December 10, 2024 • 42 mins
As we gear up for SEEK, we're filled with excitement to share the transformative power of following Jesus. This episode is inspired by John 8:12, this year's theme "Follow Me".
We unravel the complexities of surrendering to Jesus' call, a path that requires both external and internal shifts. We analyze the profound demands of discipleship, illustrated by Peter’s struggle in Mark’s Gospel. Our discussion underscores the tension between worldly allure and spiritual truth, drawing inspiration from the unyielding faith of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions, who remind us of the joy and humanity in steadfast faith.
Through the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, we affirm that this journey is about inner transformation, not just external acts. Reflecting on personal testimonies from SEEK 2019, such as the powerful impact of Eucharistic adoration, we illustrate how these experiences can shape personal and vocational paths.
Register for SEEK: seek.focus.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Seek Podcast, where we explore faith,
inspire hope and buildcommunity.
My name is John Michael Lucidoand I'm excited to invite you to
join us this season as we diveinto topics about the faith with
people from all over theCatholic world.
Thank you for listening totoday's episode.
Know that we are praying foryou.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
What's up, guys?
Welcome to another episode ofLogos Podcast.
This is Deacon Max.
This is Deacon Max.
This is Deacon Joseph, and ontoday's episode, we're going to
be talking about a sweet eventthat we got coming up, a sweet
reality that's unfolding beforeour eyes.
A sweet event that's unfoldingbefore our eyes today.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
A sweet event that's unfolding before our eyes.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's unfolded, Unfolding.
It unfoldeth before everybodyin the club.
We're going to be telling youabout Seek 2024 into 2025.
Dude, you need to have yourhorn app on.
Oh sorry.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
One second.
No, no, I'll do it, I'll giveyou time.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I will give you time to get it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
This is the thing.
This is worth it.
Come on.
Okay so here it is no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
This is the only time A couple of tries, but we back,
we got it, we got it.
What's?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
up guys.
So today we're going to betalking about did you even
introduce yourself?
Did we do that?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, we said Deacon Max, Deacon Joseph.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, cool, deacon Joseph, deaconacon Joseph,
that's who we are.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Welcome.
What's up To Logos Podcast.
We're very excited because we,as you may have intuited from
the beginning of this podcast,have been invited to go to SEEK
2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah,the big conference put on by
FOCUS, the Fellowship ofCatholic University Students,
(01:42):
and we are so pumped Like, I'mso excited.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Some may even say, this conference is huge.
Huge Joey we're going to go outinto the world.
Bring the Holy gospel to theworld.
I don't know about you, but bythe gospel that I know is huge,
huge, huge Joey just giganticguys, listen, we're excited.
(02:07):
You could tell you're threeminutes into this thing.
You could tell um, we're gonnabe talking about in this episode
, specifically these things.
You ready, we're talking aboutan article.
So here's the thing, the themeof seek this year.
Yeah, that's what we gotta lay.
The groundwork is to followjesus christ, follow the lord
follow me.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
He says I think it's like John 8, 12.
Let me look.
You know I think you're right,dude.
Let me look.
I trust in you, Josh.
Yeah, yeah it's.
I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will neverwalk in darkness, but will have
the light of life.
That's going to be like thetheme of Seek 2025.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
If they're going to put that on a t-shirt, it's a
little much for a t-shirt.
Yeah, we'll see how thet-shirts go, but they always do
a good job, so I'm sure it'll befantastic, they do classy stuff
.
In order to help break thatverse down, we're going to be
drawing on an article by JosephRatzinger, as we do.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I was thinking the other day, maybe we should just
name this podcast the RatzingerPodcast.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, we're not going to do that, but we could, and
if we did it would make sense.
It would make total sense,that's right.
We're also going to talk aboutmy personal experience at SEEK
in 2018, I believe, 17 or 18,indianapolis, and then we're
also going to reflect on what itmeans to follow Jesus in our
own lives what that looks likeand ultimately, we want to
invite you to come to seek so ifyou have the opportunity,
(03:27):
especially if you're a collegestudent, but actually it's open
to anyone this year.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So usually this is just a conference put on for
college students, but this yearanyone can go.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So if you're an 85 year old lady and you're
listening to this, first of all,thank you for listening.
How did you even find us?
This is crazy.
You, thank you for listening.
How did you even find us?
This is crazy.
This is awesome.
You have other things to worryabout, but if you are, you can
also go to seek, so that's sweet.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
My grandmother could go to seek grandma.
If you're listening, uh, youprobably should.
It's probably going to be alittle bit much.
It'll be chaotic, a lot ofenergy, a lot of moving around,
hustle and bustle but yourgrandmother has a lot of energy
she's gonna take care of mygrandfather, that's true, which
means she probably can't, butshe follows Jesus in her own way
she does.
Let me be clear.
So she doesn't even need thisconference.
No, I'm just kidding.
Even if you follow Jesus, youneed this conference.
(04:10):
That's right.
So check it out.
We're going to be there.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
We're going to have a booth live podcast, live
podcast at sea.
We're going Uh, it's going tobe great guys Uh, I'm super
excited.
I haven't been in.
It's probably been two or threeyears at least since I've been
and I've never been this isDeacon Joseph's first one.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, I one time they did the year after COVID.
They did like regional Sikhconferences and they brought one
of those actually to ourseminary in Columbus.
They had like a satellite itwas.
Covid year so they wereprobably like three or 400
college students here and it wasa.
It was a really awesome weekend,but that was not the full seek
experience, so I'm reallylooking forward to this one, Um
so yeah, I mean, the theme ofthis year's seek is following
(04:51):
the Lord Jesus and when we heardthat and we wanted to do this
pre seek episode, kind ofleading up to the the event
itself, we knew that there wasthis.
I had read this article byRatzinger before.
Sure, short, beautiful article,just reflecting on what it
actually means to follow theLord Jesus yeah and we wanted to
just share some of thosereflections with you in this
episode and then, like diggingback, said well, he'll get to
(05:13):
share his experience at seek andthen we'll go from there.
So let's do it, do it to it.
This article by JosephRatzinger is literally called
Following Christ, and it's inthis book Dogma and Preaching.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Or if you have this book, the Hardcover, because we
bought that life, Okay that'sclearly from the library.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
You can't see the rest of the title.
You don't even have that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I have this book.
No, no, no.
So here's the thing about menot having this book.
You're right, I don't have thatbook, I just bought it.
It actually came in on Amazontoday.
The problem is, I can't find itanywhere.
I've been looking all day forit, and so I resided to my
library.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
What's wrong?
What's wrong with having a bookfrom the library?
Nothing, it's really good, sohighly recommend.
But one of the articles that hewrote is just short.
It's called Following Christand in this article he's trying
(06:13):
to like you know, we use thisterm all the time like you got
to be a disciple, you got tofollow Jesus.
But he's trying to ask thequestion what does that really
mean?
And that's the why are youlooking at me like that dude?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I feel like no it's, it's a dude.
I'm thinking that's a hardquestion to answer.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Okay, okay, just making sure I didn't have
something in my teeth orsomething.
Do I have something?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
No, you don't.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Um, let me see, no, okay.
Um questions that he wants toask in this article are one what
does it actually mean to followthe Lord Jesus?
And two, is that actuallypossible today, cause like Jesus
isn't around anymore?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So we just want to like break this down a little
bit, reflect on this and startwith this first question what
does it mean to follow the LordJesus?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
All right the way that Ratzinger breaks it down
Pope Benedict XVI.
For those of you who aren'tfamiliar with his actual name,
joseph Ratzinger, he draws thisdistinction between external
dimension of following Christand this internal dimension of
following Christ.
This we could call this kind ofthe older interpretation, maybe
more ancient way of readingwhat it meant to follow christ.
(07:26):
And externally, to followchrist meant literally, like you
actually are following the man,jesus christ, through the
streets of palestine that's whatthat meant.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
This is.
He starts off very literallylike that's what it meant to
follow jesus from the beginninglike put down your disciples and
literally come follow me,because we're walking Right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
We strutting down this thing.
I think I read that somewherein Mark's gospel.
It's crazy we strutting downthis thing.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think it's like Mark 6, like it's somewhere in
there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Yeah, good job.
I think that's the externaldimension.
That's what it meant to followChrist.
It took on a literal meaning,but then there was this other
dimension.
You want to talk about that?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, yeah, I mean.
Ratzinger says that thatexternal activity of actually
leaving your job, leaving yourfamily, leaving your home and
following Jesus around firstcentury Palestine, that was
accompanied.
It was necessarily accompaniedby an interior activity, right,
(08:31):
and this is where the cruoks ofthe argument is right.
Yeah, and so the way thatRatzinger explains it.
He says this.
He says following Jesus meant anew direction for one's life,
which no longer has business,the earning of a livelihood and
one's own wishes and ideas asits central point of reference,
but is surrendered to the willof another of reference, but is
surrendered to the will ofanother, so that being with him
and being at his disposal arenow the really important content
of a human existence.
