The Weight of Glory
Centered around the themes of the essay The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis, this podcast seeks to highlight ways in which our every encounter leads another person toward beatitude or away from it
The Weight of Glory
The Last Things
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In 2008, during a Holy Week RCIA retreat, I led a reflection on The Last Things -- death, judgment, heaven and hell. Rather than diving right into a discussion of things ultimate, I decided to provide some context, and some of that context came from C.S. Lewis. In The Weight of Glory, Lewis observes that "we are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Music for the podcast has been provided through the generosity of Dennis Crommett. Check out his music over at DennisCrommett.com.
Resources:
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis
the upset of Easter, and the last things
on the passage through life
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 988-1014; 1020-1050
Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft
Intro
SPEAKER_01Hello, and welcome to the Weight of Glory podcast. This is your host, Clayton More. The idea of this podcast is to explore the themes present in The Weight of Glory, an essay by C.S. Lewis, and maybe to explore some of his other essays. At some point, I hope to invite guests onto the podcast to share their insights, but in these first episodes, I'm simply exploring some of the ways in which the thought of C. S. Lewis has intersected with my own life and thinking. Back in 2008, when I was still living in Los Angeles, I helped lead a retreat during the Easter tritum for a number of young people in Hollywood who were preparing to enter the church at the Easter Vigil. On Good Friday, I was asked to lead a session on the last things death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Rather than diving right into a discussion of things ultimate, I decided to provide some context. And some of that context came from C. Lewis. In the weight of glory, Lewis observes that we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a swim. Because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. So without further ado, here's the podcast I recorded during that Easter Freedom Retreat. Perhaps in this time of turmoil and uncertainty, it will provide a kind of compass for the larger journey of our human life, which is, in the end, a journey to the Father's House.
The Last Things (RCIA Hollywood)
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the RCIA Hollywood Podcast, coming to you weekly from Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Los Angeles. RCIA Hollywood is a program designed particularly for artists who have an interest in exploring the Catholic faith in a systematic way with the possibility of being fully admitted into the church during the Easter season. RCIA stands for Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, and it's a process that dates back to the very first centuries of Christianity. This week's class on the last things is led by Clayton Emmer. Okay, yeah, I realized that the notes from this talk I left at home. I have a few remnant notes in my notebook, so I'll work with these. But I thought what we'd do is I'd like to do a little introduction and then we'll look, maybe look at some of the catechism paragraphs on these the last things death, judgment, heaven, and hell. And then I've got some kind of practical questions if you've got a notebook and paper, some questions to take home for yourself about these four last things. So maybe things you could meditate between now and tonight on. So I'm going to start with a kind of an introduction. I was thinking about this last night a little bit. You can just describe what we're about here, and the whole spiritual life, really, as a journey to the house of the Father. And what does that mean? Unpack that. It's really kind of powerful if you start to meditate on that whole thing. There's a real richness to the idea of calling God Father. Of course, first of all, it's the way that Jesus revealed the name of God, that he was the Son of the Father, and that he revealed the face of the Father. But just in terms of our humanity, what does it mean to have a father? There's just a beautiful plan for man and woman that John Paul II lays out in his theology of the body, but we just know it too from human nature. When a couple conceives and they bring new life into the world, for nine months that life is with the mother. The mother is a great nurturer of the soul and of the heart and the body. And uh as a child is raised, you know, she's such a key figure in nurturing and bringing that life forth. And the father is accompanying that life also, but in a very kind of different way. They both are nurturers. I don't want to be oversimplicity about this. But there's a sense in which the mother is kind of the native home of the person when they come into the world. It's a place of comfort, it's what we're familiar with, it's a place to be nourished and kind of formed. But at a certain point in our life, we need to move outside of the comfort zone of the world, the comfort, the nest that our mother has created for us. And we have to journey out, and really it's a journey out toward the Father. I mean, we understand him in a certain way, but we're not, we don't have that same relationship to him that we have to our mother, just because, you know, he didn't carry us for nine months, you know. It's a different sort of relationship. But that's the beauty of the father, too, is that he helps us journey from that state of native comfort outside of ourselves into the larger world. He represents the other, that that that the world outside that comfort zone. So um that's just on a natural plane, but that's I think also we can learn a lot about our spiritual lives from that, too. It's like this journey to the house of the Father, it's a journey to an unfamiliar place. Uh it's a place of love and nurturing, but it's we just don't know a lot about it. It's not it's not our native home. It's where we're called to. And it's also where we're from. He's involved in our origins and he's involved in where we're going, but it isn't probably the thing we're most familiar with right now as we're on our pilgrimage. So um I kind of want to frame this this talk about the last things in that context. Because the last things really make sense in the light of the journey to the house of the Father, um, the journey out of our comfort zones from what is familiar to what is unfamiliar, uh, to what is transcendent, to what is above, but ultimately into the arms of love, you know, as well. But I think if unless we capture that sense, if we're journeying to the Father's home, and that the Father is some is a destination for us that we welcome and we're we're we anticipate with joy, even though we don't understand it fully now, unless we have that anticipation, that joy, and that sense of trust, um, all these last things are gonna look painful to us. They they're gonna they're gonna generate in us fear and anxiety, maybe even revulsion, and we may even turn away from the things that we need to pass through in order to make it to the Father's house. Um, and that's really kind of the just the nature of the beast since the fall, you know, in Genesis with Adam and Eve. Um they were living in the garden in peace and harmony, you know, in this direct relationship with our father. And then um there was this moment in which a voice insinuated itself into the life of Eve and was saying to her, the voice of the serpent, saying, You know what? God asked you not to eat of this one tree, didn't he? And she's like, Yes, but we can eat of anything else, you know. Still she was trusting, you know, she still had that responsive trust. Um she wasn't upset that there was one tree that was off limits. But then the serpent kept at it, he's like, Why do you think it is that you can't eat from that tree? Why do you think the serpent was there to foster disobedience? The serpent, you know, ultimately representing Satan, you know, jealous of this thing called creature, this beautiful creation, um, with freedom, able to enjoy this great union with God, which Satan rejected. Okay, so he's insinuating himself into Eve's mind. Boy, you know, this guy up there, he must be a real tyrant, because you can't eat of that tree. That must be the best tree in the garden. You should desire its fruit above everything else. You know why? Because if you eat of that tree, you're gonna become like him. You'll be his competitor now. And uh you won't have this tyrant slaving over you and telling you what to do and not to do. So I think you really should go for that fruit. You've uh you'll be like God. So this voice is just really clever and very um subtle, but the but the temptation is, you know, not to trust, not to trust the Father. Uh the Father's house is a house of tyranny, it's not a place of comfort and joy. So uh Eve listened to the voice and ate from the fruit, and Adam did too. And the result of that was this rupture of the relationship, um, this rupture of trust between God and the creature. And then ultimately that played out in a lack of trust that seeped into the relationship between man and woman. Um, suddenly that relationship's characterized by fear, by um great reserve, um, all this sort of stuff, and that's the experience of original sin, where we no longer can give ourselves freely because we're always having to protect ourselves from the other. Because we don't we don't believe and we don't experience that the other has our best interests at heart. Um just like we don't trust that God has our best interests at heart. So that's the real task for us is there's been this rupture, it's a very serious rupture. It's changed, it hasn't corrupted us, it's it hasn't severed well, in a sense, it did sever our relationship, okay? But it didn't corrupt our nature. Our nature is still good, fashioned in the image of God and destined for him, but there's this rupture that's happened because of original sin, even before our own personal sins, this experience of fear, of reserve, of not trusting, of rebellion, and of grasping for ourselves what we don't