Sanctity and Justification Compilation (Season 3 Episode 40)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the podcast and thanks for joining
me and my friend the friar, frStephen Sanchez, a discalced
Carmelite priest.
Fr Stephen and I are alwaystalking about the
interconnectedness of so many ofthe topics that we discuss, and
so while Fr Stephen and I areworking to record new content in
between his travels, I wantedto try something and connect two

(00:21):
of those topics by creating asort of podcast compilation
episode.
So to keep the introduction tothis episode short, the two
episodes I'm connecting here arethe Theology of Sanctity, which
is Season 1, episode 4, andCatholic and Protestant Views on
Justification, which is Season2, episode 21.

(00:42):
My thought here is that theCatholic, and thus the
historical Christian,understanding of justification
is deeply rooted in the Church'stheology of sanctity.
So if you want to understandjustification and righteousness,
then you have to understandsanctity and holiness and how we
get there in this life and thenext.
If I'm wrong, fr Stephen willjust smite me with his holy

(01:04):
chancla sandal and all that funstuff, or this will just become
the foundation for a much-neededlesson for me.
Oh, and one last thing I'vealways wanted to find a way to
allow for this podcast tosupport the Carmelite Friars.
They've set up a way for peopleto make online donations.
You can do a one-time donationor a recurring monthly donation,
so please consider supportingthem financially if you can, and

(01:27):
if you're unable to supportthem financially, then please
support them with your purse, ifyou're interested.
The link will be down in theshow notes.
Anyway, this episode will belong, so please take your time
with it and enjoy.
Today we're talking aboutsainthood, sanctity, holiness.
Am I forgetting anything else?

(01:48):
Do you have a favorite saintson?
You know, I've been thinkingabout this ever since we started
discussing this episode and Idon't think I do.
My patron saint or my yeah, isit your patron saint when you

(02:09):
get confirmed?
Your confirmation saint?
So mine's Peter, and I don'tknow why I ever picked the guy,
but I'm glad I did now becausehe.
I heard someone the other daytalking about the apostles
saying that you're only asstrong as your weakest link, and
so Jesus made sure to startwith the weakest, and I don't

(02:33):
know.
I kind of liked that, becausehe was always opening his mouth
just to put his foot in it, kindof thing.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yes, he was a bit rash.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, what about you?
Do you have a favorite?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, I think I've grown to appreciate my patron
saint, st Stephen.
There's lots of St Stephens,but my patron saint is Stephen
the Martyr, the first martyr ofthe faith, the deacon yeah, the
Greek-speaking deacons that wereordained, and so his witness
has always been something to methat's always challenging to me.

(03:10):
So, you know, one of the thingsabout having saints is that
we're supposed to imitate theirvirtues.
So I always look at that and,yeah, stephen continues to
challenge me on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, because how far are you willing to go right?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, I mean in the imitation of Christ, to forgive
those who are killing you.
I mean he does that, he asksfor their forgiveness while
they're stoning him.
And yeah, that's a bigchallenge to me.
That's like continual reminder.
I have a long ways to go.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yes, don't we all?
But there's a lot of saints,there's so many saints, and my
wife is quite enamored with thesaints and she's always looking
for a book, a good book.
She's on this quest for likethe best saint book, for a book,
a good book.

(04:09):
She's on this quest for likethe best saint book and she, you
know you never find one that'squite good enough.
You find one that's got a lotof details, but then it doesn't
say what you're the patron saintof or something like that.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
So there's it's hard to find a complete compilation,
a complete.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
she's looking for a complete book yeah, but yeah,
it's just, it's amazing some oftheir stories.
She was telling me about somesaint, obviously, but he was a
priest and he was saying massand he caught a whiff of
somebody cooking meat in thedistance or something like that,

(04:42):
and it distracted him cookingmeat in the distance or
something like that, and itdistracted him and I guess he
felt so guilty from beingdistracted during the
celebration of the Mass thatfrom that moment on he just
swore off meat for the rest ofhis life.
He's like I'm not going to givein to something that distracts
me from the Lord.
I was like wow, that is a bigcommitment, especially since

(05:03):
last time we talked I wastalking about cooking meat for
everybody, so maybe maybewhoever that guy is, I need to
study him more.
I'll be interested to know whothat was yeah, she'll, and of
course she'll know, because hermemory is like a steel trap.
She remembers everything.
So why does the Catholic Churchhave saints?

(05:23):
What is the deal with not justcapital S saints, but lowercase
s?

Speaker 2 (05:31):
saint and everything Lowercase s.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, one of the things that the council fathers
of the Second Vatican Councilwanted to remind us of is that
we're all called to sanctity,we're all called to life of
holiness, that the call tosanctity is a universal call.
There are no grades of sanctity, right?

(05:58):
So everybody's called to live aholy life.
So it's not like, oh, it's forsomebody else, not me.
No, if you're baptized, then,yes, you're called to sanctity.
And so within the church, thetitle of saint capital S is
given to a member of Christ, andthe members of Christ are small

(06:21):
s saints.
We have that in the scripturesas well, when greetings to the
saints in the church of Corinthor wherever right.
So this member of Christ isrecognized by the greater church
as worthy of honor, and it's tohonor their imitation of Christ
or a virtue that theyexemplified.

(06:42):
In our day and time, whensomeone is raised to the altars,
it means that an individualmember has been presented as a
model of Christian life and hasexemplified heroic virtue in
their life.
Heroic virtue means that thepractice of virtue in their life
was extraordinary and constant,right.

(07:03):
So after the person ispresented to the church usually
the local diocese is where theprocess begins.
There is an investigation intotheir lives to see if it truly
was exemplary.
And then there are stages tothis process.
The first one if they pass thefirst stage, they are declared a
servant of God.
And as the process continues andthey continue to move forward

(07:26):
in the process, then they'redesignated as venerable or
worthy of veneration, rightWorthy of asking for their help
or their intercession.
And then, after venerable, thenthey come into the category of
being blessed.
And then finally, after blessed, then when they're approved and
there's miracles attributed totheir intercession, then they're

(07:49):
finally proclaimed saints.
So there are a number ofmiracles that are required, that
have to be attributed to theintercession of this particular
candidate for sainthood as well.
I'm remembering right now oneof our friars had to actually
give a deposition to a tribunalbecause he was a witness to a

(08:17):
little girl whose liver waspoisoned through Tylenol.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Because Tylenol can poison your liver if you
overdose.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
And it was through the intercession of Teresa
Benedicta, also known as EdithStein, this cast carmelite
cloistered nun.
It was through her intercessionthat this little girl's liver
was miraculously restored, andhe had to give a deposition on
that.
And, of course, the doctorshave to give a deposition into

(08:49):
all the medical records andeverything.
All things have to happen, andso it's not a matter of just
calling somebody a saint.
They have to have lived avirtuous life and also that,
through their intercession, thatthey're capable of interceding
in a uh, in a miraculous way.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Uh, for those of us that are in the church in space
and time, yeah, and the churchis not, and I think, especially
the more modern aspects of thechurch and, I would assume,
probably moving forward in timetoo, the church seems to not be
in a big rush to validatemiracles and you know all sorts

(09:31):
of things.
So much science, I guess, outthere, everyone's like prove it,
prove it, prove it right.
But the process is, it's not afast process.
I remember when Pope John PaulII passed away, it's almost like
people were just calling outimmediately right, oh, make him
a saint, make him a saint, makehim a saint.

(09:52):
Well, it doesn't work that way.
No, it's not by popularacclamation, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
And there is an investigation and it is
something that is very seriouslyundertaken.
The investigation and all theyou have theologians and
philosophers and medical peopleinvolved and all sorts of people
, and you have people that willspeak against the person again,
so that you know, is this reallya miracle, or is this something
that can be explained naturally?

(10:22):
Or there's all these differentthings that are involved?
A miracle or is this somethingthat can be explained naturally?
Or there's all these differentthings that are involved in it?
And it takes a while too,because, again, the church in
her wisdom knows that it take.
It takes time to investigatethese things thoroughly.
And it's not just out of again,uh, popular acclamation or or
because someone is trending atthe moment, doesn't necessarily
make them someone who should beraised to the altars as someone

(10:45):
to be imitated in their virtue.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, Do you know how does this happen every year?
Is there a time of year or acelebration or a feast or a holy
day that coincides with thenaming of saints publicly by the
church?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
by the church?
No, usually it is associatedwith the person's near the
person's anniversary of death.
It's usually associated becauseyou know they're passing on
from space and time into thegreater reality, the greater
life, and it is considered thetransitioning from a spatial,

(11:27):
temporal existence into thatexistence in Christ, who is
outside of space and time, andso it's usually around the date
of death.
In fact, when they talk aboutSt Francis, the Franciscans talk
about the transitus, thetransition transitioning from
earthly life into eternal life,so it's usually around the date

(11:51):
of their death.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
So that's kind of interesting because as we were
thinking about this episode,this all developed over time
this kind of thought oftransitioning from life to death
and what that means.
So how did the church get tothis point, starting all the way
back from the Old Testament?

