourselves in a person, to get isolated from the rest of the community, because they go down a rabbit hole and they find themselves in a bubble, and then anything that is outside the bubble they're not willing to consider. And then what happens is then you have the nuns in Spain, the poor clerics in Spain, declaring themselves separate from the church, and like, how does that happen? Yeah, you get caught in that echo chamber, right, exactly. And so that's something that we always have to be aware of. I always have to be willing to consider something uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:I always have to be willing to consider someone else's opinion, whether I think it's wrong, or I think they're crazy, or whatever. I have to be willing to look at it and try to reason through it and see is there something there? Is this an ordinary means of God's revelation to me? Is he speaking to me through this person, through this situation? Right, and can I do that? And it's unfortunate that today, most people, when it comes to I don't want to say religion, because it's not religion most people today, when it comes to their popular piety, their response is always emotional. It's not reasonable. They're not willing to consider anything outside of what they are comfortable with, anything outside of what they are comfortable with right, which to me, I think is is is strange, because conversion is very uncomfortable and so if you're not, willing to.
Speaker 1:If you're not willing, to be uncomfortable, then my question is so you're not willing to enter into your conversion, and so you're willing to stagnate and stay where you're at?
Speaker 2:so yeah, and this is really interesting too, this last sentence quote that you had, where Jesus carries out the works of redemption in poverty and oppression. How, what you're saying? How we have to each individually be comfortable with taking action as well, right? Right, because there's I think it's very often misconstrued that the way to take care of the poor and the oppressed is with, like socialism. Right, and that's not it. It's not it Because I'm called in my poverty and in my wealth to act right. So the the widow who puts in her last two pennies in the donation box, right, or um, the the landowner who pays the people who work the least the same as the people who work the most. Right, we're called into that. We have to respond individually. We can't just say everybody gets everything and it's all the same.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's not, because then there's no personal conversion in that Correct correct. So, and I don't want to open this can of worms, but okay.
Speaker 2:We can write it down and talk about it later.
Speaker 1:So that's where we have to make the distinction between equality and equity, right, yeah, that's something that like. Okay, so I'm going to give everybody, every family here. I'm going to give every family three loaves of bread. Okay, fine, that's great. So if the family is just a couple, three loaves of bread is more than enough for the week. But if the family is a family of six, three loaves of bread okay, it might get me to Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Yeah so yeah, so you know what are the needs right, what are the needs, the individual needs that I need to be able to consider and meet right yeah.
Speaker 2:Tangent over. Yeah, we'll just keep going. It's a very Carmelite thing.
Speaker 1:Right, our Holy Mother was very much like that, going off on tangents, but okay, I'll blame Teresa on that one. So I'm going to stop talking about chapter one. There's a lot more chapter one, so please be curious and go pick up the document and start reading it. So we're going to skip over chapter two on the people of God, and chapter three, the hierarchical structure, not because they're not important, but because we have to decide if we really want to go into and do a deep dive into documents or not. So we'll have to talk about that later. But I can say very briefly that chapter two speaks to the fact that God calls us as a people. So chapter two opens with the following quote this is number 9.
Speaker 1:This is the opening of Chapter 2. At all times and in every race, god has given welcome to whosoever fears him and does what is right. God, however, does not make men holy and save them merely as individuals without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased him to bring men together as one people, a people which acknowledges him in truth and serves him in holiness. So then this chapter goes on to double up the truth that, as the Holy Spirit dwells in the church, it is the Holy Spirit that gathers and unites this new messianic people. It's a very beautiful chapter again, but we don't have time to. If we want to do 638 episodes on the council, I'll be willing to do it, but we have to decide on that. So then, chapter three.