believe we can receive freely from the Father. See, the Father's always there, never changed, always generous, always loving, always full and magnanimous and giving. But the fact is that we don't trust him, and uh and and that's where everything goes, starts to go haywire. And all the things in the Old Testament we see about the Father being this nasty, you know, severe, punishing God, um, consider your sources. You know, we're talking about the children here and how they experience him. The fact is, he's a jealous God, because he's our father. And he sees us messing with everything that's less than him, and he wants us for himself. Um, that's what he really wants. So he's gonna tell us not to eat that poison, not to eat that, not to eat that, because they're all gonna take us away and they're gonna delay our journey to the father's house. So uh as we look at these last things, rather than looking at them with dread and fear, it really should find a sense of joy. It's like the father's calling us through these disciplines and through these experiences back to his house. And it's not that he's trying to keep us at arm's length either, it's just the fact that original sin is with us, and and to reverse it, he had to send his son, sacrifice his own son's life, so that we could be reunited with him. Uh but we what we sometimes miss is the fact that we can't just get there riding on the on the back of Jesus. We have to travel this journey too with him. We come to life, but it's a life that comes by way of dying. And that's what baptism is, and that's what we celebrate tonight in such a powerful way is baptism. It's life by way of dying. Um, if somebody were to ask, you know, what is the most comforting religion in the world? That would be a good question to ask in a survey. And then also to ask, you know, what is the most upsetting religion in the world? It would be interesting to know what people would say to those two questions. Um I posit that, you know, if I think uh the most comforting religion in the world would be Christianity, uh, without question. Uh and as far as what would be the most upsetting religion in the world, I think it would also be Christianity. I think it's both. It's the most upsetting and the most comforting. Because of original sin for that very reason. You know, there's just no way back to the garden without the experience of death. Um our life right now, as we live it, in all of its comfort, in its kind of its native form for us, um, we're not, I'm not sure we always want to leave this comfort nest, even if there's something better, because we don't know that something better. Um turned upside down by the fall. And to turn it upside right, think of what that entails. Just think of a boat, you know. A boat's sitting there in paradise on the waters of creation. And then you tip it over, okay, and that's original sin. Um we've gotten very used to being in that tipped over boat. That's our native home. That's what we understand, that's what we know. Experience of sin, the fear, all of that. And so now Christ comes and he wants to write the boat again. But what how do the Pharisees and the Sadducees and everybody receive that? They're afraid, they're threatened, they're challenged by that. How dare he turn this boat over? How dare he upset our life? You know. When in fact what's happening is he's writing the boat, but we experience it as an upset. So it's it's really this idea of Christianity is really a comfort comes by way of this upset. We just don't know it yet. When it's all upset in our life, I think we discover, you know, the truth that finally the vote has been righted. And what we had become so familiar with was in fact, you know, just the pilgrim state of this valley of tears. And now we have we've discovered our true home in the Father's house. Um and I think if we I I don't know, but just talking about my own personally, just about my own father for a minute here. Um my dad was a really strong man of prayer, and he um I never really understood this about him, but he really, from a very young age, he he had the sense of the need to kind of of life coming through dying, in a way that my mom didn't. Maybe that's just natural temperaments, you know. My mom always wanted to protect us and keep us from harm and anything. He was always inviting us to risk and adventure and uh and uh and going behind his stuff. I remember just simple things. Like I was a really shy, introverted kid, and I remember one time he's like, Well, you know, why don't you invite somebody over this weekend or why don't you go over to Joby's house or whatever it was? And I'm like, I I don't know. I don't know anybody. I don't I don't have any friends, you know, or whatever. And he's like, um, well, you don't have friends until you are one. It was just that kind of simple thing. A little light bulb went off in my head, but it was like, you know what, you you kind of have to move outside of yourself to find that thing. Um so he always was kind of that kind of example. Um, and maybe that's just the way dads are, I don't know. It's this way I experienced him. And but and also he in college, uh, he was an English major like me. I kind of followed in his footsteps in a lot of ways. But um, I remember he wrote he sent me this essay uh that he wrote when he was in college by it was an essay about a poem by Robert Frost called After Apple Picking. And um, really it's an essay, uh, a reflection on death. And um, so anyway, uh he was not a morbid person at all, but he really had the sense of we're on pilgrimage, we're not this isn't where we belong, this is just where we are for now. And um yeah, so I want to read this little essay I wrote about um about this movement from one place to the next. Um by the way, uh my dad, he died in 2004 after a long struggle with cancer. Like a year before he died, he sent me a copy of this essay he'd written in college. So that's what uh kind of caused me to reflect on this. Um I wrote this uh in 2005, the next year. Has a lot to say about the Hollywood culture too, where we're all focused on the there, this and now and what we consider life. I said, uh Today I turned 35. And while the Vatican may say that I still qualify as a youth for the next four years, save me a place in Cologne, Germany, for World Youth Day. 35 is a decisive point of entry into what many call middle age. If I were going to take cues from the culture, I should be surrounding myself with black balloons and all sorts of birthday cards evoking nostalgia andor grief. For all the talk about being forward-looking, we sure spend a lot of time hankering for the past. I spent quite a bit of time in recent months thinking about our passage through time, especially as both my father and the man I consider one of my primary spiritual fathers passed from this life to the next. Experiencing these deaths, and especially being present at the side of my father as he took his last breath, had an unexpected effect on me. Of course I expected the grief and the sense of loss, but what surprised me was the way that it stirred up a desire for the life to come. Enkindled, I'm sure, by the fact that both of these men had pilgrim hearts. They took great joy in this life, but they never forgot that they were still on the way. About a year ago, my dad sent me an essay he'd written in college about Robert Frost's after apple picking, which includes this passage. My long, two-pointed ladders sticking through a tree toward heaven still. And there's a barrel that I didn't fill beside it, and there may be two or three apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple picking now. Dad enclosed a short note with the essay, a very matter of fact, saying he found it among some old files he had been sorting through. He didn't really need to say anything more. The consummate teacher, he allowed his own peaceful, and I might hazard to say, joyful, entry into the next life, to interpret the poem for me. It wasn't at all that he didn't enjoy this life, but he had tasted something more, and he wasn't going to stick with the hors d'oeuvres when an entire banquet was being laid out before him. As C. S. Lewis once put it, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. Or in the words of St. John of the Cross, I will never lose myself for that which the senses can take in here, nor for all the mind can hold, no matter how lofty, nor for grace or beauty, but only for I don't know what, which is so gladly found. Or as T. S. Eliot wrote in his four quartets, in my beginning is my end. In succession, houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place is an open field or a factory or a bypass. Old men ought to be explorers. Here or there does not matter. We must be still and still moving into another intensity, for a further union, a deeper communion, through the dark cold and the empty desolation, the wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters of the petrol and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning. So I think my perspective on age is a little bit different this year. If someone approaches me today and says, So how does it feel to be a year older? I think I will respond. The real question is, how does it feel to be a year closer to the life to come? So, given that kind of context, I think that might be a good setup for taking a look at these last things, which are kind of like um I don't know, it's kind of like putting the four-year foyer if you're in the foyer of heaven, you know, what a joyful thing. It's time to check into the to the heavenly kingdom. So, um, let's take a look at the death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Um I don't know, DJ, have you guys had a chance to look at these uh sections in the catechism? It starts with 988. And I think we assigned from 988 all the way up to um 1050.
SPEAKER_05I don't think I'll be able to do that reading in the next few seconds.
SPEAKER_01That's fine. You know what I might do? I might choose a few paragraphs and you can just read them aloud and uh discuss.
SPEAKER_04Can you say them again? What is that?
SPEAKER_01Uh it starts with 988. I believe in the resurrection of the body. How much time do we have? I want to be careful about our time. I think we have till 11.