(08:53):
So he, just from the very outset, makes this observation that,
like following Christ always hadthis, you know, in its original
context, had this exteriordimension I'm going to follow
this guy around but thatdemanded interiorly that my life
stops being centered around meand slowly my heart starts to be
centered and at the disposal ofthis man and is willing to
(09:15):
sacrifice itself for this manright I mean like I'm leaving my
family, I'm leaving rightsometimes leaving my job like
and I'm following this guyaround because I'm so captivated
by, I don't know, his gaze intomy eyes, or he or the word, the
truth that he's speaking to meright now, like yeah people left
everything to follow this rabbifrom Nazareth around yeah, I
(09:39):
think, I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You, we've drawn, and we've drawn on servant of God,
luigi luigi giussani.
Yeah, right, and his big thingis about encounter yes
encountering the event of christright.
What does this encounter do?
First of all, it fills thespace of your reality with the
radiant light of truth, goodnessand beauty and that captivity
(10:01):
draws you out of yourself.
Yeah, it's like you no longerwant to be in this kind of
dwindling, small, limited ego.
Yeah, you want to see what itwas, that you who was, that you
encountered right, and this iskind of this, this right, this
internal dimension something inyour heart is moving you outward
, yeah, moving you towardsthat's no, that's towards the
other.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's really well said.
Yeah, so after rat singer justmakes that initial observation,
he then points to like he'sthroughout this article he's
trying to kind of unpack themeaning of this phrase following
Christ, like what does thatreally mean?
And he's kind of meditating onit.
And the next place that he goesis to this really kind of
dramatic passage in Mark'sgospel, not the one where he's
like strutting around with thisthing, but like a different one.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah .
Speaker 3 (10:43):
So you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you know, like the other one, the other one, not the one we
just said, not the one we werejust talking about Not the one
strung down, the thing Right,the different one, this one, I
got it and this one actuallycomes from Mark 8, verse 31
through 33.
Diggie Max, do you want to readthis for us?
Yeah, helpful to just kind ofmeditate on in a little bit of
the context here.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
right, so peter is posed.
This is this is peter.
Right?
This is peter and jesus talking.
Peter is posed with this personof christ and, as you know,
jesus and peter are walking,talking, getting to know each
other.
Eventually, it comes to thecrooks of the matter.
Yeah, that it turns out thatthe man he's fallen in love with
, gotten to know, is actuallygoing to have to die.
(11:25):
Peter recognizes that hismaster, his rabbi, jesus christ,
is going to have to die.
And upon confronting thisreality, upon having to confront
the fact that actuallyfollowing christ means this
thing, namely to sacrifice,peter's appalled.
Yeah, he can't comprehend, hecan't understand, he doesn't
(11:46):
want to believe that this iswhat it means that his master,
the one who was innocent, has todie.
He doesn't want to.
He wants to reject that.
He wants to reject thatdimension of following Christ,
which is a dimension ofsacrifice that's essential to
following this person.
Yeah, right, and so here's thecontext, right?
So Mark 8, verses 31 through 33, read this way Then he began to
(12:09):
teach them that the Son of manmust undergo great suffering and
be rejected by the elders, thechief priests and the scribes,
and be killed.
And, after three days, ariseagain.
He said all this quite openlyand Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him.
But, turning and looking at hisdisciples, he rebuked Peter and
(12:30):
said Get behind me, satan, foryou are setting your mind not on
divine things but on humanthings.
Now, that's a pretty starkresponse of the all-passionate,
all-loving, all-compassionateJesus To the Prince of the
Apostles.
To the Prince of the Apostles,the Pope, the future Pope, he's
(12:52):
saying get behind me, satan.
Why?
Because Peter's rejection ofthe paschal shape of following
Christ is something that cannotbe denied.
It's essential to followingthis person of Christ, and I
think this is a reality thatmany of us, including myself, in
our own varying degrees of life, want to reject.
(13:15):
We don't want to have to pickup our cross and follow him.
We don't want to see our Lordsuffering.
We don't want to share in whatit means to die to the self,
because a lot of the, a lot ofthe times, we think that death
has the final word, and yet ourLord and his resurrection shows
us that's not the case.
To follow him means to followhim into death and to rise with
(13:38):
him too.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, and, and Ratzinger makes the point that
this rebuke that Jesus issues toPeter is very revelatory of
what it means to follow himright.
So, jesus, he says Peter inthis moment thinking as human
beings, do not as God does, heis, he's trying to take the leap
, he's trying to tell Jesuswhere to go right.
(13:59):
Jesus is telling him I'm goingto suffer and die and rise on
the third day, and Peter'strying not to let that happen.
He's trying to orchestrate theaffairs, but what Jesus says is
no, get behind me.
And that's what Ratzinger keysin on.
He says to follow is tosurrender one's place, kind of
in the lead, and to get behind,to get behind the Lord Jesus and
(14:23):
follow where he leads.
And oftentimes, as you justarticulated, that means
confronting terrible things,like things that we can't in our
own minds imagine, but that theLord Jesus assures us will lead
ultimately to glory if we trusthim.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And, admittedly, friends, I can't pretend to know
where you are all in life rightnow.
You may be a college student,you may be a high schooler, you
may be a middle schooler, youmay be a married person Right,
you may be an elderly personlistening to this.
And so the cross is going totake on different forms
depending on where your life is.
Maybe you're looking for a job.
Maybe you're suffering from abreakup.
Maybe you, maybe you're goingthrough a rough path in your
(15:03):
marriage.
Maybe things are going well inyour own relationships.
Maybe you have a great jobright now.
Maybe there's not that explicit, let's say, dimension of the
cross, but there is, there'salways that, and our Lord always
calls us to pick that up.
And so I guess what we don'twant to do also is undermine the
(15:24):
fact that following Christ is aradical thing, right, but also
make it so radical that it's, uh, that it shatters you, because
sometimes I think we can bescrupulous to to believe.
Well, that means I have to doeverything the gospel says
exactly how it says it, or haveto do everything exactly how
that saint says to do it.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And so we also have to kind of walk that thin line
of like discerning what God'swill is for my life, right, but
also choosing, acting, doing thething that we know, at this
particular moment in time, thatwe've judged to be the will of
God, and live according to that.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Right, so, yeah, so Ratzinger, again, he begins with
this recognition that followingJesus has this exterior
dimension at first, and then aninterior dimension to this inner
transformation that takes placeas I surrender my life and my
preferences to this man.
Then he draws attention to thefact that following Jesus means
getting behind him and trustinghim, even as he leads you to the
cross, which is terrifying.
And then this is kind of thelast reflection he has on this
(16:20):
question, before he gets intoaddressing whether or not we can
actually follow Jesus today,2000 years later.
He gets into addressing whetheror not we can actually follow
Jesus today, 2000 years later.
And what he says is he actuallypoints to the gospel of John
and verse chapter nine, verse 22.
And in this verse it says thisit says it's talking about Jesus
and it says the Jews hadalready agreed that anyone who
(16:41):
confessed Jesus to be theMessiah would be put out of the
synagogue.
Right, so the Jews who werehearing Jesus' teaching, who
were frustrated by it, who wereangry at it, they had made the
decision to kick Jesus out ofthe synagogue and anybody and
anyone who was following him.
And so what Ratzinger says?
(17:03):
He says this this is a quote hesays Anyone who joins Jesus
enters the company of theoutcast and must be prepared to
be condemned as Jesus was and toend up on the cross.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So this is the important element of following
Christ to be a part of acommunity who's willing to share
in his cross, to willing to bein the group of the outcasts.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And that is as you pointed out earlier.
It's a very hard reality.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
It's understandable why a lot of people don't want
to follow Christ.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
But it also shows, I think, to my mind, a level of
credibility of those who didfollow him.
Oh for sure His existence musthave been so palpable, and
compelling that they're likeokay, what is he taught?
Who is this man?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Like I'll follow this guy, even though the Jews are
kicking me out of the synagogue,which is like the center of my
life.
This man and his love and thetruth that he is speaking into
my life is so real thatliterally what I have held most
important in life right now myworship at the synagogue even
(18:13):
that becomes relative inrelation to him, which is
closely related to the earlyChristian community.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, this early Christian community is marked by
not just early Christians.
This early Christian communityis marked by not just early
Christians.
This continues to some varyingdegree.
Today was marked by martyrdom.
Exactly yeah, literally beingthrown out, sometimes of their
own family, right Thrown outinto the dust, being murdered,
not murdered, being martyred forthe faith.
(18:45):
For professing their belief inthis god man, jesus christ, they
shared in the cross of christin a way that I mean perfectly
in a way in a way that weprobably want, want sharing in a
specific way, at the very least, and so you.
So you have this element rightfrom the beginning to literally
follow christ right, to turnyour life to christ, to follow
(19:09):
him, to get behind him, to putyour ego aside, to pick up your
cross and to share in his crossas a community yeah, and this is
why, as you just said, you canthat, from very early on,
christians began to intuit that,that the martyrs were the
perfect like, the, the bestdisciples of the like.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Those were the people who were truly following Jesus.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And so, to this day, we model them right, we have
them in our stained glasswindows, we have them depicted
in our statues in our churches,we have their mottos all over
our little prayer cards.