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yes, it's something that we have to remember, and
it's hard, because the churchhas been the community in space
and time, has been here for over2,000 years.
And so, as the church grows, itis an organic entity, right,
it's not just a bureaucracy, itis a living, breathing entity,

(12:39):
it is the bride of Christ and itdevelops and it grows like any
organic creature does.
So the theology of sanctitygrew and developed over time
with the community.
So the word saint comes fromthe Latin sanctus, which
signifies holy or holiness, andin our sacred scriptures it is

(13:01):
God who is the holy one, it isGod who is the Holy One, it is
God who is the all-holy, and wehave in the Apocalypse, in the
book of Revelation, we have theangels proclaim God to be holy,
holy, holy.
So the essence of holinessitself.
And it is because God is, asthe angels say, thrice holy and

(13:22):
it is also because we are madein the image and likeness of God
that he invites us, his people,to share in his sanctity, his
holiness and his divine life.
So it's important to rememberthat revelation takes time.
It's part of the culture andit's how the person is capable,

(13:42):
or the cultures are capable, ofunderstanding this.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Sorry, I interrupted you.
No, that's okay.
The word sanctus, or tosanctify, to make holy, is it
helpful when thinking about thesaints?
How do I say this?
So I've always considered theword holy because it can seem a
little intimidating to live aholy life, to think of yourself

(14:08):
as trying to be a holy person.
It just seems kind of maybe outof reach sometimes.
But when you for me, it becamehelpful to think of it more as
set apart, right, Likeconsecrated, like something if
you have something blessed.
It's made holy, but it's.
It's still what it is.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
It's just reserved, maybe, for something specific or
it's set apart, I don't knowhow to say it.
Yeah, it doesn't.
It doesn't eliminate theearthly element or the human
element.
Uh, sanctity doesn't element,sanctity doesn't eradicate our

(14:49):
human nature, and so it is thisagain.
And, as I said before, it's ifyou take into consideration,
it's all a process and a growth.
Every person is growing right.
I always tell people it's aboutmaking better choices.
Yeah, can you make betterchoices?
Are you informed enough to makebetter choices?
And that's how sanctitydevelops in our lives.
It's not about religiosity orwhat I call performance

(15:14):
spirituality.
It's not about performingthings and doing things and a
list of tasks to execute andaccomplish it's conversion.
It is a process of dying to theold self and making better
choices and making choices thatare coherent with the gospel
that we profess.
And again, we understand thatdifferently.

(15:36):
As the church continues to growin space and time, our
understanding of that deepensand widens and is more again,
more organic.
It's taking into account theentire person.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, have you ever heard of Father Larry Richards?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yes, I have heard of him.
Yes, the name is familiar.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
I listened to one of his talks and he said you can
become a saint or you can go tohell, and he says it so off the
cuff, but ultimately it's true,right, if you get to heaven,
you're a saint.
It's a choice that we make,yeah, yeah.
So then, what was this like wayback at the beginning?
Right, because you're saying itevolves over time.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
It evolves back at the beginning.
Right, because you're saying itevolves over time, it evolves
and so, going back to our roots,you know the Judaic, christian
roots, judaism.
In the Old Testament, the ideaof the just is very present, and
so for the members of the firstcovenant in the Old Testament,

(16:45):
holiness and sanctity is seen asbeing just.
We see that Abram is calledjust because of his faith in the
God of the covenant.
Right, because God calls himand he moves in faith.
And because of his faith he iscalled just, or justified, or
righteous.

(17:05):
Later on, as again as thispeople develops and grows in
their relationship with this God, later on, justice, or being
justice, linked to theobservance of the Sinai covenant
, and justice or holiness thenbecame linked to a set of
behaviors or actions, which alsothen led to the idea of ritual

(17:29):
purity, to be able to be justice, to be able to participate in
the liturgy.
So there was a ritual purity.
You had to be careful about notcoming into contact with
Gentiles, because Gentiles wereunbelievers and thereby would
render you impure, and so youhad to keep yourself free from

(17:51):
defilement so as to be able toparticipate in the worship of
God.
And in the New Testament we'vegot the example of the Pharisees
.
So, over time, what happened isthen this idea of justice and
holiness gets a little bitskewed, and it's not about
having faith in God, the Father,as Abram did, but it becomes

(18:12):
skewed in the idea of ritualpurity and purity of religiosity
, skewed from God's originaldesire for his people to live a
covenantal life of mercy andforgiveness.
He raises up the prophets thatteach that ritual purity is

(18:33):
meant to be a sign and a symbolof the pure conscience of the
believer, and that's somethingthat we should all strive to
live.
In other words, my religious orthe purity of religiosity, or
the purity to be able to beritually pure, is supposed to be
just the symbol of, we wouldsay, our soul.

(18:56):
Right?
Am I free from all those thingsthat would render me a bad
example?
Render me a bad example, andthat's what we have in the Old
Testament.
The spirituality of the OldTestament is you know, be
careful.
Take care of the alien,remember your aliens yourselves.

(19:17):
You know, be careful of theforeigner.
Care for the foreigner.
You're a foreigner yourself.
Take care of the widow and theorphan.
All those things is a matter ofbeing aware and considerate of
others, just as God isconsiderate of their need.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, so we're listening to the Bible in a Year
podcast and we just finished upExodus and Leviticus.
So, yeah, we just got all of thehow to worship that one could
possibly ever want.
But it is very interesting howthe description of worship, I

(19:58):
think, is so important because,like you're saying, he's calling
them into this mindfulness,right, like even you were slaves
.
So if they own slaves, do itlike this, because you're not
going to lord it over them,you're not going to abuse them,
you're not going to whatever,because you were slaves.
Right, you understand what itwas like, like you're saying, to
be lost and wanderers.

(20:19):
Now I'm going to give you ahome.
And the same thing theprescription of worship seems to
teach them.
It's, it's supposed to teachthem how to live, almost right,
like how do I?
exist.
What is that mindfulness thatI'm called to in every aspect of
it's talking about trading orpurchasing property or how I

(20:41):
interact with the stranger?

Speaker 2 (20:43):
How I?

Speaker 1 (20:43):
interact with the poor right, and yeah, and he is.
So it is really interestingbecause it's classic human right
.
We get something really niceand there's lots of love and
logic and wisdom behind this,and then we screw it up right
and just let's take it, mess itup.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, it's, it's easier to focus on tasks instead
of, you know, a real conversionof heart.
So whenever I talk or I preachon the covenant, the Sinai
covenant, it's like, yeah, youhave the Ten Commandments, but
the Ten Commandments are not thecovenant.
The covenant is you belong tome, I am your God and you are my

(21:24):
people.
That's the covenant.
The covenant is you belong tome, I am your God and you are my
people.
That's the covenant.
The Ten Commandments aremanifestations or signs of that
covenant.
And people forget that and theytalk about the Ten Commandments
like yes, yes, yes, yes, but acovenantal life is not about the
Ten Commandments.
A covenantal life is Life isnot about the Ten Commandments.

(21:46):
A covenantal life is do Irecognize that I belong to God?
And there's something here too,something cultural in terms of
the East.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
So have you ever seen Lawrence of Arabia?

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Oh, not any time recently, but yeah, okay.
So you know how he saves thisguy from dying right, and so all
of a sudden, he owes him hislife.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
That's a very Oriental, that's a very Eastern
idea, and this is part of theidea of Israel being redeemed
from death.
Slavery is that.
Well, god has redeemed themfrom death, so now they owe him
their lives, and so in theirlives it's not like a tyrannical

(22:37):
owning, but like okay.
So if your life is mine now,I'm telling you you have to be
like me.
You have to be compassionate andmerciful and understanding and,
again, care for the widow andthe orphan and the alien and the
foreigner.
And that's a lot harder thanjust going like you shall not
kill, you shall not do this.

(22:58):
The conversion is a lot harderthan just the 10.
The conversion is a lot harderthan just the 10.
And sometimes I went out, oh,and I want to be a jerk and I
can't be a jerk.
Sometimes they talk about theTen Commandments.
I go which ones?
I mean there's the Deuteronomyand there's Leviticus, so which

(23:18):
one are you talking about?
And they go like, like so yeah,and and again.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
And it's funny too, because I think this is why,
reading reading jesus in the newtestament, if you're actually
paying attention, uh, if you'reactually reading, uh, it's very,
it's very powerful, it's veryinteresting, right so he calls.
So he's the kind of guy who'slike you know.

(23:50):
It says you know, don't kill,thou shalt not kill.
But if you even looked at theguy and you're upset, guilty,
right, so he's calling us tounderstand the heart of the law,
more so than the law whichobviously he's calling us into
relationship and allowing us tohave that relationship with God.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yes, and I'm glad you brought that up, because in the
New Testament we see then that,as God had raised the prophets,
in the Old Testament we seethat Jesus as definitive prophet
.
He reemphasizes this whole ideaof righteousness and holiness
and that justice is founded uponcompassion, mercy and

(24:32):
forgiveness of God the Father.
Well, it is revealed that thereis God the Father as well.
So this is what the covenant isreally about.
It's making present thisexperience of mercy that Israel
had received.
You have to integrate it andmake it coherent and share it
and be merciful.