SPEAKER_03I can self-watch things too.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So what I think I'll do is I'll just read a couple paragraphs and then I might invite some of you to read some. We'll just stop and discuss as we go along, like we've done in class sometimes.
SPEAKER_041030 is what we have.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah, is that good? We're still good. Yeah, we'll see where we got. All right, I believe in the resurrection of the body. Paragraph 988. The Christian creed, the profession of our faith in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in God's creative, saving, and sanctifying action, culminates in the proclamation of the resurrection of the dead on the last day, and in life everlasting. We firmly believe, and hence we hope, that just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives forever, so after death the righteous will live forever with the risen Christ, and he will raise them up on the last day. Our resurrection, like his own, will be the work of the most holy trinity. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his spirit that dwells in you. The term flesh refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality. The resurrection of the flesh, the literal formulation of the Apostles' Creed, means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our mortal body will come to life again. Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of the Christian faith from its beginning. The confidence of Christians is the resurrection of the dead. Believing this, we live. How can you some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. But in fact, Christ has been raised from raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. The resurrection of the body. Okay, let's uh let's just continue uh plugging on here. Does anybody want to read um the next couple paragraphs on it? Let's see, uh maybe 992 through 94.
SPEAKER_04I'll read.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively. Hope in the bodily resurrection of the dead established itself as a consequence intrinsic to faith in God as creator of the whole man, soul and body. The creator of heaven and earth is also the one who faithfully maintains his covenant with Abraham and his posterity. It was in this double perspective that faith in the resurrection came to be expressed. In their trials, the Maccabean martyrs confess, The King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws. One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. The Pharisees and many of the Lord's contemporaries hoped for the resurrection. Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it, he answers, Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? Faith in the resurrection rests on faith in God, who is not God of the dead, but of the living. But there is more. Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person. I am the resurrection and the life. It is Jesus Himself who on the last day will raise us up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his body and drunk his blood. Already now in this present life, he gives a sign and a pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to life, announcing thereby his own resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this unique event as the sign of Jonah, the sign of the temple. He announces that he will be put to death, but rise thereafter on the third day.
SPEAKER_01Great. Thank you. Anyone, feel free to jump in. Anything there that strikes you or you want to comment on?
SPEAKER_04Why would they call it the sign of Jonah? Why would he call it the sign of Jonah?
SPEAKER_01That's an interesting question.
SPEAKER_04I've never thought of it that way. Matthew uh Matthew 12. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Does anybody have a title? I think about my scriptures here, which is silly. Oh, yeah, I do. Just take a quick look. It's a really good question. The sign of Jonah, isn't that the sign of contradiction, too, that they talk about sometimes? The sign of Jonah would be. Matthew 12 is he?
SPEAKER_04Matthew 12, 39.
SPEAKER_01Matthew 12. 39?
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the sign of Jonah. Let's just get the larger context here. Oh, yeah, they just accused Jesus of invoking Satan to heal, I think. Yeah. It's a bad day for Jesus. And then um And then uh he's talking about make it sound, uh make a tree sound and its fruit will be sound, make a tree rotten and its fruit will be rotten. Um you brood of vipers, how can your speech be good when you are evil? Yeah. Jesus is giving it to him. Um and then it stops, he stops and says, I tell you this, that for every unfounded word people will utter, they will answer on judgment day. Since it is your words, since it is by your words you will be justified, and by your words condemned. And then this is where he breaks into the sign of Jonah. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees spoke up. Master, they said, We should like to see a sign from you. He replied, It is an evil and unfaithful generation that asks for a sign. The only sign it will be given is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah remained in the belly of the sea monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. On judgment day, the men of Nineveh will appear against this generation, and they will be its condemnation. Because when Jonah preached, they repented. And look, there is something greater than Jonah here. So it seems to be that sign of the three days in the belly. Interesting, I've never tried to do it. It's like the triton correlated the two. It's beautiful, huh?
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I never made that association if that's what the sign of Jonah meant.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Huh. So how did they mention here? The unique event. Okay. The sign of the temple. Destroy this temple and I'll raise it up. Wow. Very cool. And they they would have known the story of Jonah, so to them it would, you know, it would have really resonated.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay, somebody else want to read um the next two paragraphs. 95, 96.
SPEAKER_05I can read them. To be a witness to Christ is to be a witness to his resurrection. To have eaten and drunk of him after he rose from the dead. Encounters with the risen Christ characterize the Christian hope of resurrection. We shall rise like Christ, with him and through him. From the beginning, Christian faith and the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition. On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body. It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?
SPEAKER_01This is going to be good. Just one comment on 95. Interesting how how Eucharistic the sense of being a witness is. To be a witness to Christ is to have eaten and drunk with him after he rose from the dead. It's like we're witnesses, but we're and the and the whole word mass, the word mass is taken from the very end of the liturgy where the priest would say in Latin, meet Misa est, which means go forth. So the mass is ascending forth. You're fed and you're nourished, and then you're ready to go out to be mission, missionary. Um so that kind of makes sense. You're fed for for the sake of mission. Okay, now we're gonna get into good stuff about the body, which I think is true. It's I think we still have this very dualistic view where the body is the thing we're gonna leave behind and we're gonna be purely spirit, you know, in heaven. But the church has always held, you know, our body we get our bodies back. Uh somebody want to read um this next section? I think maybe let's do let's do um the first two of them. 979.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_07Okay. What is rising? In death, the separation of the soul from the body. The human body decays, and the soul goes to meet God while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God in his almighty power will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls through the power of Jesus' resurrection. Who will rise? All the dead will rise, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
SPEAKER_01Actually, the Catholic sensibility about the body is really um probably closer to Judaism than anything else. Um the Jewish people, the Hebrew people, have this real sense that your life is your body, and that um when the body dies, the life is over, you know. And so the resurrection of the dead is this great uh mystery of you know um being resurrected. And for them it would be if they were to believe in an afterlife, that's almost just a given. Of course, you have your body, because your body's part of who you are. It's not I have a body or I own a body. I am a body. I think Barbara was talking about that yesterday, I think, a little bit too. That's really what Jean-Paul II is so focused on that in his theology of the body, it's like it's it's it's real an integral part of the person. It's it's the way that we are a sacrament of an image of God. We we communicate with through our bodies.
SPEAKER_02So please. Um okay, so we die. Uh-huh. Tell it to me like I'm two years old.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well what do you think?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so we come to um so um okay, so we die, uh-huh, and then at some point we so our spirit exists with God. My soul. Um, and then at some point that something's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, and and and I don't want to be simplistic about this, because it the there's a there's a here's a big problem for us is that we experience things in time. Where God is outside time. He's right. Time is a construct for him. I mean, it's just everything is an eternal present to him. Right. So you could almost say that the moment the soul dies, they're with him, you know, in a sense, with the body. We experience this kind of weird sense of delay, you know, because with those of us who are left behind, you know, there's that soul, that body that has died and included decaying. Um we have not seen that body rise from the dead. But to God that's already happened. It's it's I I don't know if I've made it more or less clear by saying that, but it's a mystery. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But like all of our all of our brothers and sisters who have who have passed on already, they're not, they don't have their bodies yet. And they won't. Would it be true to say that they're not going to experience the the fullness of heaven until their body has united with their soul?