People get them tattooed onthemselves To this day, these
quotes of these martyrs, thesesaints, reflecting the demands
of love to be sacrificed, andsometimes that means to be a
(19:52):
sacrifice of blood.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
So that's the way that Ratzinger begins to answer
the question of what it reallymeans to follow Jesus, but then
he transitions into the secondmajor question that he's trying
to address in this article,which is this you know, like
Jesus is no longer walkingaround planet Earth, like he's
not in Palestine anymore, wecan't get up and follow him
around Judea, and also like someplaces in the world, this is
(20:21):
still happening, but in mostplaces martyrdom isn't really
going to be like a reality formost of us, or red martyrdom at
the very least.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Right, right, right.
This is actually like dying foryou right now, correct?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
To be fair, I'm not so sure that that's going to
remain the case for the rest ofour lifetime.
I agree.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
And that's again just to point out what you said
earlier.
It's also not to undermine orto reject the fact that that
still happens in some countries,yeah Right, but in most of the
Western world that's not thecase right now.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
So I, so Ratzinger, asked this question and I know a
lot of like.
I've had this thought beforeand I know many of our listeners
probably have too like, okay,if Jesus isn't around anymore
and if you can't really getmartyred?
You know too often anymore in alot of countries and those are
like the most essential aspectsof following Jesus and the clear
right, the clear ways offollowing Jesus.
Is it still possible to followhim today, 2000 years later?
(21:12):
And, surprise Ratzinger's,ratzinger, pope Benedict the
16th?
His answer is yes, it is, andthe reason that he says that
it's still possible to followJesus is well, firstly, the
(21:32):
essence of following Christ,even in the first century, even
when he was walking aroundPalestine, was not the exterior
movement of like walking behindhim.
The essence of following Christwas always the interior
transformation.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Which is why, by the way, jesus Christ is known as
the new Moses, which we talkedabout in our episode with Bishop
Fernandez.
Right, as the new Moses, thelaw is no longer simply
fulfilled by external acts.
Right, the person of JesusChrist is here to give us our
hearts back right.
So, again, essential to theChristian life, essential to
following Jesus Christ, is beingin tune with our heart's
(22:12):
movement towards him, not simplyour external acts.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yes, we can still surrender our heart and our life
to him and to make him thecenter of our life, rather than
ourselves and our ownpreferences.
And part of the reason that wecan do that, which is the second
big point that Ratzinger makes,is that, even though Jesus
isn't physically still here, heis still alive, which you know.
(22:36):
Christians know thatintellectually, but it can
become easy to forget that he iseven more present to us now
than he was when he was walkingaround on the earth.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And he loves you and he loves you, friends.
He loves you.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
He not only allows you to share in the ability to
follow him as a Christiancommunity, but he loves you so
much that he's allowing you tomeet him face to face in the
holy sacraments yeah, which iswhere he's supremely present,
right in the sacraments, in hisword, in in the community of the
(23:15):
church, um, in your neighborand in all of these, in all of
these places, he's still lookingyou in the eyes, like he looked
, looked in the eyes of StMatthew and St Peter and Andrew
and he's saying follow me.
Like he's still saying that tous today, which is why Ratzinger
(23:36):
insists that, yes, it is stillpossible to follow the Lord
Jesus.
And then, and then he moves tohelp us understand what that
looks like a little bit moreclearly.
He moves to just one finalscripture verse that we wanted
to draw your attention to, whichis John, chapter 10, verse 4.
And this is actually veryrelated to the verse for the
(23:59):
theme of seek, which is kind ofcool how this worked out.
But this is what John 10, verse4 says.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
He says when the Shepherd has brought out all his
own, he goes before them andthe sheep follow him, for they
know his voice this is what we,as Christians, are called to do
to be able to again I use theword earlier to be attuned to
(24:27):
his spirit, to be attuned to hisvoice, to know when our
shepherd is calling us.
And I'm going to hear read aquote, uh, by ratzinger on this
idea of knowing his voice, whatit means to know his voice to
follow means to recognize jesusvoice and to follow that voice
through the confusion of voiceswith which the world surrounds
us.
To put it even more clearly tofollow means to entrust oneself
(24:50):
to the Word of God, to rate ithigher than the laws of money
and bread and to live by it.
It means making a radicaldecision between the two and, in
the final analysis, the onlytwo possibilities for human life
bread and the word.
Man does not live on breadalone, but also and primarily,
(25:10):
on the word, the spirit, themeaning.
He has to make the radicaldecision to stake his life
either on profits and gain or ontruth and love, to live only
for himself or to surrenderhimself.
This points to something we'vealready kind of talked about
(25:31):
earlier right To follow Christmeans to take up the attitude of
a servant, to say I will serveBecause, contrary to that
statement is Satan's statementthat he will not serve, and part
of serving, part of following,is again tied wedded to the
(25:54):
cross.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But also the redemption of our lord, yeah
yeah, um, that, in a way thatonly you know that rat singer
can do, just to distill thingsdown to their simple like this.
This decision, like followingjesus make means making this
radical decision in favor of theword over simply bread, in
(26:16):
favor of meaning and love andtruth over simply material
possessions and gain.
If I'm living my life simplyseeking money and pleasure and
power, then I'm not followingthe lord jesus.
But if I'm submitting myself inhumility and trust and loving
obedience to his word, then Iwill get to experience the joy
(26:38):
that did compel even the martyrsto like joyfully embrace death.
Yeah, because they were lovedthat much, because they knew
that they were loved and theyknew that death was not the end.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I'm reminded of a saint we've spoken about before
on our podcast, st CharlesLuanga.
Oh yeah, right, and companions,when they're all walking
together they're kind ofhigh-fiving cheering.
They're all singing, they'reexcited about what's about to
happen to.
They know they're about to dieand they're cheering their way
forward.
That is a.
They're following christ, right, they're taking up the cross,
(27:11):
but they're also taking up theirhumanity, yeah, and living in
joy and friends.
You know, I have to qualifythis a bit Sometimes as
Christians, when we use thislanguage of denying the world,
we can oftentimes assume well,that means everything in the
world is bad.
And that's not what we're tryingto say.
That's not what our Lord istrying to say either.
(27:31):
You need bread to survive, itturns out, and he wants you to
survive and it's good.
It is good.
Unless it's gluten-free, thenit's not good at all.
Dude big development in my life.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Can I just share this real quick?
Yes, okay, so maybe ourlisteners didn't know this, but
I've discovered that I have asensitivity to gluten and that a
lot of some medical problems Ihad have disappeared that's what
he says After I got off ofgluten, which has been really
great.
But recently I discovered that,um, sourdough bread is like
(28:04):
during the fermentation process,a lot of the gluten breaks down
, so people who havesensitivities to it can
sometimes eat sourdough bread.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And, uh, my family just started making sourdough
bread and it's, it's, so it's itsourdough bread and it's it's
so, it's um, it's so good andI'm so, you're fine.
So bread is good and if youhave a gluten tolerance,
intolerance, sourdough breadseems like your answer it's
sourdough bread you're welcome.
Sorry, I cut you, so man doesn'tlive off bread alone, but he
sometimes does also live onbread.
And that is the end of thatconversation.
(28:37):
No, no, I'm just simply sayingthat our Lord doesn't want us to
deny everything in the world.
Our Lord wants us to order it,to put it in its place, to help
those small things.
What's up?
Alarm?
Yeah, go ahead.
Our Lord doesn't want us todeny all of the things in the
(28:59):
world, right, he wants us toorder those things.
He wants us to place them intheir proper order.
He wants to make those lesserthings subservient to us, as
we're being subservient to God.
To him, yeah.
That's really well said this isthe way that the ordering of
creation works.
It turns out yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So, deacon, max, just in light of this discussion I'm
curious about you mentioned.
You know I've never been toSEEK before, but I know you've
shared with me that you havebeen to SEEK before and that
you've had some actually prettypowerful experiences there and
I'm wondering if you would bewilling to share some of those
experiences right now.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
So I lied oh, share some of those experiences um
right now.
So um, I lied oh, I said thatseek 2017, 2018, it's actually
seek 2019.
okay, in indianapolis you gottago, I will, um, although it
wasn't, it was a mistake, not alie.
So it was a mistake, not a lie,which means I don't have to go
ever, not not ever.
(29:59):
This specific for this specificthing.
Um, yeah, I know I had aprofound experience, I gotta say
.
I just want to recall it forthose of you who maybe have
never heard of seek or arefamiliar with it.
Yeah, it's put on by focus.
I'm not going to try to pretendto know their full name.
Uh, I got you you right.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yes, fellowship of catholic university students.
Is that the name you werethinking of?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well done.
I suppose that's about fivedays where, up until very
recently it was college studentswere invited and there's
(30:41):
approximately 15 to 20,000college students.
It's beautiful.
I mean, I've had theopportunity to go to.
Now maybe three.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
This will be my fourth one.
I didn't realize you've been tothat many yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I haven't been, like I said, in a few years, but in
2019, I was given theopportunity by my diocese to go,
and I was given the opportunityby my diocese to go and I
remember I think it was daythree they'd had Eucharistic
exposition and adoration andthey processed our Lord through
the conference center and Iremember him approaching me very
(31:12):
vividly as I'm kneeling in theback, wrestling with some sins,
with some things that Iexperienced.