(24:53):
One of the vocations or thevocation of Israel is that it's
supposed to be the light of thenations.
So by the way that they livetheir covenantal life, they

(25:18):
should attract others, getfocused on again ritual purity,
right, and it's about us, andit's about we're the chosen ones
, and it's about God being inIsrael and only for Israel.
And so this is why Jesus comesand sort of reminds them of this
universal call to holiness thatGod has always uttered to us

(25:39):
right, invited us into.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
You know there's a trap here.
I was thinking that that starwars fish guy thing that says
it's a trap, uh, but you can't.
You can't blame the, thepharisees, um, because, like
they had, if you've read the oldtestament, it's nothing but the
jew, jewish people messingeverything up all the time right

(26:05):
.
And so they get to a pointwhere these people and Paul is
maybe a really good exampleright, there was a reason he was
killing Christians, because hewas like no, you have to do this
the right way.
Look at our entire history,look at all the times we've done
it wrong, like all you got todo is follow directions right.
And then, obviously, then herealizes that there's more to it
than that we've done it wrong,like all you got to do is follow
directions right.

(26:25):
And then, obviously, then he herealizes that there's more to
it than that and through hisconversion, no, no, and you're
right in saying that there's.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
There's absolutely no malice or or evil intent on the
on the part of the phariseesand that whole religious culture
.
Uh, it's easy.
It's easy for whole people totake something for granted over
over time.
Look at, you know, look atourselves, I mean, as catholics,
over time there are things thatwe just kind of sort of take

(26:54):
for granted and we kind of driftaway.
And it's not that weintentionally forget something,
it's that like, well, over time,you know again the, the truism
that familiarity breeds contemptis that you don't really value
something that is there all thetime.
And for myself, and I guess foryourself too, as cradle
Catholics, sometimes, to seeothers enter into the church

(27:16):
with such fire and zeal andstuff, I go like wow okay, so
good for you.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, they're so excited um anybody who I've ever
met who goes through, like rciaor whatever they're.
Just they're so excited forthese, these opportunities,
these moments for their life,for everything.
And there's so many people thatjust kind of well, you know,

(27:43):
culturally christ, christian,culturally Catholic.
And it's very weird, becauseyou do.
I feel like I see lots ofpeople who are either laissez
faire, like Christian it's justtheir culture or they're the
Pharisees and the scribes.
They're the Pharisees and thescribes and they just condemn
everything and overlook thenuance that I think is necessary

(28:07):
to you know, as you're talkingearlier, just how Israel is
supposed to be this lightthrough how they live.
And we as Christians you knowyou don't put the basket over
the lamp, right, you're supposedto.
Your life should draw people toChrist and you should have
those moments where people arelike why are you doing this?

(28:29):
Well, because I love you.
And why not right?
Like not because I'm supposedto, not because I'm commanded to
, but because you deserve it,whether you like it or not, and
I'm blessed to have thisopportunity to be that.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, I think that's a key element that you've just
touched on, and that is it's notabout being duty-bound.
Yeah, we are duty-bound, but ifyou only exercise your
Christianity or Catholicity fromduty, it's going to be lifeless

(29:06):
, it's mechanical, and then youworry about the perfection of
execution and then you getcaught up in perfectionism and
sometimes even scruples.
But if you really understandthat this is a process again of
making better choices, thatbecause God the Father loves me
and I believe that God theFather loves me in the person of
His Son, jesus Christ, and hasblessed me with the gift of the

(29:28):
Holy Spirit, if I believe thosedoctrinal truths and I integrate
them and they become part of acoherent life, then my reaching
out to others is not out of duty.
It's a natural consequence ofallowing the Father's love in

(29:49):
Christ and the Spirit to changeme, to transform me.
And this is something again Iwant to say something about.
This is that our understanding,or I should say the Catholic
understanding, of holiness isnot a personal holiness.
It's not holiness that is, youknow that is.
It's John's holiness orStephen's holiness.
It is a holiness of Christ whodwells in us.

(30:13):
It is the manifestation of theholiness of God.
We have all been blessed,through the grace of baptism, to
have everything that we needfor sanctity.
It's this gift that we've beenblessed with and it's a matter
of understanding that ourChristianity, our Catholicity,

(30:34):
our education in this school ofcharity is about actuating that
gift.
What am I doing to actuate thatgift of love?
And it's there, and for somepeople it stays dormant for many
, many years until they have anawakening or they have an
encounter.
And others it's a matter oflike.
Again God moves them in aparticular way and they

(30:56):
cooperate with that movement andthey begin to discover that
gift, the blessedness of theFather's love.
They really, really believe andthey understand in the heart,
the marrow of their bones, thatthey are beloved children of the
Father.
And then they begin to livethat way that the love of the

(31:19):
Father then casts out thatservile fear of performance and
perfectionism.
So again, it's something that weall have and we're all called
to, and it's not a holiness thatis personal.
We all have and we're allcalled to, and it's not a
holiness that is personal.
It is a manifestation of theholiness of Christ in each one
of us in an individual way andin a unique way, because your

(31:40):
history and my history aredifferent, and so the way it's
going to manifest itself isgoing to be according to your
history and your particular wayof manifesting that holiness
that is Christ's and is given tous.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, and it's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
I didn't mean to preach, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
No, it's good and it's so interesting as you're
talking.
It makes me realize, equally,how all of this goes back to the
saints and our understanding,because I have a personal
maturity and understanding thatgrows, and so do you, but so

(32:20):
does the church, because we'rethis strange mystical body where
we are the same church kind ofthing and the same way that you
know, I've heard, when we pray,it's because we are responding
to God's invitation to pray withhim, to be with him, and
there's a maturity that goeswith that.

(32:40):
And equally, if you're anythinglike me, there's a maturity
that develops where you start torecognize resistances in your
life and you're like I don'twant to pray, why?

Speaker 2 (32:48):
don't, I want to pray .

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Why don't I want to do this?
Why don't I want to help theperson, right?
Oh, maybe I should because I'mduty bound.
Nope, that's not the right way.
So why?
Let me figure out and reallydig in.
Why and where can I grow?
Where can I convert?
Because conversion, I reallybelieve, is lifelong.
If you're doing it right, itshould be lifelong in my opinion

(33:11):
.
It is so.
As we are maturing, as we'regrowing, the church is doing the
same things because 2,000 yearsago, its understanding of
sanctity or sainthood, orholiness, or justification or
righteousness, that begins tochange, right, and that takes us

(33:34):
back to holiness and sanctitymeaning more so now we look at a
saint as somebody who has died,so somebody who's with God.
So how did we get to that?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, that, yeah, um.
Well, before I comment on that,I want to say that sometimes,
um, we have to rely on, on dutyand responsibility until it
becomes something natural to us,right?
So obedience sometimes, yeah,we have to, and sometimes that's
where the discipline comes, andeventually discipline becomes
something that becomes love, ifwe continue to understand what

(34:14):
it is that God is calling us to.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
And again going back to jump in.
Sorry, it's very much like theOld Testament prescription of
worship right and how theygoofed it up because you don't
want to just focus on the what.
It's really important that welearn the why.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Exactly exactly, focus on the what it's really
important, that we learn, thewhy, exactly, exactly.
So a little bit about thesaints that have gone before us.
Again, we all belong to thishuge community.
There's those that are enjoyingGod now and those of us that

(34:51):
are in space and time and thosethat are being purified in the
doorstep or the threshold tobeing with the Lord.
So it goes back to kind of thetheology of the just and the
development of the idea of thesoul as well, and the
development of the idea of thesoul as well.
And again going back to thiswhole idea that we are an

(35:13):
organic developing body, abelieving community, and because
everything in the church isconnected to and as a result of
some previously accepted truththe originating truth being that
Jesus Christ is true God andtrue man the theology of the
saints is connected with thetheology of the just, as we said

(35:36):
earlier in the Old Testament.
So in the Old Testament the ideaof being just comes from a
foundation of a legal justice.
So to be declared just wasalmost the same thing as saying
someone was found innocent, butthis legal innocence.
Again, because it was areligious community, the

(35:59):
Israelite Israel, because it isa religious population, a
religious community.
This idea of legal innocencewas seen as proof of the
interior innocence that somehowGod had named them.
It is through God'sintervention that they were
called and named to be just so.

(36:21):
Again, there's this whole ideaof the threat of the theology of
justification, and that can bea whole other topic.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, I was just thinking that's a whole podcast,
because the whole justification.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's several, I think.
Faith alone.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, there's a lot to dig in there.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, how we understand justification, how we
understand divine revelation,all those things.
There's a Catholic perspectiveto that.
So, leaving that aside, thewhole idea of justification,
leaving that aside for now, ifwe follow the thread of innocent
or just members who liverightly, then what happens is,

(37:02):
as they're living rightly, whathappens then when this person
who is faithful to the covenantis living a covenantal life,
what happens to them when theysuffer, when they're being
persecuted?
This whole idea of how is itthat the just suffer?
And if I'm living rightly andI'm living the covenant, why is

(37:27):
it that suffering is present inmy life, right?
It that suffering is present inmy life?
Right?
And it's a matter, then, of thejustice, seen to be as someone
who lives rightly, who livesthis covenantal life in spite of
, we would say today, in spiteof the brokenness of the world
right, in spite of thepersecution that they suffered,
in spite of tragedies, that theysuffer right.