SPEAKER_01Tell you what, I think uh maybe I'm doing these paragraphs too slowly because we are gonna talk about there's two judgments. There's the particular judgment, and then there's the universal judgment at the end of time, the last judgment. So it's actually two kind of events. And uh I'm pretty sure we're gonna cover those paragraphs, so we should probably just, yeah, let's hold that question and see if we get it answered here by by uh our reading. Cool. Uh who wants to read uh the rest of this section? 2001. Love it. Uh okay, so how? Christ is raised with his own body. See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. But he did not return to an earthly life. So in him all of them will rise again with their own bodies, which they now bear. But Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body into a spiritual body. But someone will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish man, what you sow, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not only the body, is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. The dead will be raised imperishable. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. Ah, that's St. Paul. This how exceeds our imagination and understanding. It is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies. Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God's blessing has been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly, so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection. When? Definitively at the last day, at the end of the world. Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ's parocia. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. I love that Eucharist stuff. That's very cool. It's a kind of knowing, it's just not the kind of knowing that we're used to. We always think of scientific knowing, like show me the footage on CNN. It's not that kind of knowing.
SPEAKER_02Show me that more like love or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, love is the kind of knowledge. Exactly. It's like the highest form of knowledge. Okay. Um who wants to do the risen with Christ paragraphs? Three of them.
SPEAKER_03I can do it.
SPEAKER_02Let's do what you want to do with I've had like contact problems this time. Oh, yeah.
unknownThat's cool.
SPEAKER_04Risen with Christ. Um, how many one in 1002 to the next three paragraphs? Christ will raise us up on the last day, but it is also true that in a certain way we have already risen with Christ. For by virtue of the Holy Spirit, Christian life is already now on earth a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. And you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. United with Christ by baptism, believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains hidden with Christ in God. The Father has already raised us up with him, and made us sit and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Nourished with his body in the Eucharist, we already belong to the body of Christ. When we rise on the last day, we also will appear with him in glory. In expectation of that day, the believer's body and soul already participate in the dignity of belonging to Christ. This dignity entails the demand that he should treat with respect his own body, but also the body of every other person, especially the suffering. The body is meant for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? You are not your you are not your own, so glorify God in your body.
SPEAKER_01You could give you could do a whole session just on that last paragraph. This is so counterintuitive and so counter-cultural that we we revere the body with that kind of reverence. I mean, this is really what people think the church is upset about pornography because we're prudish. That's not it at all. Um John Paul has got this great quote. Um he says, you know, the problem with pornography is not that it reveals too much, uh, but that it reveals too little. It reveals the body without revealing the person. Um and that's the problem, is you you get this, you see a body and it's it's just not, you don't understand the who of that body. It's just the what. And when you just look at the what, you're tempted to do things like, you know, uh stem cell research. You're tempted to do all kinds of invasive things. You're tempted to mutilate it, you're tempted to put it to rest when suffering comes in, you're tempted to abort it before it comes into the world. Um it's really it's really hard to really grasp the church's teaching on human life unless you have this vision of the glory of the body, what it's called to. It's really rich. Okay, now we've talked about resurrection. It's beautiful because look at the catechism. It doesn't start by talking about death, really, so much, does it? Not so much. It sort of puts it in the context of the resurrection, and now we're gonna find out what it means to die in Christ. All right, um, dying in Christ Jesus. Who wants to read? No, no, that's fine. Go ahead. Oh no, please, please.
SPEAKER_05We're here at Christ. Thousand five? Yeah. Yep. Yep, thousand five. To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ. We must be away from the body and at home with the Lord. In that departure, which is death, the soul is separated from the body. It will be reunited with the body on the day of resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_01Okay. There's where that whole thing I was trying to get at in the introduction. It's it's you read that paragraph and you're like, I don't know anything about that little in-between thing. You know, that's it's like it's like learning to walk. You know, you've got the infant who's in his mother's arms, and he's toddler, he's about to take his first steps. And I think there's a lot that you can say about this. It's like, okay, there's a mother holding the toddler, the dad's across the living room, you know, and the toddler's about to start walking. And the mom's role is kind of supporting that child from behind, but the father's out on the other side of the room with his arms open. The father's not going to run across the room and grab his arms because then he's not going to learn to walk. He's going to let that toddler take a couple steps, fall, and then get up again, and eventually he's going to learn. But that it's kind of this thing that we have to learn, and what John of the Cross and all the mystics are getting at with our the dying to ourselves is we have to we have to experience this death in order to get to the father's house. But there's a little this in-between time which we're not really comfortable with. Um anybody else want to comment on on anything we read here? There'll be a lot more coming. Anybody want to read uh the death paragraphs? Sure. Okay. Uh which numbers for the number.
SPEAKER_07Why don't we do through all nine? Okay. It is in regard to death that man's condition is most shrouded in doubt. In a sense, bodily death is natural, but for faith it is in fact the wages of sin. For those who die in Christ's grace, it is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his resurrection. Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old, and as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives. Remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment. Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the Spirit returns to God who gave it. Death is a consequence of sin. The Church's Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man's sin. Even though man's nature is mortal, God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator, and entered the world as a consequence of sin. Bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned is thus the last enemy of man left to be conquered. Death is transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also himself suffered the death that is part of the human condition. Yet, despite his anguish as he faced death, he accepted it in an act of complete and free submission to his father's will. The obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death into a blessing.
SPEAKER_01So in a sense, you know, our aversion to death is is right. You know, it's we should be, you know, it's not our natural state. We weren't created to die. It's a reality that came into life through sin. So in that sense, you know, I don't want to say that, you know, we should have a natural liking for death. I think we should have an aversion for it. But I think we also need to know that it's a path it's a path by which you know we're transformed. God has turned this ugly, evil, horrible thing into something beautiful. I like what it says about urgency in 1007. Our lives are measured by time. Death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives. Remembering our mortality helps us realize we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment. Uh the Carthusian monks, started by St. Bruno in like the 12th century, uh, they lived a contemplative life. Um, when I went to Steubenville, we had a semester abroad in Austria, and it was in a Carthusian monastery outside of Vienna called the Karthusa. Because it's a Carthusian house. And um their apostate was making beer. But they they lived a contemplative life, very secluded monastic life. And uh they greet each other in the hall. The only thing that they said to each other was um, I think it's I don't know Latin. There's something called Momenta Mori. Uh brother, remember your death. It sounds morbid, but it's not at all that. It's it's just that, you know, okay, this life today's given to you. What are you gonna do about it? Because it could be your last. You know. So it lends urgency to our life. We're not just yawning and watching reruns of Seinfeld and just like, what am I gonna do tomorrow?
SPEAKER_07Criticize everything the other.
SPEAKER_01I touched her, I touched the thing that she's gonna have to give up before she gets the fun done. But the thing is, about anything that we have to give up, it's not that we have to give up, it's not that they're bad things. We get it back in having them kind of figured. And this is another image that I love from kind of from St. John of the Cross to Carmelite Spirituality, is um this whole idea of um we everything good is meant for us. God wants everything good for us, but the fact is that we're grasping after it because we don't trust, because of the original sin, our lack of trust in the Father. We're always grabbing things on our own time and on our own terms. And it's like a kid who's just learning how to eat. And I don't know if you've seen this, but I've seen this in my nephews and nieces. You know, they're just learning to eat, and mom's got a spoon with uh whatever, the mashed puree bananas or whatever on it. And uh the kid sitting there in the high chair, grabbing at the spoon, because they want to feed themselves. The problem is when they try to grab the spoon, the food goes everywhere, and none of it gets in their mouth. They don't know how to get it there. They want it really badly, but you know, it's like shh up in there for. So what they need to do is stop grabbing the spoon. Stop grabbing the spoon, and then suddenly the parent is able to get the food right into their mouth. But it doesn't happen until they stop grasping. So that's kind of the kind of the principle of the spiritual life, why there's this sense of you know, detachment from everything and say, it's gonna come back to me transfigured. As soon as I offer it back to God, whatever it is I most want that He doesn't seem to be giving me, um, as soon as I can offer that back and say, I will receive it on your terms when you want it for me, because you know best when I need it and how I need it. Um it's amazing how quickly, as soon as you give something up in that way, you receive it back in a much fuller and more beautiful way than you had it when you were grabbing it. So I think that's kind of what they're getting at here. Any other thoughts on this death section?