For those of you who know someof my story, I'd also gone
through rehab, so I was at thatpoint, just over a year clean,
and so I was kind of alsothanking God for those things.
(31:37):
And I remember him coming to meand there was something, a
particular intention that I'dbeen praying for for a very,
very long time and I hadparticularly been asking for
courage to face this wound.
And as he came to me this was aSikh 2019, our Lord, in one of
(31:57):
the handful of times in my life,spoke clearly, spoke clearly to
what I was asking.
It was very, very piercing andhe touched upon the specific
wound that I asked him to helpme confront, that I asked him to
(32:18):
help me confront and that gaveme the courage to speak to
others about it and then,because of opening that up, I
finally had the courage to openup about that, but then also to
decide that seminary is what ourLord wanted for me.
That was a big part of myvocational story that I
(32:38):
sometimes have just forgottenabout because I've been through
so many things about, and thatwas one of the big things that I
told our Lord.
I said, lord, unless I open upabout this, unless I share this
in a confession, or unless Ishare this with friends and
family, this isn't.
I don't think this seminarything is going to be an honest
pursuit, and so, um, that's,that's one of my profound
(33:01):
experiences that I had with seek.
Um, yeah, the conference hasbeautiful things.
Yeah, the conference is likeit's professional, they, they're
, they're, they're, I mean,they're calm.
This focus always puts on.
I went to the pilgrimage, itwas put on by focus, you know, I
(33:21):
mean, they always do a good job, but, but, but see, the only
thing that they're doing they'reinstruments of facilitating,
facilitating people with anencounter with our Lord, so that
you can follow him.
That's what they want.
They want us to you know thefellowship that they, they want
us to to, to enter into unionwith our Lord.
That's what they want.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
And you might be thinking to yourself you know,
okay, deacons Max and Joseph,like you're telling me, I can
follow Jesus even today, in myeveryday life.
So why do I need to go to thisconference to do it?
Why can't I just like followJesus here where I am, or like
at my church?
And the answer is, of courseyou can.
But there's somethingsignificant about again
(33:53):
sacrificing, you know, four orfive days of your time and money
to fly there to buy the tickets, yeah.
Making that decision is doingexactly what Ratzinger is
talking about in this articlethat we just read where it's
it's subordinating my desire forbread and stuff and luxury and
(34:15):
possessions and pleasure.
It's subordinating that desirefor my desire for Christ and I'm
actually putting my resourcesat the service of my desire for
Christ.
I'm sacrificing, I'm creating.
This is the way I think aboutall these conferences.
This is the way I think aboutlike Lent or the season of
Advent which is coming up, orany retreat that you go on.
(34:35):
A lot of times we think like, oh, we gotta like do a bunch of
stuff to receive a bunch ofgrace.
But really what we're doingwhen we go to a conference or a
retreat or we enter into theseason of Lent or Advent is all
we're trying to do is justcreate space in our hearts for
the Lord to come flooding into.
And I have found in my own lifeand I know this is the case for
(34:58):
so many people, I mean you,just, I mean you're a clear
example of that is that when wemake that sacrifice for the Lord
and we open up our hearts byopening up our time to dedicate
it completely to him, heresponds with generosity and
people regularly have likesignificant life-changing
encounters at events like this.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Amen and friends, look if you, if you can't afford
it cause I know this isexpensive, I'm not, we're not
trying to undermine it there'sin two locations.
There's one in Utah, which isthe one we'll be going to, Salt
Lake city, Utah, and there's onein DC.
You know, um, uh, contact yourdiocese.
Your diocese may be sponsoringpeople to go.
That's the way I went in 2019.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Or, if not, Seek will be posting all their videos,
all the videos of the speechesour podcast that we're going to
get to do over there.
That'll be posted.
Dude, I'm so excited, that'sgoing to be so sick, that's
going to be fun.
They reached out to us.
We were thinking about going.
We had to tell that, okay, allright, so here's what.
Here's what's happening.
Basically, deacon Max and I werelike you know we should cause
we went to the Eucharist inCongress this past summer and it
(36:00):
was.
We didn't plan like to have anysignificant stuff going on with
like logos podcasts, but thenwhen we got there, there were
all these people who listened tologos podcasts and we were
making connections.
Like we met father David andMichael Moses, we were meeting
some of these other speakers andstuff.
And, uh, you know, we've beenbrainstorming.
Like you know, we should likego to seek, to try to like
network and meet people and andand interact with our audience
(36:23):
base too, cause that was just solife-giving at the Eucharistic
Congress.
And then we looked into it.
We were like thinking aboutsetting up a booth or something
and we looked into it and wewere like we cannot afford that
because we are poor seminarians.
We are poor seminarians stillas it is.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And but not only that , like it's, it's also, like you
know, traveling from where weare to Utah.
That's a long ways away andthere's other commitments we
have.
There are other things in ourown diocese that so, you know,
these kinds of boundariesstarted coming up time and time
again and but we, you know, wewere kind committed, so we're
like we got to make this happenas best as we can.
And I mean, I'm no kidding,that day I had spoken, or maybe
the day before I just spoke,into joey, I'm like dude, uh uh,
(37:04):
there's some, there's somethingabout diocese.
I don't know if I'll be able togo figure it out.
Yeah, I did, and I I overbooked,as I want to do because I'm
silly, um, and so I was like Idon't know what to tell you know
, father, so-and-so about thesituation.
And he's like, well, just, youknow whatever, talk to him and
see what happens.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
And I was like, okay, and I was kind of hesitant and,
uh, because of my own ignorance, and cause we had decided, like
my diocese had ended updeciding, that it was going to
take a group.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
So I was going to get to go.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Whereas necessarily the case, they were going to
help pay for some of the.
But.
But then there was this othersituation that was really the.
This other conflict was like,and I was like I don't know man,
I don't know, and I'm literallyin here editing an episode and
I see the email from focus.
Yeah, I'm like wait, wait, what.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I mean cause.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Literally I was in here that night kind of
contemplating like should we go,should we not go?
I, as I'm in here, like rightnow chillin and from.
Alex, from Alex yeah shout,alex, thanks for what you're
doing for us.
And then I in the morning tellJoey.
I said hey, we got a.
(38:08):
We got to check this out.
I don't know what this is about, but we just seems interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
No, you called me, you're like hey, dude, um, oh,
that's right.
I think we just got invited togo to a podcast seek.
I was like what?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
so anyways, beautiful , yeah, so it worked out, we're
gonna be there we're so excitedwe are.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
If you're going, we're like definitely gonna be
let you know like we'll behaving a hangout while we're
there meeting up with our, ourlisteners and our audience base.
But we're just, we're justreally excited for this
opportunity and I'm lookingforward to what the Lord is
going to be doing more than whatwe're going to be doing.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, we'll be there, it'll be cool, but we want you
to just encounter our Lord insimilar ways that we've
encountered him.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yeah, so pray for us, Pray for everyone who's going
to seek.
If you are going to seek, we'llgoing to seek.
You know what?
We'll be praying for you and,um, that it'll be a a
life-changing encounter for youwith the lord jesus.
Amen.
Um, I thought that it'd befitting to kind of conclude this
episode with just reading thelast couple paragraphs of this
article from rat singer, because, um, he says things better than
(39:14):
we do oftentimes.
Well then, you do definitelyand me sometimes.
He ends up making this pointthat you know, even though
martyrdom isn't necessarilyhappening left and right
nowadays like it was in theearly church, the inner essence
of conversion, the inner essenceof following Jesus, is this
kind of daily martyrdom, ofself-surrender to the Lord right
(39:38):
.
And it's after he makes thatpoint that he says this, and
I'll just read this lastparagraph of this chapter it
should be about 20 minutes or so.
Yeah, so just buckle up.
Just 20, 25 minutes, I mightread it twice.
No, I'm just kidding.
He says this To follow Christmeans to accept the inner
essence of the cross, namely theradical love expressed therein,
(40:03):
and thus to imitate God himself, his glory, in order to be
present for us, who desires torule the world not by power but
(40:23):
by love, and in the weakness ofthe cross, reveals his power,
which operates so differentlyfrom the power of this world's
mighty rulers.
To follow Christ, then, meansto enter into the self-surrender
that is the real heart of love.
To follow Christ means tobecome one who loves as God has
loved.
That is why St Paul can makethe astounding statement that to
(40:48):
follow Christ is to imitate Godand to enter into the basic
movement that characterizes Godhimself.
God has become man so that menmight become like God.
In the last analysis, followingChrist is nothing other than
man's becoming man byintegration into the humanity of
(41:10):
God.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Well, good job.
How are we supposed to like?
I don't know what to say afterthat dude thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Joseph Ratzinger stole our thunder.
Dude, actually we took his justkidding.
Please pray for us.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah, guys, we hope that motivated you.
We hope this, this episode, hasmotivated you to go to seek to,
above all, really encounter ourLord, to follow him.
That's, that's the message hereto follow our Lord.
We hope you're an instrument ofthat, and we hope above all
really encounter our Lord tofollow him.
That's the message here tofollow our Lord.
