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Seven Pillars. Number 1: Confession. Number 2: Contemplation. Number 3: The Mass. Number
4. Do not be looking at your watches. I mean
I can see that from up here, you know? Just like Father sees you reading the Bulletin,
I can see that from up here. And not only that: I can read your mind. I know what you're
thinking. You think to yourself, "Hold on a minute. He said there were seven. He's been
talking for 45 minutes, and he's only done three!" So alright, relax, relax! I know you're
on a one-hour Catholic limit. I know, it's alright, take it easy.
Seven Pillars. Number 4: the Scriptures. You know, I read recently that the average American
now lives for 77 years. The average American now lives for 77 years. I've got a question
for you: how are you going to tell Him that you didn't have time to read His Book? I mean
I'm just curious: how does that conversation go? How does that conversation get started?
I mean you get up there to Heaven, it's you and Gos for a little bit of one-on-one time,
God says to you, "How are you?". You say, "Well, I'm good, God. I mean I'm dead. I mean
maybe I should ask you, God, how am I?" God says, "Alright, let's move on." And God says
"Well, how was your life?" You say, "God, it was great! It was really good. I mean it
wasn't all roses, I had a few struggles and challenges, you know, that sort of things,
but it was great, God." And God says to you, "What did you do?" You say, "Oh, all sorts
of great stuff, God. You can't even imagine. Or you probably can, because you're God, but,
you know, I did great stuff down there, God, all sorts of great stuff." God says, "Well,
did you read any good books?" "Come to think of it, yeah, God, I read quite a few good
books." God says to you, "So, did you read my Book?" That's an awkward moment. I've got
to tell you, you think you've had some awkward moments in this life? That's an awkward moment
when God asks you, "Did you read my Book?" You know, what do you say? "Well, sort of,
God, sort of." God says, "What do you mean sort of?" You say, "Well, bits and pieces,
God. You know, at church on Sunday they've only read a couple of bits and pieces. I tried
to listen when I could." God looks a little bit disappointed, doesn't he? I mean really, he looks a little bit disappointed.
And so he should be. I mean, let's face it: it's not like it's John Grisham with a new
one every six months now, is it? I mean still he's just got the one, right?
77 years, how are you going to tell Him you didn't have time to read His Book? You see,
the word of God has the power to transform our lives. We know that instinctively. We
know that instinctively. The word of God has the power to transform our lives. But one
thing is absolutely certain: and that is God's word is not going to transform our lives through
one quick reading on a Sunday morning in a church with one thousand people. Father stands
up to read the Gospel, you get distracted by who's there or who's not there, by what
someone's wearing, by what someone's not wearing, by some little kid running up and down the
aisle, throwing his crayons and eating his Cheetos or eating his crayons and throwing
his Cheetos. You get distracted. The next thing you know, Father is saying, "This is
the Gospel of the Lord". You're scratching your head thinking "I wonder which one it
was this week?" You got home unnourished, you got home starving for direction in your
life. The word of God needs a chance to sink its
roots deep into our lives. Where do we start? Start with the Gospels. Just read the four
Gospels over and over and over again for a whole year. Just the four Gospels, over and
over and over again for a whole year. Why? You've got to work out who Jesus is. Because
Jesus is not a figment of someone's imagination, he's not just a story. We know that Jesus
existed in history. How do we know that? Well Christians wrote about him. But how else do
we know it? Because the Jews wrote about him. How else do we know it? Because secular historians
wrote about Jesus Christ. We know he existed as a person in history. Now most of who aren't
religious say, "Yeah, Jesus, he was a great guy." They say he was a great teacher. Or
he was a great prophet. The problem with that is that Jesus didn't claim to be a great guy
or a great teacher or a great prophet. Who did he claim to be? Son of God. He claimed
to be the son of God, claimed to be Messiah. We can't go ahead and say, "Well, Jesus was
a great teacher. He was just a little bit confused about that Messiah bit. He was an
excellent prophet, he just had a little bit of a Messiah complex going on." It's incongruent.