SPEAKER_00Do you have an example of that?
SPEAKER_01Sure, let me think of a couple. Um I remember when I was in college, uh, I lived on campus, but one summer I had to stay and do summer school, and I didn't have a place to live. And I was, you know, 21 at the time. I'd never lived away from home, I've never had my own apartment, whatever. I was freaked out. Like every morning I'd wake up and I'd be anxious and I'd be going and and grabbing the newspaper and trying to figure out where I was gonna live, and I was doing a terrible job because I was nervous and anxious and freaked out. So I wasn't making good decisions, and I I thought, well, you know, this is gonna take weeks. I've just got to spend all my time for three weeks doing this. I was, yeah. I wasn't in a good way. But I was freaked out, and I wasn't really asking God, you know, to help in this process, you know. Not aware that, you know, I he understands that I'm not a mature adult, that I need help, that I I don't know what I'm doing. So um I remember clearly this one day I had to go up to the chapel, and I just I was so worn out I couldn't figure it out. For the life of me, I'd already moved back to Steubenville for the summer, but I still didn't have a place to live. So I remember going up to the Eucharistic chapel and and just spending an hour with the Lord and just saying, listen, I I I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. And um it's like within a day I had a perfect place to live with the great landlord, close to walking distance, because I didn't have a car, walking distance to school and stuff. And it was just a small thing, but it was just sort of like, oh, you know, if I'd asked you first, I could have saved myself a lot of travail. You know, I I'm not my own provider, I'm not my own father. Um I have a father. So, you know, it's different. Uh far better than I could have arranged, even if I'd spent all night for three weeks looking for a place. So, um yeah, and it's just been a pattern I've just noticed when I'm anxious or sad. Sadness. Sadness is a great sign in the spiritual life that there's something, because sadness isn't from the Holy Spirit. Sadness, a great sign in my life that there's something that I'm not letting go of that's keeping me back. Um, something that I'm clinging to that's less than God. Um as soon as I can just release that, even if it's just an act of the will, I don't have to feel detached from something. Feelings come and go, and those are whatever. If I can just let go and trust and just say, okay, I really am having a hard time, but I need to let go of this. Um it's amazing what God can do. Another quick example is um I just left my job at KB Home where I'd been in corporate America for three years. And um I really got the job through God's providence, I believe, and set me up for a lot of things I'm about to do. But while I was there, I think I kind of lost sight of that and I got very comfortable. I worked really hard, I had a good job, good teammates. I was stressed out a lot, it was a difficult, stressful job, but I was happy and and I don't it's amazing how quickly I get comfortable, even in stressful work. It's like, this is familiar to me. I could do this for a long time because frankly I don't know what else I'd be doing. So, um, but I got a sense like last fall, a real sense that I'd I just I was spent. I couldn't stay there very much longer. And I made a promise to myself last September, I'm gonna be starting to look for a new job by next May. And um I didn't know exactly what that was gonna look like, but I I just at a certain point I just surrendered it to God and said, okay, I don't know what you have in mind, but I need out. So um sure enough, over Christmas break, I got a call out of the blue from my boss back in Minnesota saying, We'd love you to come back and redevelop the website you built for us five years ago. And it's like a four-month contract position, it'd be a perfect transition for me out of my current job. I was like, wow, I couldn't apply in something that perfect, you know. Um God had set up something that was much better than I could have anticipated. And I was still anxious a little bit because they didn't hadn't signed a contract to redevelop this site, and I wasn't, they weren't, they hadn't promised me the job yet. But I went back with that, and that was just it seems like God would give me just enough knowledge, and then I had to make a step out in faith. So I told my boss, my current boss, that I was leaving. Um, and I was a little freaked out that day. But that night I went home, and by the time I got home, I had three job offers between my email and my voicemail. I had not been soliciting any work yet, I hadn't told anybody. And it's like, okay, alright, I trust you now. It's those sort of things. Um those are just my experience. I'm not saying that this is absolutely what everybody's gonna experience, but it's like, hmm, it seems to be true. As soon as I can let go, um, God's free to lead me. But uh, yeah. Back to death. I'm gonna I'm gonna start selecting paragraphs because I weren't. I really encourage you to read all these paragraphs, but I want to hit a little bit of each one of these topics. Um, how about from death here? How about 1011? We picked that one as the rest of these about death. Anybody want to read that one?
SPEAKER_05You're a good reader. You are, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you're right. It's only because George is giving me the glare of In death, God calls man to himself. Therefore, the Christian can experience a desire for death, like St. Paul's. My desire is to depart and be with Christ. He can transform his own death into an act of obedience and love towards the Father after the example of Christ. My earthly desire has been crucified. There is living water in me, water that murmurs and saith and says within me, Come to the Father. I want to see God, and in order to see him, I must die. I am not dying, I am entering life.
SPEAKER_01I love that. It's clearly we're not listening to somebody who's who's in some kind of painful resignation here. Or there's this boldness and this sense of anticipation and joy here. You know? It's not like, oh well, God has caused me to die. It says it's gonna do something great, but whatever. It's it's really this anticipation, this sense of uh hope. Looking forward. And it takes a long I think it takes a long time to get to that disposition, but it's we're called to it and it's possible. The saints show us it is. Um okay, so there's uh all I'm gonna say about death here so much. Let's go into this next section. Um the particular judgment starts on 1021. I'll read these two paragraphs here. The particular judgment. Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifest in Christ. The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. The parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts, speak of a final destiny of the soul, a destiny which can be different for some and for others. Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ. Either entrance into the blessedness of heaven through a purification, or immediately, or immediate and everlasting damnation. And there's a quote, beautiful quote here from John of the Cross. At the evening of life, we will be judged on our love. So we're not talking about a laundry list of did you do this, did you not do that? It's like, what is the condition of your heart at that moment? And not that your acts are unimportant, your acts reveal and confirm your heart. But at the end of life, it's not this laundry list of, oops, you missed that one. At the evening of life, we will be judged on our love. Also, um, notice that this moment this particular judgment is the dividing moment. It's really the moment of truth, you know. It's it's heaven or hell. And it may be by way heaven by way of purgatory, which is what they're talking about with that purification. But per pure purgatory is not bad news. It's it's good news. Uh, because nobody goes back from purgatory. Purgatory is always the the fore chamber of heaven. Um it's a place of mercy and and preparation. But uh so the particular judgment is really where the rubber hits the road. Um heaven. Who wants to read? Let me see which paragraph would be best for us on heaven. Who would like to read this? 1024, 1025, maybe.
SPEAKER_07With the most holy trinity. This communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels, and all the blessed is called heaven. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme definitive happiness. To live in heaven is to be with Christ. The elect live in Christ, but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name. For life is to be with Christ, where Christ is, there is life, there is the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01St. Ambrose was uh bishop, and he was also the teacher of St. Augustine. He's the mentor.
SPEAKER_02Is he a doctor?
SPEAKER_01Yes. I think he well, I hold it. I'm not sure about that actually. St.
SPEAKER_04Ambrose?
SPEAKER_01Is he a doctor?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm pretty sure he is.
SPEAKER_01Alright. I wasn't sure about that.
SPEAKER_04Pretty sure. Pretty sure.