We hope you're an instrument ofthat and we hope, above all,
that we brought you closer andcloser to the Lord of us, to our
Lord Jesus Christ, and, asalways, god bless.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Thank you for joining us for this episode.
We hope you learned somethingand encountered Christ in some
way.
If you enjoy what we do, pleasesubscribe and share this
podcast with a friend.
This helps us reach more peoplewith and for Christ.
Until next time, this is JohnMichael Peace.
Welcome to the Seek Podcast, where we explore faith,
inspire hope and buildcommunity.
My name is John Michael Lucidoand I'm excited to invite you to
join us this season as we diveinto topics about the faith with
people from all over theCatholic world.
Thank you for listening totoday's episode.
Know that we are praying foryou.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
What's up, guys?
Welcome to another episode ofLogos Podcast.
This is Deacon Max.
This is Deacon Max.
This is Deacon Joseph, and ontoday's episode, we're going to
be talking about a sweet eventthat we got coming up, a sweet
reality that's unfolding beforeour eyes.
A sweet event that's unfoldingbefore our eyes today.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
A sweet event that's unfolding before our eyes.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's unfolded, Unfolding.
It unfoldeth before everybodyin the club.
We're going to be telling youabout Seek 2024 into 2025.
Dude, you need to have yourhorn app on.
Oh sorry.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
One second.
No, no, I'll do it, I'll giveyou time.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I will give you time to get it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
This is the thing.
This is worth it.
Come on.
Okay so here it is no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
This is the only time A couple of tries, but we back,
we got it, we got it.
What's?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
up guys.
So today we're going to betalking about did you even
introduce yourself?
Did we do that?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, we said Deacon Max, Deacon Joseph.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, cool, deacon Joseph, deaconacon Joseph,
that's who we are.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Welcome.
What's up To Logos Podcast.
We're very excited because we,as you may have intuited from
the beginning of this podcast,have been invited to go to SEEK
2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah,the big conference put on by
FOCUS, the Fellowship ofCatholic University Students,
(01:42):
and we are so pumped Like, I'mso excited.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Some may even say, this conference is huge.
Huge Joey we're going to go outinto the world.
Bring the Holy gospel to theworld.
I don't know about you, but bythe gospel that I know is huge,
huge, huge Joey just giganticguys, listen, we're excited.
(02:07):
You could tell you're threeminutes into this thing.
You could tell um, we're gonnabe talking about in this episode
, specifically these things.
You ready, we're talking aboutan article.
So here's the thing, the themeof seek this year.
Yeah, that's what we gotta lay.
The groundwork is to followjesus christ, follow the lord
follow me.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
He says I think it's like John 8, 12.
Let me look.
You know I think you're right,dude.
Let me look.
I trust in you, Josh.
Yeah, yeah it's.
I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will neverwalk in darkness, but will have
the light of life.
That's going to be like thetheme of Seek 2025.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
If they're going to put that on a t-shirt, it's a
little much for a t-shirt.
Yeah, we'll see how thet-shirts go, but they always do
a good job, so I'm sure it'll befantastic, they do classy stuff
.
In order to help break thatverse down, we're going to be
drawing on an article by JosephRatzinger, as we do.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I was thinking the other day, maybe we should just
name this podcast the RatzingerPodcast.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, we're not going to do that, but we could, and
if we did it would make sense.
It would make total sense,that's right.
We're also going to talk aboutmy personal experience at SEEK
in 2018, I believe, 17 or 18,indianapolis, and then we're
also going to reflect on what itmeans to follow Jesus in our
own lives what that looks likeand ultimately, we want to
invite you to come to seek so ifyou have the opportunity,
(03:27):
especially if you're a collegestudent, but actually it's open
to anyone this year.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So usually this is just a conference put on for
college students, but this yearanyone can go.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So if you're an 85 year old lady and you're
listening to this, first of all,thank you for listening.
How did you even find us?
This is crazy.
You, thank you for listening.
How did you even find us?
This is crazy.
This is awesome.
You have other things to worryabout, but if you are, you can
also go to seek, so that's sweet.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
My grandmother could go to seek grandma.
If you're listening, uh, youprobably should.
It's probably going to be alittle bit much.
It'll be chaotic, a lot ofenergy, a lot of moving around,
hustle and bustle but yourgrandmother has a lot of energy
she's gonna take care of mygrandfather, that's true, which
means she probably can't, butshe follows Jesus in her own way
she does.
Let me be clear.
So she doesn't even need thisconference.
No, I'm just kidding.
Even if you follow Jesus, youneed this conference.
(04:10):
That's right.
So check it out.
We're going to be there.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
We're going to have a booth live podcast, live
podcast at sea.
We're going Uh, it's going tobe great guys Uh, I'm super
excited.
I haven't been in.
It's probably been two or threeyears at least since I've been
and I've never been this isDeacon Joseph's first one.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, I one time they did the year after COVID.
They did like regional Sikhconferences and they brought one
of those actually to ourseminary in Columbus.
They had like a satellite itwas.
Covid year so they wereprobably like three or 400
college students here and it wasa.
It was a really awesome weekend,but that was not the full seek
experience, so I'm reallylooking forward to this one, Um
so yeah, I mean, the theme ofthis year's seek is following
(04:51):
the Lord Jesus and when we heardthat and we wanted to do this
pre seek episode, kind ofleading up to the the event
itself, we knew that there wasthis.
I had read this article byRatzinger before.
Sure, short, beautiful article,just reflecting on what it
actually means to follow theLord Jesus yeah and we wanted to
just share some of thosereflections with you in this
episode and then, like diggingback, said well, he'll get to
(05:13):
share his experience at seek andthen we'll go from there.
So let's do it, do it to it.
This article by JosephRatzinger is literally called
Following Christ, and it's inthis book Dogma and Preaching.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Or if you have this book, the Hardcover, because we
bought that life, Okay that'sclearly from the library.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
You can't see the rest of the title.
You don't even have that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I have this book.
No, no, no.
So here's the thing about menot having this book.
You're right, I don't have thatbook, I just bought it.
It actually came in on Amazontoday.
The problem is, I can't find itanywhere.
I've been looking all day forit, and so I resided to my
library.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
What's wrong?
What's wrong with having a bookfrom the library?
Nothing, it's really good, sohighly recommend.
But one of the articles that hewrote is just short.
It's called Following Christand in this article he's trying
(06:13):
to like you know, we use thisterm all the time like you got
to be a disciple, you got tofollow Jesus.
But he's trying to ask thequestion what does that really
mean?
And that's the why are youlooking at me like that dude?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I feel like no it's, it's a dude.
I'm thinking that's a hardquestion to answer.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Okay, okay, just making sure I didn't have
something in my teeth orsomething.
Do I have something?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
No, you don't.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Um, let me see, no, okay.
Um questions that he wants toask in this article are one what
does it actually mean to followthe Lord Jesus?
And two, is that actuallypossible today, cause like Jesus
isn't around anymore?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So we just want to like break this down a little
bit, reflect on this and startwith this first question what
does it mean to follow the LordJesus?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
All right the way that Ratzinger breaks it down
Pope Benedict XVI.
For those of you who aren'tfamiliar with his actual name,
joseph Ratzinger, he draws thisdistinction between external
dimension of following Christand this internal dimension of
following Christ.
This we could call this kind ofthe older interpretation, maybe
more ancient way of readingwhat it meant to follow christ.
(07:26):
And externally, to followchrist meant literally, like you
actually are following the man,jesus christ, through the
streets of palestine that's whatthat meant.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
This is.
He starts off very literallylike that's what it meant to
follow jesus from the beginninglike put down your disciples and
literally come follow me,because we're walking Right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
We strutting down this thing.
I think I read that somewherein Mark's gospel.
It's crazy we strutting downthis thing.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think it's like Mark 6, like it's somewhere in
there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Yeah, good job.
I think that's the externaldimension.
That's what it meant to followChrist.
It took on a literal meaning,but then there was this other
dimension.
You want to talk about that?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, yeah, I mean.
Ratzinger says that thatexternal activity of actually
leaving your job, leaving yourfamily, leaving your home and
following Jesus around firstcentury Palestine, that was
accompanied.
It was necessarily accompaniedby an interior activity, right,
(08:31):
and this is where the cruoks ofthe argument is right.
Yeah, and so the way thatRatzinger explains it.
He says this.
He says following Jesus meant anew direction for one's life,
which no longer has business,the earning of a livelihood and
one's own wishes and ideas asits central point of reference,
but is surrendered to the willof another of reference, but is
surrendered to the will ofanother, so that being with him
and being at his disposal arenow the really important content
of a human existence.
(08:53):
So he, just from the very outset, makes this observation that,
like following Christ always hadthis, you know, in its original
context, had this exteriordimension I'm going to follow
this guy around but thatdemanded interiorly that my life
stops being centered around meand slowly my heart starts to be
centered and at the disposal ofthis man and is willing to
(09:15):
sacrifice itself for this manright I mean like I'm leaving my
family, I'm leaving rightsometimes leaving my job like
and I'm following this guyaround because I'm so captivated
by, I don't know, his gaze intomy eyes, or he or the word, the
truth that he's speaking to meright now, like yeah people left
everything to follow this rabbifrom Nazareth around yeah, I
(09:39):
think, I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You, we've drawn, and we've drawn on servant of God,
luigi luigi giussani.