It's incongruent. You can't say: Jesus, great teacher, great prophet, he just spent three
years going around, actively trying to deceive the masses and convince them that he was the
Messiah. It's incongruent. You've got to start to think about: who is
Jesus? Because he claimed to be the son of God. He either is or he isn't. If he isn't,
he is a madman or a liar or a lunatic, but I think as you delve into, you will discover
that he is actually who he claims to be. Because if he was a liar or a lunatic, he would not
be so widely esteemed as a great teacher, as a great prophet. You've got to work out
who Jesus it. Get into the Gospels! You've got to work out how his life was, how his
teachings were. Why? Because if we don't, then we're on the risk of drifting towards
a Gospel of convenience. Gospel of convenience. We run that risk of drifting towards the Gospel
of convenience. And we're there, we're there, think about it. Think about it. Because, I
don't know, I travel a lot. There's probably 100 churches in the US every year. And when
we come to church, we pray for everybody, don't we? We pray for the sick, we pray for
the almost sick, pray for the dead, pray for the nearly dead, pray for the hungry, the
lonely, the bored, the depressed, the this, the that, the war, the leaders, the - pray
for everybody. But, you know, funny thing: one of those lines,
it particularly disturbs me in the Scriptures, it challenges me, that flicks me in my conflict,
you know, as Jesus said, "Pray for your enemies." Do you remember that? Yes or yes. Yeah, it's
there, isn't it? It's there every time you read it. Funny thing is, you know, since September
11, I haven't heard a single prayer in any of our churches for Osama Bin Laden. And not
only that. If Father got up here the next Sunday and said, "Alright, people, this Sunday
we're going to offer Mass to Osama Bin Laden", what sort of reaction do you think he'd get?
But that's the Gospel. That's the Gospel: pray for your enemy. It's not pray for some
imaginary enemy that might come into your life somewhere in the distant future. It's
pray for Osama Bin Laden. That's the Gospel. We're drifting into a Gospel of convenience.
We're drifting into that. Why? Because it's this "me and Jesus" thing. It's this "me and
Jesus" thing. Don't worry about the priest story, about the family - it's a personal...
No! Because what happens in this "me and Jesus" thing? After a while, you know what starts
to happen there? We start to create God in our image. And that's dangerous territory.
We start to create God. Rather than being created in the image of God, we start to create
God in our image. That's why this "me and Jesus" thing is dangerous sometimes. That's
why we need priests, that's why we need friends, that's why we need spouse and family, we need
people to tell us, "get honest with yourself!" We need people to tell us how it really is,
because we all think we see it how it really is, but you know what the truth is? We almost
never see things as they really are. I know in confession, half the time I need
the priest to say "You're being too easy on yourself." The other half the time, I need
the priest to say "You're being too *** yourself." We almost never see things as they
really are. The Scriptures clarify. Powerful stuff. Get into the Scriptures. Start with
the Gospels. Just read them over and over and over for a whole year. Just 15 minutes
a day. Where do you go from there? Read the New Testament. What do you discover? They
had all the same problems we had. They found solutions for them: prayerfully and as a community.
Where do you go from there? Old Testament. Start at the beginning and go straight to
the end? No. Why? It's not even chronological order. You'll get confused. You get half way
through Leviticus, you get 6 chapters into Leviticus, you want to shoot yourself, you
know? What is going on here? So where do you start? Pick your favorite Old Testament story.
Find out what book it's in, read around it. Maybe go down to your local Catholic bookstore
and pick out a reference guide that will taught you about that book: who was it written for?
What does it really mean to those people? What does it mean to us today? Go to the next
one. What else? Well, the Psalms are powerful, aren't they? People say to me all the time,
"I don't know what to do, I don't know how to pray, I don't know what to say. I get into
prayer, my mind goes blank." Other people say, "When I get into prayer, my mind gets
filled with so many thoughts, I don't know what to do." Use the Psalms, the most beautiful
collection of prayers you'll ever find. Use someone else's words until your own words
begin to flow. There's genius there. The word of God needs a chance to sink its roots into
our lives. I hope you enjoyed the show, thanks for joining
us! Don't forget to visit dynamiccatholic.com and order a free copy of this program and
a free copy of Rediscovering Catholicism and become a member of the dynamiccatholic.com
community. God bless you!