SPEAKER_01If he's not, he was mentored a doctor.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm I'm almost certain that he is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think he is too, actually. Yeah. Um We had that whole class, I think we had a whole class. When we started talking about the moral life, remember the class we had on life in Christ. Um this paragraph kind of is here's kind of the sum up of that. Heaven, the ultimate end and fulfillment of our deepest human lyings. It's not just the place that God likes us to be, it's it's what we most desire. It's it's built into us, it's what we're called to. Every human being is called to be attitude.
SPEAKER_07Um I was just remembering a um thing in Secret of Mercy where um Sheldon Bernacken was grieving the loss of Davy and um he uh was trying to understand the concept of etern eternity and um kind of coming to the end of his grieving process, um he realized that perhaps one way to describe what eternity might be, because he was he was trying to find how do you describe you knowing people or what you do in in someplace where you you're not bound by time. Because all the all the words he could think of is, you know, we'll go and do this, and uh and uh he realized um it might be the the same eternity might be the same uh or I guess you could say our life right now is like reading um brothers Karamatsov, or I'm trying to remember what book he cited specifically as like a Dickens book, maybe. And um you know that one of those characters in the story from in each stage of their life, yeah. As it's unfolding. And then when you finish the book, you close it and you know them all at once, all those moments at once. It's beautiful. And um I said that might be one way to describe eternity. Yeah. Yeah, because it's not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and it's uh there's that sense um of of of heaven being not just union with Christ, but union with everyone, united within this whole communion of saints. It's a little hard for us to unpack that. It's like how do we experience intimacy with more than one person at one time? But in heaven, it'll be, I don't know, it's like a single face, you know, a thousand instances of a single face. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05It's interesting because I think currently in society, the closest you get to something like that and the popularity of these big sporting rooms is that that sense of you're all rooting for this team, and now there's two teams. That's the closest we get to you know to being single-minded and in, you know, and rooting in one direction.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And it's beautiful that it seems to be hardwired into our nature because that really gives you a chance to, you know, reach people who, you know, don't think about it in religious or terms. It's you know, it's in every human heart. It's designed for union and communion. Okay, so that's the we talked about the particular judgment a little bit of heaven. How about purgatory round it out for us, I think, here. Oh, purgatory in the last judgment. Um Purgatory. This one's important enough, I think I'll read the whole section. The final purification, or purgatory. All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation. But after death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on purgatory, especially at the councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire. As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that before the final judgment there is a purifying fire. He who is true says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come. This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in sacred scripture. Therefore, Judas Macabaeus made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin. From the beginning, the church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers and suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that thus purified they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead. Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them. St. John for assistance. Okay, that's kind of a biggie for those of you who are coming from a Protestant background. Is there anything you guys want to talk about or unpack there? Old idea of purgatory? I know we did spend some time talking about indulgences when it came up before.
SPEAKER_07With purgatory. Since we're doing this uh class where we actually get to read literature to understand theology, which is great. Um what what uh sort of picture does Dante have not read how accurate is.
SPEAKER_01It's a good question. I have not read the second book of Divine Comedy, so I can't tell you from first.
SPEAKER_04It's on my list to read. It's hypothetically I haven't read it yet.
SPEAKER_01Um I think from everything I've heard about the Divine Comedy, it's a beautiful meditation. It's theologically problematic in some ways, but it's it's it's got some beautiful points to it. I mean, the church has never spelled out the things that he's documented about hell, for instance. Um like the number of people there. Church hasn't as completely agnostic as to who is in hell. Um it believes in the it knows the place of it, but it teaches us to pray for the salvation of everybody. Not and that doesn't that doesn't discount the fact of its existence, but it doesn't even declare Judas to be in hell. Saints very positive in that regard. This beautiful thing of canonizing saints, but we don't, you know, immortalize people in hell like that person. We don't have process of damnation until we have a canonization.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Which is really important, really, when you think about it, because when you think of the case of homosexuality, for instance, people who are who are actively living that life, yeah, you know, it's wrong for us to say, Oh, you're going to hell because we don't know that. We don't know we don't know what's going on in their soul, we don't know what God is seeing and what we're not.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, a couple weeks ago when we talked about um double effects, and some of that one of the things we talked about was presumption. That whole thing the church is very careful not to engage in, but we're doing it all the time. Especially in Hollywood, and when we regard their celebrities, like, oh, they meant this or they intended that. It's like, no, you don't know. Yeah, you are not inside that person's soul. And to declare our net judgment, which is reserved for God, it's a real dangerous place to be.
SPEAKER_05We also don't know God's mercy. No, do we ever not know that? We don't. I mean for all we know at the last moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I mean we just don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a moment between soul and God. We yeah. Yeah. Um, hell. This should be fun. Who wants to read about hell?
SPEAKER_07Whoever reads about it needs to like be just environment brimstones?
SPEAKER_01Like Deanna, give us the Jonathan Edwards. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_03Hell. We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him. Against our neighbor or against ourselves. He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Alright, I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_01That's enough.
SPEAKER_04Um that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell.
SPEAKER_01Oh, we should stop there. There's a lot here. Um, you know, the point is to be united with God. But God's a gentleman, he's not going to force himself on us. He's looking for our free response. I think Barbara brought that up in the talk on suffering yesterday. It was when Karen Hall was in her class, or Barbara Hall was in her class. And um, something like, you know, why did God show up two thousand years ago and he hasn't returned again yet? Well, God was completely ready. He had his bags packed. We were uh we're the ones causing the delay. We're just not ready to receive him. So it's it's that whole thing. It's like God's just waiting for our free response. And and all he wants is a first sign of it. If you look at the story of the prodigal son, um, when the son decides that he's tired of eating the slop of pigs, he he comes back and in his mind, on the way back, he's rehearsing what he's gonna say, how he's gonna apologize, and express his sorrow to his father. Well, his father doesn't even know what he's going to say. He just sees his son in the distance. And it says, While he was a long way off, his father saw him and ran to him. So it's that whole sense of, you know, God is so eager that we just need to be eager like he is.
SPEAKER_04And that it's not God who ultimately, I mean, he he allows us to go to hell, but it's it's we our it's our souls, it's it's we as our person who decide.
SPEAKER_01That's the last line is so powerful. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed. So all this ranting and raving about I hate Catholicism because it's a religion where God condemns me to hell. Nope, nope, you you can take care of that yourself. Yeah, nobody else sends you there.
SPEAKER_04Right. It's a true hatred of God, hatred of his mercy, hatred of his love, yeah, and just a a belief that I'm so sinful that there is no place for me but that.
SPEAKER_01Has anybody read um the play by Sartre, uh, No Exit? It's this story about the afterlife, and it's it's this kind of strange play all set in one room, and the four people in that room have we find out that that room is hell. Um, and basically what hell is, is a group dynamic. They all are getting on each other's nerves. The thing that really irritates this person, and the thing that irritates that person, they're like perfectly complemented to piss each other off all day long. And so uh but hell is is this group dynamic, and I think it's like an anti-trinity, you know. It's rather than the self-giving, it's this um the self-loathing and the loathing of the other, and you you're giving that back and forth to each other all all day long. Um it's also, I think C. S. Lewis's vision of hell is pretty brilliant. Somewhere he's kind of spelled it out like hell is not a place, and the church has actually come up pretty strongly on this too. Um it's a it's a it's a not a situation, it's an experience, it's a condition. And I think the idea is that it's it's a the afterlife is the fire of God's love. And for those of them that have been opening themselves up and purifying them to receive this love, it's heaven. For those that are, you know, have some chaff and stuff to be burned away, that same fire is purgatory. But for the soul who's just decided they don't want anything of it, that hell is is a charring, burning experience. You can't get away from it. You can't escape from love. Um, and that's that's a suffering for those who have chosen it. Uh so that's gonna lose suspicion. It's it's uh we're all in the same place, we just experience it differently. Um, let's continue.