(37:48):
And so that became part of thisdevelopment of the idea of
innocence and justice andsanctity.
Again, we automatically presumethe idea or belief in the
permanence of the person,because we're very influenced by
Greek culture.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah, it wasn't always that way right?

Speaker 2 (38:11):
No, no, no, no, no.
It was something that was slowto develop and in the Old
Testament it began to besomething that began to develop
and began to be part of theconsideration right in the light
of Revelation and God'sintervention through the sacred
authors, the inspired authors ofthe scriptures, through the
sacred authors, the inspiredauthors of the scriptures, and

(38:32):
at first they had believed thatthe person would live on in the
memory of God.
Not necessarily a soul, but thatGod would remember them right.
And then the rest, the unjustor those that were not holy.
They lived on in the memory oftheir descendants.

(38:53):
This is another reason why itwas so important to have
descendants, so that theirmemory would continue on in
their descendants, that's howthey lived on in their
descendants.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah, it's always easiest to interject.
Sorry, I'm really enjoyinginterrupting you today, the
difference between the Phariseesand the Sadducees is when I
heard that the Phariseesbelieved in life after death and
the.
Sadducees didn't, and that'swhy they were sad, you see.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yes, yes, exactly.
That's a good way to remember.
And again, if you remember yourBible stories and the New
Testament stories, that was thebig fight between the Pharisees
and the Sadducees.
When Paul says that he wasinspired by an angel, all of a
sudden all hell broke loosebecause the Pharisees and the
Sadducees started fighting abouthow do we know that an angel

(39:50):
didn't speak to him?
Because the Pharisees and theSadducees started fighting about
how do we know that an angeldidn't speak to him?
Again, going back to the OldTestament and the just, we have
examples of innocent peoplesuffering.
You have the example of Job,who is tried and God allows
Satan to try him and he's a justman.

(40:12):
You have the example of Susanna, who was blackmailed by two old
men.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Were they judges.
They were politically important, yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
They're judges, the judges of Israel, and so, yeah,
they were lusting after Susannaand so she wouldn't give in to
them.
So they accused her ofsomething else, and it's sort of
like Old Testament revenge, youknow, given to them so they
accused her of something else.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's sort of like Old Testament revenge, yeah, or
it's like CSI Israel.
Is that Daniel who spoke?

Speaker 2 (40:42):
up.
Yes, exactly yeah, Daniel's onethat speaks up against her
persecution, yes, and then againyou have the person or the
entity of Israel sufferingpersecution for its belief in
the one true God.
So, as all this is happening,right, then you have the Greek

(41:04):
idea of the soul or the nos, themind right emerged and
developed, and this began to beconsidered in the reflections,
in the writings of the sacredscriptures.
So then, this leads to thedevelopment of the belief in the
resurrection of the just, whichled also to the development of

(41:27):
the idea of a netherworld.
So, if the just continue toexist afterwards, where do they
exist?
So, this idea of a netherworldwhere the just await the final
day, the day of the Lord, andthis netherworld is what was
named Sheol, and because this isa place where the just wait for

(41:52):
the coming of the day of theLord, there's also the idea of
the resurrection of the unjust.
And so where do they go?
And so the unjust, this idea ofsuffering for their lack of
justice, they developed the ideaof Gehenna, their lack of

(42:16):
justice, they developed the ideaof Gehenna.
Now, gehenna was actually aphysical place outside of
Jerusalem where they burned allthe trash, and so where all the
trash was burned, then thatbecame sort of like this
continual burning.
So then they began to use thatas the symbol of the fire or the
suffering that would await theunjust, the perpetual suffering
of the unjust for not livingtheir covenantal life.

(42:37):
So, with this idea of Sheol,going back to this idea of
development of the soul, atfirst, as I said, you know, you
lived on in the memory of God,or you lived on in the memory of
your descendants and then thisidea of the soul and the
permanence of the person, andthen the soul, and so okay, so,

(43:00):
but for them it was a veryshadowy existence, part of like
I guess the Greeks and theRomans would call Hades.
It's a very shadowy existence,it's not a real, not the entire
person, right, the shadow ofthemselves, right.
And later on, as the scripturesdevelop and Revelation begins to

(43:21):
make itself known to the sacredwriters, we have this idea of
the permanence of the soul.
We have a glimpse of that inthe book of Maccabees.
The permanence of the soul wehave a glimpse of that in the
book of Maccabees.
So where Judas Maccabees, thereis a battle and all these
people in his army were killed.
And the ones that were killed,they were found to have an

(43:42):
amulet, which was again adefilement.
Yeah, you shouldn't do that,don't need lucky charms kind of
thing, right, exactly Becauseit's sort of idolatry and
defilement, right.
And so what he does is hegathers together, offerings
money, and he sends the money toJerusalem to offer up prayers
for the dead.
You're like, okay.
So that infers, then, thatthere is a life after death,

(44:09):
that there is some permanence ofthe person, right?

Speaker 1 (44:13):
It's also in Maccabees.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Go ahead, so also in Maccabees.
You also have the example thatis given to us of the mother and
her seven sons, who arepersecuted for not offering
incense right.
And so she speaks to them andtells them in their language.
You know that to be faithful toGod, and they all, all seven,
including the mother they're allwilling to die because they

(44:37):
know that their life is held inthe hand of God and that God is
faithful and they will continueto live and at the resurrection
of the just since they're dyingfor God that they will have a
new life.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Are both Maccabees books absent from the Protestant
Bible?
Yes, they don't have.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Maccabees, and they don't have Susanna either.
They got rid of everything thatwas not in Hebrew, which is
interesting, because when Jesusquotes scripture, he quotes the
Greek translation the Septuagint.

(45:36):
Yeah, I love that they defer toChrist using the Septuagint
translation.
And so they said okay, we'renot going to use the Septuagint
translation anymore.
Yeah, let's not use thatanymore.
And so that was one of thereasons.
And then, later on, uh, forother reasons, uh, luther
decided to get rid of him andother people decided to get rid
of him.
Uh, because, for first, somereason or another, and we'll

(46:00):
talk about that some other time.
Yeah like the canon, yeah, thecanon of scripture, um, and so
again, going back to this wholeidea of the innocent suffering,
so we have Jesus in the NewTestament.
Jesus is the ultimate innocentperson who suffers and he's
condemned to die.
So he dies as an innocent andhe dies just as a just man.

(46:25):
But then how is it this justinnocent man is condemned to
death and this capital execution, and so he is seen then as the
ultimate witness to the absolutetruth of God, above all things.
And so this is where we getinto the whole idea of martyrdom
, because martyrdom is to be amartyr, is to be a witness.

(46:48):
To be a martyr is to be awitness.
And so, again, it comes fromthe culturally Greek world of
the time of Jesus that this is aword that was used in court as
well, to witness or to testify.
So Jesus is considered the kingof martyrs.

(47:08):
And so then, now we come tothis whole idea of sanctity and
saints, and for us as Catholics,catholic Christians, the
majority of the saints in thefirst couple hundred years were
all martyrs, because they wereall dying for the faith so, yeah
, I think that's, and that'sprobably honestly that's a good

(47:30):
segue for a whole other set.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
that's, and that's probably honestly that's a good
segue for a whole another set ofconversations, something that
also might be interesting totalk about is very specifically
the difference between theChristian concept of soul and
the Greek concept.
Because, they're not the same,but it's really easy for us to
think of.
Just oh, my soul is just thisdisembodied kind of I don't know

(47:54):
.
My thought goes out to heavenor something like that, or my
consciousness or something.
Yeah, it's way more complicatedthan that.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Than that yes.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Yeah.
So let me see if I can trackthis all together.
Make sure I was following allthis because it's a lot to think
about.
It is so we have justificationbeing somebody who's just,
righteous, blameless, obedient,perhaps following, like we have

(48:24):
Abraham.
He was just, he was willing todo what was asked for him, kind
of thing.
Eventually, we kind of end upwith this ledger mentality like
rights or wrongs If it's, ifit's striking the book against
you, you're not, you know beingmorally just or righteous.
If you're clean or blameless,then you know, then you might

(48:47):
get, you might be remembered byGod.
And then, as the Greek culturescreep in, we start doing a lot
more thinking.
I guess those Greeks, they'realways thinking.
And so then we start you knowwhere do we go if we die?
And if we're just, do we go oneplace, and if we're not just,

(49:09):
do we go a different place.
And we end up with right kindof the precursors heaven and
hell and shale yes, yes, yes,instead of just a afterlife.
Now there's consequentialafterlifes.
Yes, yes, man, it's good stuff,it's so, it's so fun to dig

(49:30):
into all this?
Because it will, just becausethe tang's off in so many
different directions, right.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
And that's the thing about the faith is that
everything is connected tosomething else.
And so, again we talked theother day you start following
one thread.
You have to cross all theseother threads.
You're like, oh yeah, there'sthis thread and and oh, there's
this, but we can't go thereright now.
We've got to keep followingthis thread Because it's all
interconnected, it's all part ofagain, part of one organic

(50:01):
being right and I said I thinkwe talked the other day is that
we can talk about our nervoussystem, we can talk about our
circulatory system and there'sdifferent systems, but it's all
part of one body and so it'ssort of the same thing.
When we talk about differentparts of the church, you have to
remember that it's part of awhole, even though we're
concentrating on one particularaspect.