Yeah, right, and his big thingis about encounter yes
encountering the event of christright.
What does this encounter do?
First of all, it fills thespace of your reality with the
radiant light of truth, goodnessand beauty and that captivity
(10:01):
draws you out of yourself.
Yeah, it's like you no longerwant to be in this kind of
dwindling, small, limited ego.
Yeah, you want to see what itwas, that you who was, that you
encountered right, and this iskind of this, this right, this
internal dimension something inyour heart is moving you outward
, yeah, moving you towardsthat's no, that's towards the
other.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's really well said.
Yeah, so after rat singer justmakes that initial observation,
he then points to like he'sthroughout this article he's
trying to kind of unpack themeaning of this phrase following
Christ, like what does thatreally mean?
And he's kind of meditating onit.
And the next place that he goesis to this really kind of
dramatic passage in Mark'sgospel, not the one where he's
like strutting around with thisthing, but like a different one.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah .
Speaker 3 (10:43):
So you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you know, like the other one, the other one, not the one we
just said, not the one we werejust talking about Not the one
strung down, the thing Right,the different one, this one, I
got it and this one actuallycomes from Mark 8, verse 31
through 33.
Diggie Max, do you want to readthis for us?
Yeah, helpful to just kind ofmeditate on in a little bit of
the context here.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
right, so peter is posed.
This is this is peter.
Right?
This is peter and jesus talking.
Peter is posed with this personof christ and, as you know,
jesus and peter are walking,talking, getting to know each
other.
Eventually, it comes to thecrooks of the matter.
Yeah, that it turns out thatthe man he's fallen in love with
, gotten to know, is actuallygoing to have to die.
(11:25):
Peter recognizes that hismaster, his rabbi, jesus christ,
is going to have to die.
And upon confronting thisreality, upon having to confront
the fact that actuallyfollowing christ means this
thing, namely to sacrifice,peter's appalled.
Yeah, he can't comprehend, hecan't understand, he doesn't
(11:46):
want to believe that this iswhat it means that his master,
the one who was innocent, has todie.
He doesn't want to.
He wants to reject that.
He wants to reject thatdimension of following Christ,
which is a dimension ofsacrifice that's essential to
following this person.
Yeah, right, and so here's thecontext, right?
So Mark 8, verses 31 through 33, read this way Then he began to
(12:09):
teach them that the Son of manmust undergo great suffering and
be rejected by the elders, thechief priests and the scribes,
and be killed.
And, after three days, ariseagain.
He said all this quite openlyand Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him.
But, turning and looking at hisdisciples, he rebuked Peter and
(12:30):
said Get behind me, satan, foryou are setting your mind not on
divine things but on humanthings.
Now, that's a pretty starkresponse of the all-passionate,
all-loving, all-compassionateJesus To the Prince of the
Apostles.
To the Prince of the Apostles,the Pope, the future Pope, he's
(12:52):
saying get behind me, satan.
Why?
Because Peter's rejection ofthe paschal shape of following
Christ is something that cannotbe denied.
It's essential to followingthis person of Christ, and I
think this is a reality thatmany of us, including myself, in
our own varying degrees of life, want to reject.
(13:15):
We don't want to have to pickup our cross and follow him.
We don't want to see our Lordsuffering.
We don't want to share in whatit means to die to the self,
because a lot of the, a lot ofthe times, we think that death
has the final word, and yet ourLord and his resurrection shows
us that's not the case.
To follow him means to followhim into death and to rise with
(13:38):
him too.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, and, and Ratzinger makes the point that
this rebuke that Jesus issues toPeter is very revelatory of
what it means to follow himright.
So, jesus, he says Peter inthis moment thinking as human
beings, do not as God does, heis, he's trying to take the leap
, he's trying to tell Jesuswhere to go right.
(13:59):
Jesus is telling him I'm goingto suffer and die and rise on
the third day, and Peter'strying not to let that happen.
He's trying to orchestrate theaffairs, but what Jesus says is
no, get behind me.
And that's what Ratzinger keysin on.
He says to follow is tosurrender one's place, kind of
in the lead, and to get behind,to get behind the Lord Jesus and
(14:23):
follow where he leads.
And oftentimes, as you justarticulated, that means
confronting terrible things,like things that we can't in our
own minds imagine, but that theLord Jesus assures us will lead
ultimately to glory if we trusthim.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And, admittedly, friends, I can't pretend to know
where you are all in life rightnow.
You may be a college student,you may be a high schooler, you
may be a middle schooler, youmay be a married person Right,
you may be an elderly personlistening to this.
And so the cross is going totake on different forms
depending on where your life is.
Maybe you're looking for a job.
Maybe you're suffering from abreakup.
Maybe you, maybe you're goingthrough a rough path in your
(15:03):
marriage.
Maybe things are going well inyour own relationships.
Maybe you have a great jobright now.
Maybe there's not that explicit, let's say, dimension of the
cross, but there is, there'salways that, and our Lord always
calls us to pick that up.
And so I guess what we don'twant to do also is undermine the
(15:24):
fact that following Christ is aradical thing, right, but also
make it so radical that it's, uh, that it shatters you, because
sometimes I think we can bescrupulous to to believe.
Well, that means I have to doeverything the gospel says
exactly how it says it, or haveto do everything exactly how
that saint says to do it.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And so we also have to kind of walk that thin line
of like discerning what God'swill is for my life, right, but
also choosing, acting, doing thething that we know, at this
particular moment in time, thatwe've judged to be the will of
God, and live according to that.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Right, so, yeah, so Ratzinger, again, he begins with
this recognition that followingJesus has this exterior
dimension at first, and then aninterior dimension to this inner
transformation that takes placeas I surrender my life and my
preferences to this man.
Then he draws attention to thefact that following Jesus means
getting behind him and trustinghim, even as he leads you to the
cross, which is terrifying.
And then this is kind of thelast reflection he has on this
(16:20):
question, before he gets intoaddressing whether or not we can
actually follow Jesus today,2000 years later.
He gets into addressing whetheror not we can actually follow
Jesus today, 2000 years later.
And what he says is he actuallypoints to the gospel of John
and verse chapter nine, verse 22.
And in this verse it says thisit says it's talking about Jesus
and it says the Jews hadalready agreed that anyone who
(16:41):
confessed Jesus to be theMessiah would be put out of the
synagogue.
Right, so the Jews who werehearing Jesus' teaching, who
were frustrated by it, who wereangry at it, they had made the
decision to kick Jesus out ofthe synagogue and anybody and
anyone who was following him.
And so what Ratzinger says?
(17:03):
He says this this is a quote hesays Anyone who joins Jesus
enters the company of theoutcast and must be prepared to
be condemned as Jesus was and toend up on the cross.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So this is the important element of following
Christ to be a part of acommunity who's willing to share
in his cross, to willing to bein the group of the outcasts.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And that is as you pointed out earlier.
It's a very hard reality.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
It's understandable why a lot of people don't want
to follow Christ.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
But it also shows, I think, to my mind, a level of
credibility of those who didfollow him.
Oh for sure His existence musthave been so palpable, and
compelling that they're likeokay, what is he taught?
Who is this man?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Like I'll follow this guy, even though the Jews are
kicking me out of the synagogue,which is like the center of my
life.
This man and his love and thetruth that he is speaking into
my life is so real thatliterally what I have held most
important in life right now myworship at the synagogue even
(18:13):
that becomes relative inrelation to him, which is
closely related to the earlyChristian community.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, this early Christian community is marked by
not just early Christians.
This early Christian communityis marked by not just early
Christians.
This continues to some varyingdegree.
Today was marked by martyrdom.
Exactly yeah, literally beingthrown out, sometimes of their
own family, right Thrown outinto the dust, being murdered,
not murdered, being martyred forthe faith.
(18:45):
For professing their belief inthis god man, jesus christ, they
shared in the cross of christin a way that I mean perfectly
in a way in a way that weprobably want, want sharing in a
specific way, at the very least, and so you.
So you have this element rightfrom the beginning to literally
follow christ right, to turnyour life to christ, to follow
(19:09):
him, to get behind him, to putyour ego aside, to pick up your
cross and to share in his crossas a community yeah, and this is
why, as you just said, you canthat, from very early on,
christians began to intuit that,that the martyrs were the
perfect like, the, the bestdisciples of the like.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Those were the people who were truly following Jesus.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And so, to this day, we model them right, we have
them in our stained glasswindows, we have them depicted
in our statues in our churches,we have their mottos all over
our little prayer cards.
People get them tattooed onthemselves To this day, these
quotes of these martyrs, thesesaints, reflecting the demands
of love to be sacrificed, andsometimes that means to be a
(19:52):
sacrifice of blood.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
So that's the way that Ratzinger begins to answer
the question of what it reallymeans to follow Jesus, but then
he transitions into the secondmajor question that he's trying
to address in this article,which is this you know, like
Jesus is no longer walkingaround planet Earth, like he's
not in Palestine anymore, wecan't get up and follow him
around Judea, and also like someplaces in the world, this is
(20:21):
still happening, but in mostplaces martyrdom isn't really
going to be like a reality formost of us, or red martyrdom at
the very least.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Right, right, right.