SPEAKER_04Jesus often speaks of Gehenna, of the unquenchable fire reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he will send his angels, and they will gather all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire, and that he will pronounce the condemnation, Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire. The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death, the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, eternal fire. The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. The affirmations of sacred scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly, so that when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may enter we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast, and be numbered among the blessed, not and not like the wicked and slothful servants he ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness for men will weep and gnash their teeth. God predestines no one to go to hell. For this a willful turning away from God, a mortal sin is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the church implores the mercy of God, who does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Father, accept this offering from your holy family, grant us your peace in this life, save us from final damnation, and count us among those you have chosen.
SPEAKER_01That sounds right from the Eucharistic prayer, isn't it? The first, the most ancient of the four Eucharistic prayers that we pray. It goes back to uh third century. Uh St. Apollotus wrote it, I think. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it's um it's really interesting and just important to notice that it's a it's a percentage a persistence in the mortal sin. It's not just a it's not just committing a mortal sin and then dying. It's it's like you actually are are persisting in that mortal sin. Yeah. Saying, no, I want to continue doing this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And in moral theology, um, the Holy Father Jacob John Paul II came up with an insight called Um The Splendor of Truth, coming out to try and clarify some things about moral theology. And one of the popular theories that's risen up in the last century or so is this idea of um fundamental option, where you have a fundamental option of a disposition either toward heaven or hell, and that's what matters. Particular acts don't matter. Um, and that's in some circles that was leading to the fact, you know, of throwing out the concept of mortal sin. It's like, I can't sin. One act could not lead me to hell. Okay. Even if it's of a grave matter. Um, but this thing, this my I can do this bad act, but my fundamental disposition is toward God. And the church is it it treads this fine line, it's saying there is something called mortal sin that can push you, it can fundamentally change your disposition. That's what the church would say. It's yeah, fundamental option, there's truth to it, this persistence thing that was mentioned here. But um individual acts can change that disposition. And that's why we have confession. It's because when when we fall out of grace, our disposition has changed, so we've lost the life of grace. Um but but yeah, it's it's not a it's not this thing. It's it's at the end what matters is our is uh what how did it say it here? Persistence in sin to the end. So there's lots of room for the mercy of God. You know, we have to implore that. We hear a lot of wisdom there. The church implores the mercy of God, who does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. There's a if you're ever looking for an examination of conscience, there's a great one. Like, take a look, put put before the eyes of your mind all the people that have pissed you off, your enemies, the people that are just hard to deal with. And what's your attitude toward them? Are you praying for them? Are you imploring God's mercy for them? Or are you wanting God to stick it to them? And I think in Hollywood it there's some people that, you know, are hard to live with. Um I think that that that needs to be one of our goals uh as apostles in Hollywood is to pray for those who have nobody to pray for them and to really desire this for them, you know.
SPEAKER_04I have to say, when I moved here, I that was one of the most shocking things was going to mass and not hearing in any of the ten the intentions of the mass for people in Hollywood. Like they live in Los Angeles, that like this the the city of affecting the entire world, and these churches are not even in their intentions praying for Hollywood and people working here. It's it's it's I I just found it so shocking.
SPEAKER_01I without being too presumptuous, I think part of the problem is that in certain asp elements of the church, we have come to worship the same things that Hollywood does, so we don't really see the problem in what they're pursuing. It's like, no, there's a holy God that deserves our worship. Um, don't forget that. This is not the end. We've got to drop our idols here.
SPEAKER_05But I think there's also a presumption that Hollywood's not salvageable.
SPEAKER_01Right, that it's exactly well, that's a very Calvinist view. It's like, it's it's it's beyond repair.
SPEAKER_05Let's not even taint ourselves by mentioning.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, there's that too.
SPEAKER_02Well, I was in um Mechigori, you know, when I went there and um and I was first day we were sitting eating breakfast and everyone was kind of saying their hellos and where they were from, and and I said, Yeah, I live in Los Angeles, and it's just place just looked quiet. They looked at me, they're like, that place is like southern Gomorrah. I mean, these people, I thought I was gonna get like killed. And I'm like, what do you mean? And I'm like, they're like, that place needs to like go down the ocean in an earthquake, and they were all like, yep. And I was just like, I was just like spooky, isn't it? I was like, oh my gosh, and you know, and I was so scared because I wasn't Catholic at the time. And I went there and and I was just like, what did I do? You know, but it was the grace of God in that I you know had my conversion there. But it I was really my first introduction to Catholic Catholicism was a group of people who were like looking at me and and saying that we all need to be killed. It was just crazy. And you know, this is Vegikori.
SPEAKER_05It was just like Well, they say the best thing about Catholicism is Catholics. The worst thing about Catholicism is Catholics.
SPEAKER_02The Lord said there's only one thing she fears in this world, and that is bad Catholics. You know?
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think heaven must be there must be at the entrance to heaven, I imagine, is these like stacks of applications to be arbiters of God's justice. It's like rejected. A lot of people are applying. I know exactly who should go to hell. Like, whoa, all right. Hope that works out for you.
SPEAKER_05But I think that's what's almost the challenge of Hollywood, and I'm an outsider. Um, but the opportun the beauty of it is that within Hollywood lies such grace. Yeah. Because of, you know, this is a community that is brought to its knees regularly. I mean, just the nature of your business, yeah, the exposition of your gifts, your talents, your arts is such a nakedness. Yes. And so you are unfortunately very much abused as well. Yeah, you're very vulnerable. Therein lies the grace of great grace, yeah. Great grace.
SPEAKER_01And and and I think what people also overlook, you know, all of the I don't think you there's very few artists I think say are are not striving to do something good and beautiful for the world. And it's like, how can you not want to encourage that? You know? People complain about the selfishness or narcissism or whatever, but I think we've lost the sense of being courageous enough to want to change the world, yeah, to be personal heroes.
SPEAKER_04Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_07I've been kind of disturbed working on some behind the scenes stuff. Just how many of the writers um of movies coming out right now are like message for the audience? Because the interviewer will usually ask, you know, so what do you want audiences to leave with? Yeah, I I that's not my place.
SPEAKER_03The Colin Brothers though had said that about control.
SPEAKER_01See, that just portrays it. It's it's a sad because you just wonder what's behind that, what what kind of human experience is behind that. And to what they've suffered, maybe, you know.
SPEAKER_05Well, the fact that they've dumbed down, again, as an outsider their acceptance speech of the Oscar saying, well, it's the same thing as what we were doing when we were little kids, you know, in the you know, in the play box. It's like, no, it isn't. You have a whole years of experience that have led you to this. That that you you you know, you cannot equate. I mean, at its Genesis, there was this experience as a child of having cameras and going to the airport with his briefcase, okay, fine. But you cannot negate, you know, 30 years of experience, of human experience, that has led you to this. Yeah. I mean, what does it say to the rest of us watching that then fine, then I'll get an apple and go out there and just pull some, you know, pop something out with my kid. Right. I mean, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_02Right. There there is um a Catholic filmmaker that, and you'll be surprised when I mention the person's name, but I was watching Larry King. And this cat this filmmaker was on Larry King, and he asked him, Well, what inspires you to make your films like this? And he goes, My Catholic faith. I'm a former seminary and I go to Mass every Sunday. This filmmaker is Michael Moore.
SPEAKER_03You're kidding me.