Speaker 1:The title of chapter three is Hierarchical Structure in Episcopate, and so this is from number 18, the opening number for chapter 3. For the nurturing and constant growth of the people of God, this messianic people that the Holy Spirit dwells in right. For the nurturing and constant growth of the people of God, this messianic people that the Holy Spirit dwells in right. For the nurturing and constant growth of the people of God, christ the Lord instituted in his church a variety of ministries which work for the good of the whole body. For those ministers who are endowed with sacred power, serve their brethren, so that all who are of the people of God and therefore enjoy a true Christian dignity, working toward a common goal freely and in an orderly way, may arrive at salvation.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then, this chapter is a declaration of our belief that the bishops are the successors of the apostles. Who, together with the Petrine office, the vicar of Christ and who is the visible head and sign of unity of the whole church, govern this house of this new messianic people in which the Holy Spirit dwells right. So that's chapter three. So again, please be curious enough to pick up the document, start reading okay, so should we stop here or should we go on?
Speaker 2:I know I keep I keep wondering, like okay because the lady is the next chapter and it's so good. Um, I think I can be patient, I think I can be patient, I think I can be patient what would you?
Speaker 1:this is going to be a whole other, maybe 30-40 minutes.
Speaker 2:I know. So what would you again with the church? I don't know just how would you encourage people who are listening to this to really reflect and consider their role as the church If I was going to do a spiritual direction exercise of what am I doing? Well, where can I grow, you know? Like how? How might you?
Speaker 1:I would say, the first thing, people, the first thing that has to happen, especially in, I would say, the west uh, in the united states, and in in the west, and especially depending what part of the united states you find yourselves in right, is to ask yourself how do I really think of my Christianity, or my Catholicity, right? Do I think of it in terms of me? Is it something that I do, right, or is it something my family does? And so can I understand that I belong to a greater reality? Again, going back to the whole idea of that complex reality, right, do I understand that I belong to a greater reality than myself and my family, right? Well, yesterday, okay.
Speaker 1:Yesterday in this video that the Knights of Columbus showed before I began my talk yesterday in Emory Texas. It was very beautiful. This image really struck me. It was like, okay, so in the Eucharist we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. And so what the commentator was saying like we receive the blood of Christ. We are, in a very existential way, blood brothers. And that just struck me. I go like, wow, okay, so can you consider the fact that you are united by blood, through blood, to the rest of the believing community? What does that say to you? What does that mean to you? There is this again as blood brothers.
Speaker 1:there is this commitment, there is this willingness to suffer for the other, almost this valor again, virtue in its original meaning. This virtue that is required of me in my relationship, this blood relationship, with the other members, and how do I process that in my understanding as a believer, as a member.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's two things that's really interesting. It kind of made me think of when somebody is like an organ recipient.
Speaker 2:Donor, yeah, right, like, oh yeah, your kidney saved my life, right, so you feel this instant connection with that person, even though you probably don't know who they are, right, right, so it kind of made me think of that. It also made me think of these two other thoughts. It also made me think of these two other thoughts. These documents so far speak so strongly and so well against this very pervasive concept here in the United States of I'm spiritual but not religious. Yes, it drives me crazy. I know. I really want to talk to someone. I want to be crazy.
Speaker 2:How do I, how do I respond? How do I relate to somebody who has hurt me? Because, like we, we, we always say, yeah, everybody's family, everybody's got that. You know family drama. And so then the people in your parish and the people in the parishes in your area, and the bishop and the whoever, how am I called as a member of this sacramental sign, the church? How am I called to respond? As Jesus would. But how do I also navigate that? Because I think everyone feels like they should be able to protect themselves. Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's like, how do I reconcile those two things?
Speaker 1:Well, I think there has to be a distinction right. Again, it depends to the matter and degree of the hurt that was received, and so one we are called to forgive.