This is actually like dying foryou right now, correct?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
To be fair, I'm not so sure that that's going to
remain the case for the rest ofour lifetime.
I agree.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
And that's again just to point out what you said
earlier.
It's also not to undermine orto reject the fact that that
still happens in some countries,yeah Right, but in most of the
Western world that's not thecase right now.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
So I, so Ratzinger, asked this question and I know a
lot of like.
I've had this thought beforeand I know many of our listeners
probably have too like, okay,if Jesus isn't around anymore
and if you can't really getmartyred?
You know too often anymore in alot of countries and those are
like the most essential aspectsof following Jesus and the clear
right, the clear ways offollowing Jesus.
Is it still possible to followhim today, 2000 years later?
(21:12):
And, surprise Ratzinger's,ratzinger, pope Benedict the
16th?
His answer is yes, it is, andthe reason that he says that
it's still possible to followJesus is well, firstly, the
(21:32):
essence of following Christ,even in the first century, even
when he was walking aroundPalestine, was not the exterior
movement of like walking behindhim.
The essence of following Christwas always the interior
transformation.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Which is why, by the way, jesus Christ is known as
the new Moses, which we talkedabout in our episode with Bishop
Fernandez.
Right, as the new Moses, thelaw is no longer simply
fulfilled by external acts.
Right, the person of JesusChrist is here to give us our
hearts back right.
So, again, essential to theChristian life, essential to
following Jesus Christ, is beingin tune with our heart's
(22:12):
movement towards him, not simplyour external acts.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yes, we can still surrender our heart and our life
to him and to make him thecenter of our life, rather than
ourselves and our ownpreferences.
And part of the reason that wecan do that, which is the second
big point that Ratzinger makes,is that, even though Jesus
isn't physically still here, heis still alive, which you know.
(22:36):
Christians know thatintellectually, but it can
become easy to forget that he iseven more present to us now
than he was when he was walkingaround on the earth.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And he loves you and he loves you, friends.
He loves you.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
He not only allows you to share in the ability to
follow him as a Christiancommunity, but he loves you so
much that he's allowing you tomeet him face to face in the
holy sacraments yeah, which iswhere he's supremely present,
right in the sacraments, in hisword, in in the community of the
(23:15):
church, um, in your neighborand in all of these, in all of
these places, he's still lookingyou in the eyes, like he looked
, looked in the eyes of StMatthew and St Peter and Andrew
and he's saying follow me.
Like he's still saying that tous today, which is why Ratzinger
(23:36):
insists that, yes, it is stillpossible to follow the Lord
Jesus.
And then, and then he moves tohelp us understand what that
looks like a little bit moreclearly.
He moves to just one finalscripture verse that we wanted
to draw your attention to, whichis John, chapter 10, verse 4.
And this is actually veryrelated to the verse for the
(23:59):
theme of seek, which is kind ofcool how this worked out.
But this is what John 10, verse4 says.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
He says when the Shepherd has brought out all his
own, he goes before them andthe sheep follow him, for they
know his voice this is what we,as Christians, are called to do
to be able to again I use theword earlier to be attuned to
(24:27):
his spirit, to be attuned to hisvoice, to know when our
shepherd is calling us.
And I'm going to hear read aquote, uh, by ratzinger on this
idea of knowing his voice, whatit means to know his voice to
follow means to recognize jesusvoice and to follow that voice
through the confusion of voiceswith which the world surrounds
us.
To put it even more clearly tofollow means to entrust oneself
(24:50):
to the Word of God, to rate ithigher than the laws of money
and bread and to live by it.
It means making a radicaldecision between the two and, in
the final analysis, the onlytwo possibilities for human life
bread and the word.
Man does not live on breadalone, but also and primarily,
(25:10):
on the word, the spirit, themeaning.
He has to make the radicaldecision to stake his life
either on profits and gain or ontruth and love, to live only
for himself or to surrenderhimself.
This points to something we'vealready kind of talked about
(25:31):
earlier right To follow Christmeans to take up the attitude of
a servant, to say I will serveBecause, contrary to that
statement is Satan's statementthat he will not serve, and part
of serving, part of following,is again tied wedded to the
(25:54):
cross.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But also the redemption of our lord, yeah
yeah, um, that, in a way thatonly you know that rat singer
can do, just to distill thingsdown to their simple like this.
This decision, like followingjesus make means making this
radical decision in favor of theword over simply bread, in
(26:16):
favor of meaning and love andtruth over simply material
possessions and gain.
If I'm living my life simplyseeking money and pleasure and
power, then I'm not followingthe lord jesus.
But if I'm submitting myself inhumility and trust and loving
obedience to his word, then Iwill get to experience the joy
(26:38):
that did compel even the martyrsto like joyfully embrace death.
Yeah, because they were lovedthat much, because they knew
that they were loved and theyknew that death was not the end.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I'm reminded of a saint we've spoken about before
on our podcast, st CharlesLuanga.
Oh yeah, right, and companions,when they're all walking
together they're kind ofhigh-fiving cheering.
They're all singing, they'reexcited about what's about to
happen to.
They know they're about to dieand they're cheering their way
forward.
That is a.
They're following christ, right, they're taking up the cross,
(27:11):
but they're also taking up theirhumanity, yeah, and living in
joy and friends.
You know, I have to qualifythis a bit Sometimes as
Christians, when we use thislanguage of denying the world,
we can oftentimes assume well,that means everything in the
world is bad.
And that's not what we're tryingto say.
That's not what our Lord istrying to say either.
(27:31):
You need bread to survive, itturns out, and he wants you to
survive and it's good.
It is good.
Unless it's gluten-free, thenit's not good at all.
Dude big development in my life.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Can I just share this real quick?
Yes, okay, so maybe ourlisteners didn't know this, but
I've discovered that I have asensitivity to gluten and that a
lot of some medical problems Ihad have disappeared that's what
he says After I got off ofgluten, which has been really
great.
But recently I discovered that,um, sourdough bread is like
(28:04):
during the fermentation process,a lot of the gluten breaks down
, so people who havesensitivities to it can
sometimes eat sourdough bread.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And, uh, my family just started making sourdough
bread and it's, it's, so it's itsourdough bread and it's it's
so, it's um, it's so good andI'm so, you're fine.
So bread is good and if youhave a gluten tolerance,
intolerance, sourdough breadseems like your answer it's
sourdough bread you're welcome.
Sorry, I cut you, so man doesn'tlive off bread alone, but he
sometimes does also live onbread.
And that is the end of thatconversation.
(28:37):
No, no, I'm just simply sayingthat our Lord doesn't want us to
deny everything in the world.
Our Lord wants us to order it,to put it in its place, to help
those small things.
What's up?
Alarm?
Yeah, go ahead.
Our Lord doesn't want us todeny all of the things in the
(28:59):
world, right, he wants us toorder those things.
He wants us to place them intheir proper order.
He wants to make those lesserthings subservient to us, as
we're being subservient to God.
To him, yeah.
That's really well said this isthe way that the ordering of
creation works.
It turns out yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So, deacon, max, just in light of this discussion I'm
curious about you mentioned.
You know I've never been toSEEK before, but I know you've
shared with me that you havebeen to SEEK before and that
you've had some actually prettypowerful experiences there and
I'm wondering if you would bewilling to share some of those
experiences right now.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
So I lied oh, share some of those experiences um
right now.
So um, I lied oh, I said thatseek 2017, 2018, it's actually
seek 2019.
okay, in indianapolis you gottago, I will, um, although it
wasn't, it was a mistake, not alie.
So it was a mistake, not a lie,which means I don't have to go
ever, not not ever.
(29:59):
This specific for this specificthing.
Um, yeah, I know I had aprofound experience, I gotta say
.
I just want to recall it forthose of you who maybe have
never heard of seek or arefamiliar with it.
Yeah, it's put on by focus.
I'm not going to try to pretendto know their full name.
Uh, I got you you right.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yes, fellowship of catholic university students.
Is that the name you werethinking of?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well done.
I suppose that's about fivedays where, up until very
recently it was college studentswere invited and there's
(30:41):
approximately 15 to 20,000college students.
It's beautiful.
I mean, I've had theopportunity to go to.
Now maybe three.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
This will be my fourth one.
I didn't realize you've been tothat many yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I haven't been, like I said, in a few years, but in
2019, I was given theopportunity by my diocese to go,
and I was given the opportunityby my diocese to go and I
remember I think it was daythree they'd had Eucharistic
exposition and adoration andthey processed our Lord through
the conference center and Iremember him approaching me very
(31:12):
vividly as I'm kneeling in theback, wrestling with some sins,
with some things that Iexperienced.
For those of you who know someof my story, I'd also gone
through rehab, so I was at thatpoint, just over a year clean,
and so I was kind of alsothanking God for those things.
(31:37):
And I remember him coming to meand there was something, a
particular intention that I'dbeen praying for for a very,
very long time and I hadparticularly been asking for
courage to face this wound.
