Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone. I'm doctor Kiara Simeon di Francesco, and I'm
here to introduce today the books Bible Love Letters from
your Father, Books of John and the course that Professor
Romold B. Simeon has constructed based on these books. And
(00:21):
we have two wonderful guests and I like to introduce
them to you. Doctor Sebastian Mayfood. He is the editor
and publisher at en Roots, en Route Books and Publishing
and also w KAT Radio NTV, and he's going to
share his experience doing some final edits on Professor Simeon's books.
(00:46):
And we also have wonderful man that just ignites his
high school students at St. Mary's High School in Nina
and has also been a student Offessor Romo Simeon, Sam
Would and Sam is going to share his personal experience
also with the Gospel of John and the other Love
(01:11):
Letters from your Father. And we're excited to have you both,
so thank you very much, appreciate it, Thank you good
Now some of you might wonder what they look like,
and this is the current set. We have volume one
a Bible Love Letters from your Father Books of John.
(01:35):
They're really big in fat because they go through the
Scriptures and slow motion. This is volume one B on
the Gospel of John. Then we have the Letters of
John and Revelation. And just in case you're curious, the
original books were a set that actually depicted the idea
(01:58):
of love letters. And here we have the Books of John,
the Gospel of John all in one volume, the Letters
in Revelation, and some of us, like you know, the
Hearts because it depicts the love letters.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But it's the same text.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And I'm going to start off by telling you a
little bit that Ronald Simeon has taken these texts really
in slow motion with being a genetic historian, giving the
historical context, the spiritual understanding, the exegesis of the scripture.
It reads verse by verse, almost like a movie watching
(02:38):
Christ's life, watching what the Pharisees said and did, how
the crowd reacted, giving the background connecting the Old Testament
scriptures to the New It's very inspired and brilliant. In
my opinion. I've been his protege for many years, and
you know Saint Paul's basically that he tries to imitate
(03:02):
Christ and his goal was to be a clone of
Jesus right, to really imitate him. Well, in some ways,
I would say, there's no way I match up, but
I try to be a clone of Romboldt's because he
really witnesses so many things so clearly for me. And
when I first met him, I was amazed because I
(03:24):
said to myself, Wow, this man really believes the whole
Gospel and is trying to live it. And it so
impressed me. And when he brought the scriptures down to
my understanding, it's like, wow, I get it. This makes sense.
And so as I understand from Professor Simeon that he
(03:46):
has written these books at a level that's really everyday
person's level from age sixteen through you know, adulthood. They
are not too skolarly, and they're they're meant to really
help us apply the scriptures in our everyday life and
really understand who the real Jesus is. And when Professor
(04:10):
Romwald went to see the Holy Father, this was Pope
Paul the sixth and he was invited up to his
throne with his with his Italian mother because she was
in a wheelchair. That was another miracle of the Holy Spirit.
But the Pope corrected him because he had a sticker
(04:31):
on his bible. You know, this was you know in
the sixties when the sticker said Jesus one way and
the Pope said, oh no, it's not one way. Jesus
is the only way. And and since then Professor Romwald
has always been saying, Jesus he is. It's all and
only Jesus. So that's what you're going to learn about.
(04:53):
And we want to explain to you that these books
come with videos, and the video dos the scriptures. The
love letters from your father Books of John that he
wrote amplify the Bible, but the videos amplify the love letters.
So they go through it in really slow motion, using
(05:16):
rather fascinating examples from his unusual life. And he really
does have an unusual life. In fact, we have another
series of videos called Ordinary Man Anything but Ordinary. One
of them is how to Buddhists gave their lives to
save him in a fellow missionary when he was ten
(05:37):
years overseas. So he has all sorts of adventures. But
these adventures help us understand even though we don't normally
have these exciting things happen to us, thank God, but
they help us apply the scriptures in our life. And
that's what I just love about them. So on the
Gospel of John. He has sixty eight videos on the
(06:00):
Letters of John thirteen videos, Revelation eighteen and then on
his rather new and recent show that I'm continuing, the
Romald B. Simeon Show, Ordinary Man Adventures of Trinitarian and
Jesus Centering, he has fourteen videos plus he for those
(06:20):
of you interested in doing mission work, he has a
set of Jesus Centering and Witnessing and nine videos there.