SPEAKER_02And this was two weeks ago, and I was videotaping it, and I had it, and I just remember thinking, you know what? Like, this is amazing because so many of the people that that are fans of his work who follow him are the secular, the agnostic. But right there, I mean, it was like a Trojan horse. Literally, I mean, I'm sure the people who are watching his show who really followed Michael Moore, who were like fans, at that moment were probably like going, Oh my gosh. Like they were shaken. I mean, I really got, you know, I mean, I would just imagine that. Yeah. And I was like, that's amazing. And this guy's, I mean, that that's what he said, period. The reason I make the films that I do is because of my faith, of my Catholic faith. As a former seminarian, this is this is what I have to do.
SPEAKER_00It's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's yeah, he has a mi a certain kind of missionary zeal for his work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it was just amazing. I'll show it to you. I mean, if I didn't know, I'd be interested in it. It was amazing. And there was no he didn't water it down. That was it. That was it. It wasn't like any excuses, it was just period. Yeah. You know, and it was just like, this is amazing. But it's that's the beauty and the complexity of how the Lord reveals himself. Exactly.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Well, alrighty then.
SPEAKER_00That's true.
SPEAKER_05But that is beautiful. There's a quotation I'll look at my last comment. Martha Graham said, an interviewer asked her, What did your dance performance, what did that mean? You know, what what were you trying to say? And she said, if I could explain it, I wouldn't have have to dance it.
SPEAKER_01That's great. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_05That gave me such insight to the artists.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_05Because they can't necessarily, I mean, how they explain it is through film, it's through painting, it's through, you know, art dance, but that's how they're experiencing how they're presenting the gift or you know, the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm gonna try and find one good paragraph here about the last judgment to look at. How about 10? I'll read 1040. It's just one part element of this, but uh, the last judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour. Only He determines the moment of its coming. Then, through His Son Jesus Christ, he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation, and understand the marvelous ways by which his providence led everything toward its final end. The last judgment will reveal that God's justice triumphs over all injustices committed by his creatures, and that God's love is stronger than death. We'll know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation. Yeah, that's um it's better than college education, I think. It's amazing. Okay, so I I want to just wrap up with a couple of practical stuff if you want to just write these questions down and you can meditate on them on your own time today or whenever you have time. I think it's kind of a good annual kind of evaluation of make during holy week. But it's a reflection on the last things, and I wish I had the book. Um I've kind of based this on um Peter Kraft. He's written a book called Fundamentals of the Faith, and he has a chapter on each one of these last four things. And I think he might even have another book on this title, but Fundamentals of the Faith by Peter Kraft is kind of the inspiration for these questions. Uh the first question is about death. The question is, what death am I facing? Whether little or large? And how can I meet it with Christ? What death am I facing? Little or large? And how can I meet it with Christ? That might be fun to revisit that question in a year and say, you know, has there been any resurrection in this area or not? So has everybody got that one? What death am I facing? How can I meet it with Christ? The second question has to do with judgment. An experience of judgment is the experience of being laid bare. Everything is revealed. Uh so the question is, what most needs to be laid bare in me? Or seen through the eyes of justice? That's what justice does. It sees everything. What most needs to be laid bare in me? Or seen through the eyes of justice. Or that is seen through the eyes of justice. That's really what we mean by everything laid bare. It's not it's not a derogatory thing, it's simply seeing everything as it truly is. Um that's going to be the experience of the end, is we'll see all of our deeds and all of their import. Um and then and really asking that question for the uh for the sake of living more justly now. And also So that Christ can touch and heal it. Okay, so the big question is what most needs to be laid bare in me for the sake of living more justly now, and so that Christ can touch and heal it. Christ is the divine physician, but unless we show him our wounds, it's not that he doesn't know the wounds are there, but he needs us to to relax enough so that he can actually tend to them. Okay, the third one has to do with heaven. Um the question is, what are my false heavens? Or what is my counterfeit paradise? Maybe I have several. Maybe it's the weekend, maybe it's my job, maybe it's um our relationship. What are those things that are not paradise that I am happy to stop along the way because I found this counterfeit? So, what are my false heavens? What keeps me from remembering that I this is not a place of rest? I mean, the Sabbath is, but other than that, we're s we're on pilgrimage. Um what will I do to keep a sense of pilgrimage alive? What will I do to keep a sense of pilgrimage alive? What will I do to keep my heart alive to the true goal of my existence? I'll repeat that one. What are my false heavens? What will I do to keep a sense of pilgrimage alive? What will I do to keep my heart alive to the true goal of my existence? So we're moving from kind of an examination to a resolution. What are we gonna do about this? And then lastly, hell. What are the areas of drift or complacency in my life? What are the areas of drift or complacency in my life? Because I think for those of us who have decided to become, to follow Christ, to be baptized and so forth, um we are we have sort of set out on pilgrimage. It isn't a question of whether I'm going to, whether I have heaven as a goal for me, but what's going to keep me from that is if I drift, if I get lax, if I get complacent. So what are the areas of drift or complacency in my life? Where am I kind of drifting? And what am I gonna do about that? Does anybody need any of those repeated or get them all?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, just give yourself a little time sometime this weekend maybe to ask yourself those questions. I I it's fun for me because I did it for the first time last year on the retreat and just go back over and say, oh, no, I need to revisit this one, but this one, you know, there really has been some some grace. So it's kind of a neat way to examine your your life each each triple one. All right, let's wrap it. This is good.
SPEAKER_05Really wonderful. I you know, if I may on judgment, yeah. Something that's really helped me. Uh priests said that the Norbert teens there in Orange County at St. Michael's, if you ever have opportunity to go to Mass there, they're really lovely. I might go tonight, actually. Yeah, very lovely. Yeah. Um and one of the priests there said, you know, it's funny because in life we want to dispense justice. You know, we want we want what's fair. Yeah. But in our shortcomings, we want to receive mercy. So because I know why I did it, and can you sweat me some mercy? But what I want to dispense, so in terms of judgment, I I love your you know your comparison of you know being laid bare.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But you know, how can Christ come and touch healing? So I I'd like, you know, I want what's fair, but or I want to give you what's fair when I'm being, you know, forgiving, because it's fair. But when Christ comes to me, I want I want full-blown mercy. So I don't know if that helps you, but that's it's really difficult.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing. You know, and and I think uh unfortunately we've become too familiar with the prayer Christ taught us. Yeah, our Father. It's just that's that insight is forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. I mean, we should want to to to dispense the same mercy we've received. Um and it's a parable too about the servant who was forgiven and then he went off and started charging everybody else what they owed him and so whoa. And then he called them back and said, wait, wait, wait a minute. Yeah.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_01Um and just finally, uh for for your reading, if you want further meditation on these last things, I recommend highly um, I always recommend this. It's my favorite essay ever, by C. S. Lewis, um The Weight of Glory. The Weight of Glory. And I quoted from that earlier the thing about we're far too easily pleased. We're fine with making mud pies because we have no idea what's being offered us. A holiday at the sea.
SPEAKER_00Is that from a larger work?
SPEAKER_01What's that?
SPEAKER_00Is that from a larger work?
SPEAKER_01It is. Oh well, you can buy it as a collection of essays. It's called The Weight of Glory and Other Essays. Oh, okay. But I think you can buy it in as its own, too.
SPEAKER_05I haven't heard that tile.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's in a lot of his collections, but I love it. It's like a 10-page essay. And it's free on my website. Actually, you don't have to buy it, it's it's out of print on its own. So I've got it published on my website. I'll just send you a link to it. I name my blog after it because I just I keep unpacking it. It's so amazing. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you'll join us again next week. Until then, take care and God bless.
Outro
SPEAKER_01The music in the introduction and the very close of this podcast is provided by Dennis Cromit. Learn more about his music over at DennisCromet.com or in the show notes. Until next time, be well and God bless.
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