And as he came to me this was aSikh 2019, our Lord, in one of
(31:57):
the handful of times in my life,spoke clearly, spoke clearly to
what I was asking.
It was very, very piercing andhe touched upon the specific
wound that I asked him to helpme confront, that I asked him to
(32:18):
help me confront and that gaveme the courage to speak to
others about it and then,because of opening that up, I
finally had the courage to openup about that, but then also to
decide that seminary is what ourLord wanted for me.
That was a big part of myvocational story that I
(32:38):
sometimes have just forgottenabout because I've been through
so many things about, and thatwas one of the big things that I
told our Lord.
I said, lord, unless I open upabout this, unless I share this
in a confession, or unless Ishare this with friends and
family, this isn't.
I don't think this seminarything is going to be an honest
pursuit, and so, um, that's,that's one of my profound
(33:01):
experiences that I had with seek.
Um, yeah, the conference hasbeautiful things.
Yeah, the conference is likeit's professional, they, they're
, they're, they're, I mean,they're calm.
This focus always puts on.
I went to the pilgrimage, itwas put on by focus, you know, I
(33:21):
mean, they always do a good job, but, but, but see, the only
thing that they're doing they'reinstruments of facilitating,
facilitating people with anencounter with our Lord, so that
you can follow him.
That's what they want.
They want us to you know thefellowship that they, they want
us to to, to enter into unionwith our Lord.
That's what they want.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
And you might be thinking to yourself you know,
okay, deacons Max and Joseph,like you're telling me, I can
follow Jesus even today, in myeveryday life.
So why do I need to go to thisconference to do it?
Why can't I just like followJesus here where I am, or like
at my church?
And the answer is, of courseyou can.
But there's somethingsignificant about again
(33:53):
sacrificing, you know, four orfive days of your time and money
to fly there to buy the tickets, yeah.
Making that decision is doingexactly what Ratzinger is
talking about in this articlethat we just read where it's
it's subordinating my desire forbread and stuff and luxury and
(34:15):
possessions and pleasure.
It's subordinating that desirefor my desire for Christ and I'm
actually putting my resourcesat the service of my desire for
Christ.
I'm sacrificing, I'm creating.
This is the way I think aboutall these conferences.
This is the way I think aboutlike Lent or the season of
Advent which is coming up, orany retreat that you go on.
(34:35):
A lot of times we think like, oh, we gotta like do a bunch of
stuff to receive a bunch ofgrace.
But really what we're doingwhen we go to a conference or a
retreat or we enter into theseason of Lent or Advent is all
we're trying to do is justcreate space in our hearts for
the Lord to come flooding into.
And I have found in my own lifeand I know this is the case for
(34:58):
so many people, I mean you,just, I mean you're a clear
example of that is that when wemake that sacrifice for the Lord
and we open up our hearts byopening up our time to dedicate
it completely to him, heresponds with generosity and
people regularly have likesignificant life-changing
encounters at events like this.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Amen and friends, look if you, if you can't afford
it cause I know this isexpensive, I'm not, we're not
trying to undermine it there'sin two locations.
There's one in Utah, which isthe one we'll be going to, Salt
Lake city, Utah, and there's onein DC.
You know, um, uh, contact yourdiocese.
Your diocese may be sponsoringpeople to go.
That's the way I went in 2019.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Or, if not, Seek will be posting all their videos,
all the videos of the speechesour podcast that we're going to
get to do over there.
That'll be posted.
Dude, I'm so excited, that'sgoing to be so sick, that's
going to be fun.
They reached out to us.
We were thinking about going.
We had to tell that, okay, allright, so here's what.
Here's what's happening.
Basically, deacon Max and I werelike you know we should cause
we went to the Eucharist inCongress this past summer and it
(36:00):
was.
We didn't plan like to have anysignificant stuff going on with
like logos podcasts, but thenwhen we got there, there were
all these people who listened tologos podcasts and we were
making connections.
Like we met father David andMichael Moses, we were meeting
some of these other speakers andstuff.
And, uh, you know, we've beenbrainstorming.
Like you know, we should likego to seek, to try to like
network and meet people and andand interact with our audience
(36:23):
base too, cause that was just solife-giving at the Eucharistic
Congress.
And then we looked into it.
We were like thinking aboutsetting up a booth or something
and we looked into it and wewere like we cannot afford that
because we are poor seminarians.
We are poor seminarians stillas it is.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And but not only that , like it's, it's also, like you
know, traveling from where weare to Utah.
That's a long ways away andthere's other commitments we
have.
There are other things in ourown diocese that so, you know,
these kinds of boundariesstarted coming up time and time
again and but we, you know, wewere kind committed, so we're
like we got to make this happenas best as we can.
And I mean, I'm no kidding,that day I had spoken, or maybe
the day before I just spoke,into joey, I'm like dude, uh uh,
(37:04):
there's some, there's somethingabout diocese.
I don't know if I'll be able togo figure it out.
Yeah, I did, and I I overbooked,as I want to do because I'm
silly, um, and so I was like Idon't know what to tell you know
, father, so-and-so about thesituation.
And he's like, well, just, youknow whatever, talk to him and
see what happens.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
And I was like, okay, and I was kind of hesitant and,
uh, because of my own ignorance, and cause we had decided, like
my diocese had ended updeciding, that it was going to
take a group.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
So I was going to get to go.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Whereas necessarily the case, they were going to
help pay for some of the.
But.
But then there was this othersituation that was really the.
This other conflict was like,and I was like I don't know man,
I don't know, and I'm literallyin here editing an episode and
I see the email from focus.
Yeah, I'm like wait, wait, what.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I mean cause.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Literally I was in here that night kind of
contemplating like should we go,should we not go?
I, as I'm in here, like rightnow chillin and from.
Alex, from Alex yeah shout,alex, thanks for what you're
doing for us.
And then I in the morning tellJoey.
I said hey, we got a.
(38:08):
We got to check this out.
I don't know what this is about, but we just seems interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
No, you called me, you're like hey, dude, um, oh,
that's right.
I think we just got invited togo to a podcast seek.
I was like what?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
so anyways, beautiful , yeah, so it worked out, we're
gonna be there we're so excitedwe are.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
If you're going, we're like definitely gonna be
let you know like we'll behaving a hangout while we're
there meeting up with our, ourlisteners and our audience base.
But we're just, we're justreally excited for this
opportunity and I'm lookingforward to what the Lord is
going to be doing more than whatwe're going to be doing.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, we'll be there, it'll be cool, but we want you
to just encounter our Lord insimilar ways that we've
encountered him.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yeah, so pray for us, Pray for everyone who's going
to seek.
If you are going to seek, we'llgoing to seek.
You know what?
We'll be praying for you and,um, that it'll be a a
life-changing encounter for youwith the lord jesus.
Amen.
Um, I thought that it'd befitting to kind of conclude this
episode with just reading thelast couple paragraphs of this
article from rat singer, because, um, he says things better than
(39:14):
we do oftentimes.
Well then, you do definitelyand me sometimes.
He ends up making this pointthat you know, even though
martyrdom isn't necessarilyhappening left and right
nowadays like it was in theearly church, the inner essence
of conversion, the inner essenceof following Jesus, is this
kind of daily martyrdom, ofself-surrender to the Lord right
(39:38):
.
And it's after he makes thatpoint that he says this, and
I'll just read this lastparagraph of this chapter it
should be about 20 minutes or so.
Yeah, so just buckle up.
Just 20, 25 minutes, I mightread it twice.
No, I'm just kidding.
He says this To follow Christmeans to accept the inner
essence of the cross, namely theradical love expressed therein,
(40:03):
and thus to imitate God himself, his glory, in order to be
present for us, who desires torule the world not by power but
(40:23):
by love, and in the weakness ofthe cross, reveals his power,
which operates so differentlyfrom the power of this world's
mighty rulers.
To follow Christ, then, meansto enter into the self-surrender
that is the real heart of love.
To follow Christ means tobecome one who loves as God has
loved.
That is why St Paul can makethe astounding statement that to
(40:48):
follow Christ is to imitate Godand to enter into the basic
movement that characterizes Godhimself.
God has become man so that menmight become like God.
In the last analysis, followingChrist is nothing other than
man's becoming man byintegration into the humanity of
(41:10):
God.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Well, good job.
How are we supposed to like?
I don't know what to say afterthat dude thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Joseph Ratzinger stole our thunder.
Dude, actually we took his justkidding.
Please pray for us.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah, guys, we hope that motivated you.
We hope this, this episode, hasmotivated you to go to seek to,
above all, really encounter ourLord, to follow him.
That's, that's the message hereto follow our Lord.
We hope you're an instrument ofthat, and we hope above all
really encounter our Lord tofollow him.
That's the message here tofollow our Lord.
We hope you're an instrument ofthat and we hope, above all,
that we brought you closer andcloser to the Lord of us, to our
Lord Jesus Christ, and, asalways, god bless.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Thank you for joining us for this episode.
We hope you learned somethingand encountered Christ in some
way.
If you enjoy what we do, pleasesubscribe and share this
podcast with a friend.
This helps us reach more peoplewith and for Christ.
Until next time, this is JohnMichael Peace.
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