(50:22):
So we're looking at the fifthmetatarsal today of the church,
but you have to remember it'sconnected to the body.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, and it's developing.
It didn't just develop, it'sdeveloping, developing yes.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Until we come to full maturity.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
yes, it's very, very interesting.
All this also makes me kind ofthink about maybe future
episodes with heaven and hell,angels and devils, or Satan.
Right, because we have theseangelic beings that do they live

(50:59):
in heaven, do they live in hell?
It seems kind of popular rightnow for Satan to be more of a
thought than an actuality, areality.
Yeah, so that's maybe anotherrabbit trail for us one of these
days.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah, I mean, there's the in the not too far past in
the church.
One of the topics was the fourlast things, and the four last
things are death.
So after death, then there's asecond last thing, which is
judgment, and then afterjudgment there's the two other

(51:38):
two last things, which is heavenand hell.
So the four last things withdeath, judgment, heaven and hell
, so those are things to toconsider, right.
So, uh, yeah, and of course,angels and demons and fallenness
and all those things are partof that, right.
So, yeah, there's a lot to diveinto.

(51:58):
I think it'll be fun, I thinkit's going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Yeah, well, thanks for chatting with me today.
I really appreciate it.
It was fun.
You're very welcome.
Yeah, thank you for thequestions.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Thank you for the questions and to anyone
listening If you like what youhear, please consider
subscribing Wherever you foundus.
If you find us on YouTube,subscribe for us and ring the
little bell or click the bellicon, whatever it is that you do
on YouTube, and we really lookforward to Kind of chatting with

(52:35):
you again later.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
And sharing our faith , god bless.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for joining me and myfriend the friar, Father Stephen
Sanchez, a discalced Carmelitepriest.
Good morning, Father.
Wait.
No, Good afternoon, it's theafternoon Okay.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
John.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Hey, it's close, it's like 12.30.
It, it's close, it's closeenough.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
As you didn't say good evening, that's okay.
Yeah, good evening, goodevening.
So tell me about that podcastor that thing that you you saw
about justification you werementioning something about that
what?
Tell me a little bit, oh yeahyeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
So I saw this.
It's a I don't know.
I say it's short, seven-minuteinterview with John MacArthur,
who I'm going to go ahead andjust guess.
He's some kind of evangelical,protestant Christian, I know the
name.
I haven't done a lot ofresearch on him or anything like
that, but I recognized his nameand the title of it of the

(53:53):
video was how can we know thatwe are really saved and I
guarantee like yeah.
So I was like, okay, I'll bite,you know, I'll watch it.
This, this will be fun.
And um, it was reallyinteresting because the vast

(54:15):
majority of what he had to say Ifelt was not terribly different
from Catholic theology.
I could articulate thedifference.
We would say that the gift ofgrace, right, that it's given to

(54:38):
us freely from Jesus' sacrificeon the cross, right, that
redemptive grace, we can't losethe offering of that right, it
is freely given to us and it'salways there for us.
Yes, and I think his theologywould say that, instead of it

(55:02):
always being available to us, itis instead that if we I'm
assuming if we're baptizedChristians, right, we accept, we
have accepted that gift throughour baptism.
And now, no matter what I dowell, I was going to say, no

(55:28):
matter what I do, I can't loseit Right, so kind of the once
saved, always saved.
However, the interviewer, someyoung guy, he kind of pushed
back.
He's like, well then, how do Iknow, right, that I've really
accepted it and that it's really, I'm really justified, right,

(55:49):
I'm really saved?
And John MacArthur startstalking about there are things
that seemed very much like giftsof the Holy Spirit.
Right, like you would be humble, you would be loving, you'd be
patient, right Kind of your life.
You would have this innerconversion, a manifestation of

(56:09):
virtues have this innerconversion A manifestation of
virtues, yeah, and those wouldpersist through challenges,
right.
And he kind of cites some.
He's been, you know, he's hadsome rough things happen in his
life, right, but his faithendured, and that again is kind

(56:31):
of that fruitfulness ofaccepting God's grace, his being
saved, saved right.
These are manifestationsbecause he is saved, right.
So I think those are the kindof the two things where it's
like he thinks, once you acceptit, you can't lose it, but you
maybe it's the kind of thingwhere you had to have really
truly accepted it for for it tohave really be a faith that

(56:53):
lasts, which, again, that's kindof like the toil of Catholic
theology.
It's always there for me but Ihave to persist and I have to
try and I have to.
It's not like I'm earning it,it's just I can't turn away from
it, kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Right, I'm earning it .
It's just I can't turn awayfrom it, kind of thing, right?

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Well, I think one of the things we have to remember
is within Protestant theologythere's a lot of schools, which
means there's a lot of differentways of thinking.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
There's no, because there is no authority.
Right, they don't have anauthority.
There is no unified theologicalexpounding or philosophical
expounding, and if this personis an evangelical, even less
because they have less of ahistory of that right.
So it depends what school ofjustification he belongs to you

(57:51):
right?
So, again, for us, when we asCatholics speak of justification
, we're talking about what weunderstand to be our salvation,
our redemption, justification.
These are all the words thatare used interchangeably within
our tradition.
And basically, when we speak ofredemption, justification,

(58:13):
salvation, we're speaking aboutthe effect of the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That it is through his life,death and resurrection that
redemption is offered tohumanity.
Right Reconciles us to theFather.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Yeah, real quick, go ahead, because I don't want to
speak falsely against poor maybeI shouldn't even say poor to
good old John MacArthur.
I looked him up real quickwhile we're talking he's
American Baptist, so doesn't sayNorth, south, east or West, or
whatever.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Whatever, but he's, he's baptist, okay so, and again
, he must be of a more moderatemoderate or liberal if there is
such a thing as a liberalbaptist, a more moderate baptist
, because baptists come fromfrom Calvinist theology or

(59:12):
understanding of justification,which goes back to
predestination and irresistiblegrace, and I mean there's lots
of things there.
So let's first look at theCatholics' understanding and
then we can explore a little bithow it's different from some of
the mainline Protestant ideas.

(59:34):
Right, and so for us, whenwe're talking about
justification, salvation,redemption, what we're saying is
that there's been some sort ofconversion, there's a changeover
in a person from a state ofinjustice or sin to a state of
justice, righteousness or grace,right?
So first let's go back to ourScripture and get a scriptural

(59:59):
foundation as to what it is thatwe're trying to discuss here,
or the idea, the concept thatwe're trying to enunciate here.
To enunciate here, so, the verbthat is used in the Old
Testament for this question,this idea is tzedak, and tzedak

(01:00:20):
means to be just, that is, tohave that moral quality of
justice, of righteousness, right.
But tzedak also has a juridicalsense.
Like everything, there's asecular, a worldly sense that
becomes religious or spiritual,and in the juridical sense it is

(01:00:46):
to be found not guilty.
Okay, but the understanding isin Saddaq is that the person is
declared innocent before atribunal, but that the
declaration of innocence is moreof um a person that has

(01:01:09):
vindicated like I'm accused andthen they find me innocent
because I am innocent.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
That's what sadak means, right yeah, so not, not
so much like we can't.
We can't prove it, so we'reletting you go.
It's exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
We have found the truth of it, which is the truth
of it is that you are not guiltyof what you're accused of yeah,
yeah, Right, that's what tzedakmeans, right.

(01:01:44):
So that's where we get beginningto that beginning theological
spiritual Septuagint.
In the Greek translation, theword that is used for tzedak, or
justice, means there's a littlevariation in the meaning there
it means that the innocent isdeclared acquitted and the

(01:02:11):
guilty is condemned.
So there is something thereabout to give.
Justice is not about findingyou innocent.
Justice is not about findingyou innocent, but it means
justice is the innocent isacquitted and the guilty is
condemned.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
That's what the Greek meaning is right, kind of like
the saying justice is served,yes, so it's not just that
you're innocent If someone'sguilty at the same time, like
they're punished or they get youknow whatever's their due,
right, right, bertha joined us.