Speaker 1:That is something that we continuously have to be convicted of. I need to forgive right and I need to let go of that hurt. I need to erase that debt that I believe is owed to me, whatever right. That's part of the whole idea of forgiveness, and the other aspect of that forgiveness is a matter of okay is this is this a relationship that is continuously hurtful, right? And if it's a continuously hurtful relationship, a relation, a relationship that brings continuous hurt, then I need to learn how to extract myself from that situation.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean that you're condemning them or judging them to the last circle of hell in Dante's Inferno, but it does mean I need to maintain peace and, again, a lot of it has to do with where you are as an individual. If you're strong enough psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, if you're strong enough to not allow this to trigger you, then fine, you can still maneuver that relationship, whether it's in a family or whether it's at work or wherever it might be, and if you're strong enough, then it doesn't have to trigger you, it doesn't have to cause you pain. But what happens is you don't allow yourself to get caught in that game again. You don't allow yourself to get caught in whatever it is that's going on in the other person. And so, again, as I get to the end point of my life and all of the relationships that I've ever run across in my entire life maybe as a young man I might have believed that there was people that were malicious. At this point in my life, I really don't think about people as being malicious.
Speaker 1:I think about people as being broken or being wounded and this is how they have survived. This is how they survive. This is them being broken, and, okay, I get hurt by it and so it's a matter of me being able to forgive and to allow them to be where they are in their journey and continue their journey in their own mysterious journey of redemption, whatever that may be, whatever that may lead them. But I have to be willing to continue my own journey, my own journey of forgiveness and acceptance and growth right and hopefully, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to learn to make better choices, to allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten me and to deepen my conversion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because all of this, this whole episode about the church, is focused on the primacy of Christ, right, yeah, and so we also have to reconcile that one. We are not perfect the way Jesus was perfect.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So, whereas it may have, theoretically it could have been God's will that Judas came back to Jesus and asked for forgiveness, right, and then he would have been the greatest apostle ever, you know, because we know Jesus would have accepted him. Yeah, yeah, but we're not Jesus Right, right. So we don't have so one, we don't have that perfect cooperation with God's will. But two, that also isn't necessarily like perfect. Forgiveness may not be what God wants for us, because we're living out what God wants for us in our life, and so one of the things is I always tell people when we talk about brokenness, like people.
Speaker 1:so why do you think we start every single Eucharist with? I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, does that not make sense to you? Do you not understand what we're saying? We're all broken, we're all wounded. It's this motley crew of limping, bleeding people journeying across the desert to the heavenly Jerusalem, and so yeah in this motley group of people you've got people like this should be this way.
Speaker 1:No, it's not that way. No, no, no, you should be walking this way, no, like, okay. So again going back to the whole idea that the proof that this is Christ's church is the fact that we're still alive 2,000 years after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the only thing that we can for sure say is that we are called to grow in virtue. Yes, and if everybody was growing in virtue at the same rate, then everything would be perfect. But it's not right. So I have to understand that where I am is very different than where you are and where the guy at work who drives me nuts or whatever it is you know. So I'm called to respond with those virtues of patience and love and charity and all those kinds of things you know. But I think we have to also. I think if we learn to give ourselves those things, to treat ourselves with patience and all that, to learn to start seeing ourselves the way Jesus sees us, it makes it easier to see your neighbor that way.
Speaker 1:Pete Right, and I think that's where that temptation comes and it might be a very pious, religious way of trying to avoid the problem of communities. Like you know, I'm spiritual but not religious, like, in other words, like I don't want to be bothered by other human beings Like, well, no, that's not the way it works. I remember once, several decades ago, I was at a grocery store checking out or something or other. I forget what store it was, but you know where they have those magazine racks, right there by the checkout right. So it was the Time magazine or People magazine or whatever magazine it was, and the title was Does Christianity Need a Church? And I just looked at it and I go like what I mean then you have absolutely no idea what the hell Christianity is. Why does that? Is a? That is an asinine question. I can picture your face, yeah.
Speaker 2:You see just standing there blinking at it. I was going like God help us, yeah, okay so. Yeah, it's so funny. It's so funny. Well, father, well, father, again, thank you for this. I know, I know you're gonna be traveling, so before we record our next episode yeah, so I hope, I hope, a couple things for you.
Speaker 2:I hope you travel safe. I hope you don't get sick again. I hope the weather is not a hundred million degrees outside, but I hope it's not cold too, because I know you don't like to be cold. I hate the cold. All right, well, father, thanks, and everyone who joined us. Thank you for listening. Thank you, please share Yep, and we will see everybody next time. God bless. God bless.