(01:02:54):
I don't know if she'll be quiet, but she's laying down now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Good afternoon, bertha.
She wants to put in her twocents on justice, yeah, okay.
So now an important for us inthe Judeo.
Well, I should say, in theChristian understanding of the

(01:03:19):
Old Testament, our way ofinterpreting the Old Testament,
a key text, an important text isfound in Isaiah, isaiah 53,
verse 11, where Isaiah speaksThrough his suffering, my
servant shall justify many andtheir guilt he will bear.
So, in this context then, theservant, he's talking about the
servant, and we understand it tobe Jesus, the definitive Jesus.

(01:03:44):
Yeah, yeah, it is the servant,right.
So that's who we understandthat scripture to mean, to
prophesy, right.
But if you look at the text,through his suffering, my
servant shall justify many andtheir guilt he will bear.
He also acts as the judge.
So it is the judge who isdeclaring the innocence of the

(01:04:20):
accused, but it is the judge whois taking upon himself the
suffering of the accused toactually make the accused
innocent.
And this is a big differencebetween some Protestant
theologians or theologies orideas of justification, versus
Catholic.
We, as Catholics, believe thata person is truly transformed,
is truly made just or righteous,the remission of sin,

(01:04:41):
protestant theologies the personis still guilty and corrupt,
but God chooses not to declarehim corrupt.

(01:05:11):
Yeah, like the king whoforgives're guilty, but since
I'm the judge, I'm not going todeclare you guilty, but you're
still guilty, but I'm notpursuing justice.
I'm not pursuing justice inyour case, right, and that's
very important, because inCatholic theology there is a
real transformation of theperson.
And, as I spoke earlier aboutCalvin, for Calvin, the sinner

(01:05:37):
is still a sinner.
You're still corrupt in yournature.
You are corrupt to your veryessence is corrupted.
For us, there's a differencebetween corruption and fallen.
Right that we're wounded by sin.
For Calvin, it's corruption.
And so I think Luther, for awhile, held on to that idea too,
but I'm not sure if he changedhis mind later or not.
But the idea is the only reasonthat God can stand.

(01:06:02):
My presence is because I amcovered in the blood of Jesus.
I go like that's not Like he'stolerating you Exactly, and
that's not what we believe,right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
So when are we made just if there's that
transformation under Catholic?

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
theology.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
There is Is that a loaded question?
Yes, it is a loaded question,John.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Oh no, We'll get to that in a minute, okay.
Okay, okay okay, we'll get tothat in a minute.
So this is important indistinguishing a Catholic
understanding of justificationfrom some of the tradition who
do not believe in the realtransformation, the real
remission of sin right, the realremission of sin right.
And, as I said I mentionedearlier, there is the difference

(01:06:50):
of what's called imputation orto name something right, to
accuse something.
So the fact is, for us thejustice is a real justice.
I am truly made innocent.
That's the transformation, thatis the not just the conversion
of my turning to God or turningto Jesus, but that turning for

(01:07:11):
us, as Catholics we'd say, makesus a real creature, a different
creature, through the grace ofbaptism.
And that's where it begins,right Through baptism, right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
But anyway, would this be?
The same potential withoutgoing too far in the weeds or
kind of getting off track.
Same thing like when we go toconfession we are forgiven of
our sins.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Right Whereas.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Protestants who don't have confession they like I
guess their sins are forgiven,but for us it's like I don't
know how to say it Like if itwas in a ledger it'd be
scratched out, like it's notthere anymore.
Right, correct?

(01:07:56):
It's not like the sins is likewhatever.
Now you might go do the samesin again, but at that moment
when you're forgiven, theslate's wiped clean, right,
Correct?
You are a new, completely cleancreature.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Correct, and in some Protestant theologies it is
still there, but God chooses notto press charges.
Okay, so that's a bigdifference, right?
Yeah, Okay so that's a bigdifference, right?
Okay.
So now, when we're talkingabout justice and righteousness
and about you said earlier, youasked earlier about when am I

(01:08:36):
made?
Just right, that's okay.
Yeah.
So let's look a little bit whenJesus talks about this and when
Jesus talks about this.
So Jesus stressed the differencebetween the justice of the
Pharisees and the justice thathe calls us as his disciples to
live.
And this is you find thisespecially in Matthew's gospel,

(01:08:57):
chapters five through seven, thebeginning of the Sermon on the
Mount discourse, which is, youknow, a long section.
There are those chapters five,six and seven.
So in Matthew, in chapter five,verse 20, jesus says tells his

(01:09:22):
disciples unless your justiceexceeds that of the scribes and
Pharisees, exceeds that of thescribes and Pharisees, okay.
So here justice doesn't meancrossing the line from sinful to
holy.
It's an implication of a way oflife.
There's an implication here ofa right way of living, a

(01:09:45):
holiness, a covenantal life.
So there's not a precise momentwhen one crosses from guilty to
innocent, from sinful to holy.
There's something else that isimplied in this statement, so,
okay.
So that's why that loadedquestion is like we're going to

(01:10:06):
have to go back to the episodeon sin that we talked about not
too long ago.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yeah, so yeah, because that's interesting,
because in that verse it makesme think exactly of a way of
life, because the scribes andthe Pharisees, right, and the
Sadducees, they weren't bad guys, they were living out the faith
the way they understood it,correct.
And so what he's telling,unless you are I kind of read

(01:10:30):
the word holy into that as wellunless you're living a way that
is holy or trying to be morecovenantial in how you're doing
things than they are, then yada,yada, yada right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Yeah, and which was a big challenge to the disciples
of Jesus during his earthly life, because for them, the scribes
and the Pharisees were therighteous, they were the holy
people.
I mean, the Pharisees wereusually affluent and they had
plenty of leisure time toactually do all the things that

(01:11:07):
needed to be done in terms ofright, living right.
And the scribes?
Well, not only did they knowhow to read and write, but they
knew the law backwards andforwards.
So they were thought to be like, wow, that must be super holy.
And when Jesus says that yourjustice has to surpass or exceed
that of the scribes, and thePharisees are going like what,

(01:11:28):
what does that mean?
And then he goes on later on inin Matthew.
He goes on to give what's knownas the antitheses.
You know where Jesus says youhave heard it said.
But I say to you like about?
You have heard it said thatthou shall not murder.
But I say to you, like about,you have already said that thou
shall not murder.
But I say unto you do not put astumbling block on your brother

(01:11:49):
, do not grow angry with yourbrother, do not call your
brother foolish or useless.
Right, the real justice, thereal righteousness, the real
covenantal life, the rightrelationship with God comes from
the interior of the person.

(01:12:10):
It comes from their insideright.
It's an understanding of theself, an understanding of the
other as God's children.
And then he goes on to addresssome of the foundational
spiritual practices, againalmsgiving when you give alms,
prayer when you pray, andfasting when you fast.
And again, these are, president, not merely as actions to be

(01:12:38):
accomplished, but he's trying tomake his disciples understand
that it's a realization or amanifestation of the deeper self
, of the spirit of the person.
It doesn't matter if you givealms or don't give alms.
What matters is is it amanifestation?
I mean, I should say you shouldgive alms, but it doesn't
matter if you give from yoursurplus or if you give from your

(01:13:01):
own poverty.
What matters is do youunderstand the why of it?
Do you understand the that thisis a realization of who you are
?
It, the action, is flowing fromwho you are as a person, not
necessarily from a task listyou're trying to accomplish or

(01:13:25):
to finish.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Yeah, and that seems to line up with kind of what
John MacArthur was saying, right, that you'll know that you're
really saved, because thesethings will kind, of like you
just said, flow from your beingsaved, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Right, goodness, and all these kinds of things will
happen.
Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly,yeah, that we are saved, that
we are made just in Jesus Christ, because he is God's Word made

(01:14:07):
flesh.
He is the innocent and justvictim who has died to sin for
us so that we can have theoption, we can have the freedom
to respond to that invitation tolive lives of holiness right.

(01:14:29):
He has redeemed us by hispassion, death and resurrection.
He's taken upon himself thepunishment for being unjust,
right, the injustice then hetakes upon himself and nails it
on the cross, and that's what wewould call like objective
salvation or objectiveredemption.
Now, the work of the individual, because then we'll talk about

(01:14:52):
this in a little bit the freewill is that.
Do I accept the invitation andmake it?

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
mine Right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
The New Encyclopedia, the New Catholic Encyclopedia,
says that Christ brought tofallen men forgiveness of sins
and restored the life of gracewhich anticipates the glory of
heaven, which then is thecompletion of man's redemption.
So our redemption is notcomplete until we are in glory,

(01:15:23):
right, until we're in heaven,right.
So justification is theapplication to individual
persons or subjective redemptionof Christ's redemption.
So accordingly, then, if thereis a justification, then by
implication that there is a fall, there is a need for

(01:15:44):
justification.
You don't justify somebody thatdoesn't need justification.
So then that also implies thatthere is a universal reign of
sin and that also implies thatthere is an inability on our
part to be able to redeemourselves or make ourselves
righteous, or just on our own.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
Now, yeah, and that's kind of again going back to our
sin episode, like, if y'allhaven't listened to it, go back
and listen to it, because that'sthe concupiscence, right, we're
just our tendency towards sin,Pete, right because of the fall
Pete.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Yep, right.
And so for us, for the CatholicChurch.
It is through Christ'sapostolic church that Christ
continues his redemptive mission.
Through his church, through theapostles and the apostolic
church, through the sacramentalmystery of Christ, right,

(01:16:45):
through baptism, through thesacrament of penance, through
the healing sacraments right,these are ways in which my
sinfulness or going back tomissing the mark, right, my
sinfulness is truly erased, istruly done away with.

(01:17:09):
It's not just well, I'm coveredin the blood of Jesus, and so
God, the father, is not going topunish me.
He's going to put up with mebecause is I'm in the process
of—I have been saved.
I'm in the process of beingsaved and I hope to be saved,

(01:17:35):
because it is contingent upon myfree will to continuously
accept the grace that Christ isoffering me.
Right, and this is where thefree will is very important.
I need to continuously acceptthis.
And, again, as you said,concupiscence plays a large part

(01:17:57):
in this, because as I grow inmy understanding of what it
means to be son or daughter ofGod, I am going to understand
that responsibility and I willcontinue to make better choices
and deeper choices or deepercommitments to that truth.
But as my understanding of thatgrows, so does my understanding

(01:18:21):
of my commitment to that, andso does my understanding of sin
right, my understanding of mycommitment to that, and so does
my understanding of sin right.
So it's no longer a matter ofmortal sin, it's a matter of,
like, a lack of charity.
I should be more charitable,because this is what God, the
Father, expects from me, becausethis is what has been
manifested and exemplified forme in the life of Jesus Christ.

(01:18:42):
And so again, life of JesusChrist.
And so again, it's hard to talkabout a hard line that you
cross.
There is redemption, there isremission of sin through baptism
and the other sacraments ofhealing, but justification is a
continual process of growingdeeper into the life that Jesus

(01:19:07):
Christ has won for me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Yeah, it makes me think a lot.
I had this conversation, youknow, once upon a time with one
of the guys I work with about ifyou can lose your salvation,
kind of thing, and it seems likeif the answer is no, you can't,
it seems to be.

(01:19:31):
We talked a lot about nuance inour episode on sin.
It seems to be a veryun-nuanced approach to it,
because whenever I think theaverage person, and even a
well-educated person, isconfronted with scenarios,
certain scenarios, then it seemslike now they start questioning

(01:19:52):
it as well.
So, if I believe, once saved,always saved, right, and I
really truly accepted Jesus asmy Lord and Savior, I don't know
, on retreat when I was 18 orsomething like that, and then as

(01:20:22):
I grow up, I get involvedbinggas stations and I shot a guy,
and you know I, whatever, youjust keep on going, right, like
I'm doing all these things.
We talked about how you have tohave that formed conscience and
all that as well, right?
So everything is into the depthof your understanding, right?

(01:20:45):
So when you confront someonewith all these scenarios, like

(01:21:07):
you really truly believe Jesusdied for you to be able to come
back with, well, how formed isthe person's conscience, right?
Did they understand what?
they were doing wrong.
Did they have any other options?
Right, like they don't know howto come back to that?
Because that approach, I thinkthat nuance is part of reality
in my opinion.
Yes, you have to understand.

(01:21:28):
Life is real.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
The Church says it as well.
Again in the New CatholicEncyclopedia it says Man's
justification remains imperfecteven after redemption and
justification right in thisworld.
Imperfect even after redemptionand justification right in this
world.
Man's justification remainsimperfect and, in a way,

(01:21:51):
precarious.
That means I can lose itBecause of my free will.
I can choose to turn my back onGod whenever I choose to it is
always perfectible or capable ofgrowth in grace.
In other words, there's alwaysroom to grow.
There's always room for agreater sanctification, a
greater sanctity right.

(01:22:11):
So justification, remission ofthe sin and becoming a child of
God is only the beginning.
You now have to live it out.
Its fulfillment is not for thisworld, but it's in the next
world, when I will be fully andcompletely redeemed, when the
Lord comes in glory and we have,you know, the final judgment,

(01:22:33):
right?
Well, let's still have to makean episode on that, don't we?
The four last things, so and sothis is part of the whole Pete.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Does that come back to Jared, what Pete?
So does that come back to?
Either we are made justified orwe are given justification.
Is that where this still allhinges?

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
For us or am?

Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
I still kind of missing it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
No, no, no For us.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
Because it is close, Like it's a little bit hard to
grasp.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
Again, that's where the difference in theology
understanding is betweenCatholic theology and some forms
of Protestantism.
For us, we are truly made just,we are just.
We are made just, we are just.

(01:23:25):
We are made just.
For some Protestant theologies,you're not made just, you are
named.
God calls you just even thoughyou're not, which I don't
understand how that works,because then that means that
God's a liar and God doesn't lie.
So I don't understand it.
I don't understand thattheology.
So anyway that's part of thattheology right, that

(01:23:47):
understanding of it, and so, andI think the way Calvin kind of
sort of worked his way around itwas that well, you're corrupt
and you always will be corrupt,but the only reason that you're
able to be in heaven is becauseyou are covered in the blood of
Jesus, and that's why you'rethere heaven is because you are
covered in the blood of Jesus,and that's why you're there.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
You know what this kind of connects to in my brain
too, is the thought ofsacramental theology that the
sacraments are efficacious,right that they do something?
Yes, right, they're notsymbolic.
So being, if you are named justand it's symbolic because you
are still corrupt, you're stillguilty, but I'm naming you like
you're symbolically justified,versus I am making you justified

(01:24:34):
, you are redeemed.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
Yes, yeah.
And so as this theologydevelops right, at first you
know the early church fathers,they didn't have a whole lot to
worry about.
It was like, okay, I'm baptized, and they had the whole
understanding of the OldTestament and biblical justice
and righteousness right.
So they had this wholeunderstanding and, for them,

(01:24:57):
justification, redemption,salvation hinged upon the
sacrament of baptism and penance, and so you know, okay.
So the assumption or thepresumption is that you're now
given your life to Christ andyou're going to live your life
in Christ and so, okay, let's goon.
So the grace that is given tous by the Holy Spirit not only

(01:25:18):
redeems us and makes us justmakes us truly God's children,
but also the grace of the HolySpirit, of truly God's children,
but also the grace of the HolySpirit, helps us to avoid sin.
Again, free will plays intothis.
Right.
I need to cooperate with thatand I need to catechize myself
and I need to make betterchoices and all that.
So it is through this habitualpractice of virtue, then by

(01:25:40):
growing in the life of Christ,then that means that
concupiscence or the naturaltendency to fallenness becomes
less and less of a deal in mylife.
Right, because if I becomehabituated in virtue, then sin
becomes less and less of anoption.

(01:26:01):
It's still very probable, it'sstill very possible, but it
becomes less and less aprobability the more I give
myself to the life of the Spirit.
Right To cooperate in that newlife.
And the first real challenge tothe theology of justification,
or to the church as well, waswhen Pelagius there's the

(01:26:22):
Pelagian heresy that came about,which St Augustine fought
against, and Pelagius stated heoverstated the case, like most
heresies are always overstatedthings.
So he said that because Godmade man good right, and so

(01:26:43):
since we're a good thing, hesays well, we don't really need
the grace of Christ to be good,and we don't need the grace of
Christ to do the right thing.
And so immediately the churchgoes like oh, wait a minute.
By implication, what you'resaying is that there is no

(01:27:05):
original sin, there is noconcupiscence.
And if there is no original sin, no concupiscence, then why
would Jesus redeem you?

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Yeah, what's the point?
What's the?

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
point.
So again, st Augustine foughtagainst the Pelagian and
semi-Pelagianism and in StAugustine's concept of
justification it sort of setsthe whole stage for in the West,
in the Latin Fathers, muchbecause in the East, the Greek
fathers, they didn't want tocall the state of fallenness

(01:27:50):
original sin, because they don'twant to attribute sin if your
free will is not involved in it,like I'm not choosing this.
So this is the consequence ofthe fallen state.
But they recognize that there'sa fallenness in the human
person but they don't call itoriginal sin.

Speaker 1 (01:28:09):
I think if I remember correctly— so they're just
trying to keep it separated sinfrom fallenness, right sin from
fallenness, right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
So if I remember correctly, I had a Russian
Orthodox priest as my Easternspirituality teacher and if I
remember correctly, they call itspeaking about the will.
They call it a nomic nomic, Ithink, nomic will and what it

(01:28:44):
means is concupiscence.
It means that your will iswounded or fractured, and
because your will is wounded orfractured, there's a difficulty
in making the right choice.
But they don't attribute it tosinfulness.
It's not because I'm sinful,it's because I'm wounded.
They're focusing more on thewound than the idea of original

(01:29:06):
sin.
Right, and their focus isresponding to god's invitation
to share in his divinity.
So that's the east right, butin the west, since we tend to be
anal, retentive, we needed tokind of make things more
difficult than they have to beso what happens then?
hyper defined stuff oh yeah, wedissect everything to the the in

(01:29:28):
the.
Then, after Augustine, thenthere's the rise of
scholasticism.
Then right, and the scholasticstend to be much more academic
and they're much more conceptual.
Right the abstract, they dealwith the abstract.
And so then the approach forthe scholastics was, and so the

(01:29:49):
question of justification wasokay.
So if your sin is remitted,between the remission of sin and
when you accept grace, how doesthat work between sin and grace
, since sin and grace cannot tothem, it cannot be in the same
person.
They both speak their oppositesto each other.

(01:30:11):
How can two opposites be in thesame agent, right?
So that's their problem, right?
So how and why does thehabitual state of sin make room
for the state of grace?
That was their question.
So again, this will lead usback to the whole previous
discussion that we had on theunderstanding of sin and the
question of fundamental optionor choice of the person to be

(01:30:31):
good or not.
But the Catholic Church, afterthe Protestant Revolution, the
Church reacted very strongly tothe Protestant stance on
justification, and the Churchdeclares three main points, and
these are the three main pointsthat are still part of our
theology, and that is redemption, justification, sanctification

(01:30:53):
implies the real, true remissionof sins, right, not just the
lack of imputation.
It's not just that God choosesnot to press charges.
So there's a real remission ofsins and not just their
non-imputation for punishment.
And even though there is in theperson, concupiscence after

(01:31:15):
baptism, that the sin is stillremitted, it is absolved through
the grace of baptism, throughthe grace of sacraments, the
healing sacraments.
Absolved through the grace ofbaptism, through the grace of
sacraments, the healingsacraments.
So also, then, justificationmeans that there's an interior

(01:31:37):
renewal, or I become a creature,a new creature, I become God's
child for real through theinfusion of grace, and that the
gift of that filial relationshipis the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So, okay, we are trulytransformed into God's children.
And the third thing is free will.
It supposes that the freeacceptance of this grace and
these gifts, it has to be infree cooperation of the human

(01:32:00):
agent and faith, hope and loveand repentance.
I'm like, yes, I've messed up,yes, I need to change, yes, I
need to be more virtuous, I needto be more patient, whatever
right.
And those are the three mainareas then of that.
So when we talk aboutProtestant justification, it's
really difficult because thereare so many ways of approaching

(01:32:24):
it.
There's so many ways ofapproaching justification that
it makes it very difficult.
There is one interesting thing,though, that I want to mention.

Speaker 1 (01:32:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
There is—so we talked a little bit about Augustine.
There's another approach, stIrenaeus, and it's called
Irenaean theodicy.
Irenaeus believed that we werenot made in a perfect state, so

(01:32:57):
for him original justice is nota perfect state.
Like when we talk aboutparadise right, everything is
wonderful and beautiful and it'snothing but butterflies and
rainbows.
Right.
For Irenaeus it was like no, yes, there is original justice, but
the human person was not madeperfectly.

(01:33:17):
They were in a state of justice, but you shouldn't understand
justice as perfection.
And so for Irenaeus it meantthat we live in a way of having
to choose, to be made in theimage and likeness of God, to
choose right.

(01:33:38):
And he says for him theimportance goes back to free
will.
If I am in a perfect state andI see God perfectly, it would be
impossible for me to sin,because I would.
Naturally, in original justiceif you understand it as
perfection I would naturallycontinuously choose God.

(01:34:02):
But because we were made inoriginal justice, but
imperfectly, to allow our freewill to grow and so that we may
become freely God's children andchoose to freely be in his
likeness, I have to be able tomake moral choices.

(01:34:25):
And that is where the freedomcomes.
And that is where the Irenaeanquestion comes in, which I find
very fascinating.
I wish I could find some morebooks on that, find an
explanation or an exposition ofthat, because I find that very
fascinating.
In that I'd go like, wow, so Iwonder if you could even apply

(01:34:47):
that to the angels too.
So the angels were in a state Iwas just thinking that were you
like okay, yeah, that's so funnyso then, okay, so then that
means that the angels were againgrowing in their knowledge of
god and they had to choose, andsome choose, chose to be
faithful to God in the moralquestion and others chose not to

(01:35:07):
.
And so we're like that is avery fascinating question
because it is fallenness, but Ithink our understanding of

(01:35:29):
original justice and the Gardenof Eden and that God made us
perfectly.
I think that's what thequestion is.
The question is God made us,but God made us free agents, and
to make us free agents andallow us to mature and to grow,
grow, he made the world in sucha way that we had to have
situations in which there was amoral question that I had to

(01:35:51):
resolve.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
I'm like, wow, that is fascinating, yeah yeah, it's
like making us perfectlyimperfect, right?
So?

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
yes, so that way, so that I can come to perfection
out, yeah, yeah that's a reallyman.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
That's interesting, okay.
Well, let's write that down forsomething that we'll forget
that we said.
Write that down Like we shouldexplore that.
I think that's something that's.
I just got a book called the.
I think it's called theFather's no Best and I think
it's by Jimmy Akin and it's justall about the church father.
So I just got it and it's justall about the Church Father, so

(01:36:24):
I just got it.
I haven't had a chance to openit or start it, but maybe I'm
sure Irenaeus is in there, sowe'll see if it says anything
about it.
That'd be a fun episode.

Speaker 2 (01:36:34):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
I wonder too where you were ending, how, after the
Protestant rebellion, how, likeafter the Protestant rebellion,
how the Church kind of came backwith you know, okay, okay, you
guys are saying all this stuff.
So X, y, z, we're going to saysomething in response to.

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Which is what?

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
the Church did almost all the time.
It's every time they saysomething it's in response to
some kind of heresy, right,right, correct.
But I wonder how many of thedifferent Protestant theologies?
It was like someone was justlooking for a way to literally

(01:37:18):
protest the Catholic teachings,like everything that had been
understood, to everything thathad been understood.
So it's like because Calvinismis very predetermined, like free
will, I think is a big problemin Calvinist theology, right?
So they're like, okay, okay,okay, so we're going to take out
free will, you know.
So it's like we're just goingto try and think of something so

(01:37:40):
we can, like take a stanceopposing the Catholic Church,
which I think is a really likesorry guys, I think that's a
really bad way to do things,because then you have to try to
reverse, engineer a bunch ofstuff instead of accepting what
was given by the apostles.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
Yeah, and I think probably most evangelicals and
most Pentecostal lines ofProtestantism, Pentecostal lines
of Protestantism they're muchmore open to the work of the
Holy Spirit and much more opento these possibilities, right,
and so I think there's a greaterpossibility of us being
reconciled to Pentecostals andEvangelicals than us being

(01:38:20):
reconciled to Calvinists andstuff like that.
There's such a huge differencein understanding of
justification in those areasthere and free will and
irresistible grace, and it justgets complicated Like what, Like
what do you mean?
What?

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
are you saying so?
Like God loves you and youcan't hide from it?
It's like you're going toaccept it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
You know, the whole idea of predestination too is a
bit kind of unnerving.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
Yeah, it is all kind of strange stuff, and that also
kind of makes me think, too,that I would say there are
probably especially by today'sday and age, there's probably
very few like true Protestantsleft.

(01:39:09):
I think there's a lot ofnon-Catholic Christians out
there, because everything's kindof gone a little willy-nilly,
and then there's this smallsubset of like purist
Protestants who are likeanti-Catholic.
You know Right, yeah, I don'tknow.
That's really interesting.
So what's the big takeaway then?

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):
Let's like wrap this back up in a nice little pretty
bow for us, for Catholictheology on justification when
it comes to justification, okay,for us, justification means
that in Jesus Christ, through mybaptism into Jesus Christ, into
the death of Jesus Christ, asPaul would say, that we're

(01:39:52):
baptized in his death and thatin his death I die to sin so
that I can rise with Christ.
That means that in my baptism Iam justified.
Whether I'm a baby or whetherI'm an adult, I am justified in
that baptism.
Once I am justified, I am madeGod's child, god's son or God's

(01:40:18):
daughter, and the Holy Spiritaccompanies me and dwells in me.
And it's up to me then, as achild, I need to be catechized.
As an adult, I need to also becatechized in terms of how do I
respond to this gift, how do Ilive this, how do I incarnate
this gift right?
So, one, there is a remissionof sin.

(01:40:39):
My sin is obliterated, it's notthere anymore, it's erased,
it's gone.
The remission of sin.
Two, the reality is that I ammade God's child.
Three is that it is necessaryfor me to freely accept and
cooperate with His grace,because God respects the free

(01:41:00):
gift, the sovereign gift of freewill that he has given me.
So, so justification then, forus as Catholics, again, is when
somebody asks you are you saved,you say I have been saved, I am
being saved and I hope to besaved.
That's the answer that aCatholic gives.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
Boom, mic drop.
I love it.
Well, thanks for taking thetime to help me puzzle all this
out.

Speaker 2 (01:41:33):
You're welcome.
You're very welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
All right, well, we'll go ahead and wrap this up,
and everybody who's?
Listening.
Thanks for joining us, Thankyou and God bless.
God bless.

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