And all of these videos are on Doctor Sebastian's television
program called WCAT Radio and TV, and Doctor Sebastian, if
(06:40):
you want to help us understand how to get there,
and maybe start us off with some of what your
impressions are of Professor Simeon's books and how they have
affected you as you've edited them and brought them into
their new cover.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Oh certainly thank you Kier for the introduction and for
for allowing me to be on your show today. WKAT
Radio was founded in twenty sixteen as the on air
wing of on Root Books and Media. We've done over
six thousand programs in the past nine years. Rumwald Simian's
(07:16):
programs are a significant portion of that. They provide hope, faith, love,
so all the theological virtues, and they provide inspiration, and
most importantly, they provide the wisdom of a century of
(07:37):
evangelization and engagement in the world. Rumwald's life was dedicated
from his being a young man into the present, into
the time that God called him home. So in these
past years that I grew to know him prior to
(08:00):
his passing, I did not meet a young and unseasoned
Romwald Simeon. I met somebody with the full weight of
a half century of engagement under his belt, already in
the world of evangelization more than that, several decades more
than that. So we know that the Pope will eventually
(08:24):
canonize wormwe and this series of lectures will start the
canonization process. We are going first for Servant of God
and then we'll move up to bless It and so on.
So the WKAT TV is something that was founded around
the time COVID began, because we all started doing zoom conferences.
(08:47):
And over the past five years we have almost twelve
hundred wkat TV videos and if you look at the
fact that Rumwald's got one hundred and twenty two of those,
he's ten percent of the entire station. And that's a
lot in considering the percentage that anybody else on the
on the on the station is so uh. He's been
(09:08):
a joy and a blessing and he is the gift
who keeps on giving back to you here.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Thank you, Doctor Sebastian. Amen. I agree with what you're saying,
and I would love for mister sam Wood to give
us his thoughts. And Sam, by the way, is a
Catholic convert and very wonderful man that has been tested
in the fire and turning his life fully to the
(09:37):
fullness of the Gospel.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So go ahead, Sam, I'm hoping you can hear me
all through all my technical difficulties. When I first met Romie,
I was in a real confusing time because as I'm
trying to convert into the Catholic Church, there seemed like
to be so many obstacles within the church that were
(09:59):
just swaying me, discouraging me, confusing me. And I remember
having met him before I began my conversion process and
I met doctor Kara as well. I came to him
and I says, I am, I'm interested in coming into
the Catholic Church, but I'm having such difficulty. I'm having
(10:22):
people even telling me that one I was too roman two.
I was taking it too seriously, and so I went
to Roam. He says, what's what's going on here? And
that's when he introduced me to the idea that to
be Catholic is to be all and only Jesus, that
(10:44):
when one actually lives a life as a Catholic Christian,
they're being Jesus, allowing Jesus to live from within. And
as he also started giving me clarity and thought on
just that there's two different There's we have a human
church church and a divine church. Jesus is in the church,
but there's human beings in it. And he already started
(11:06):
unfolding this wisdom that gave me such clarity. I was
gobsmacked and how easy it was to understand after talking
with Ronnie and so a lot of what he talks
about in the scriptures in the love letters is what
he has shared with me personally in our many hours
(11:28):
of interaction, and so it was. It was life saving
for me, and it also puts me in a position
where now as a teacher, I can clarify the confusions
that my students have and hopefully that with their parents
as they interact with me. I'm finding that it un
(11:48):
confuses them as well. So the clear that we can
see Jesus as he is, as he described himself, and
Ronnie is really careful to bring that out. The works
is how Jesus describes himself. It's how Jesus defines himself.
We can relax and just allow the Lord just to
(12:10):
fill us, and as we meditate on the different scriptures
that Ronnie brings up, and we can just allow the
Holy Spirit to train us and to retrain us at times.
It really does simplify and unconfuses. It gives great joy.
And so my experience with the love letters is really
(12:31):
heightened because of my personal one on one experience with Ronny.
So so it's a great blessing. So I I'm listening
watching the videos as I can. I have the volume set.
I refer to it when I'm teaching my kids. It
(12:52):
really does. It's poignant for them there. They look at
me like I can't believe what you're saying, mister Wood.
It's like, I'm sorry, this isn't from me. Originally, it's
really the Lord working here. He really wants these kids
so and he wants anyone who's watching here. He really
wants you to know him and to know what life
(13:15):
is like with him. And the Lord is joyful. He's
so a generous with himself to us. So I think
these works really do help us receive that from the Lord.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yes, Sam, thank you so much to hear how it
actually personally applied to you. And I have the delight
of sharing a little portion. This is from the Gospel
of John. The full title of the book is Bible
Love Letters from Your Father, Gospel of John Leksho Divina.
(13:55):
And this is from chapter eleven, and I'm going to
read this is an expansion of verse six, and here's
a little portion for you all to experience this. It
says his love to be total like his father's, had
to be totally impartial towards all Favoritism would not be
(14:18):
shown even to the worthiest and the best of his friends.
When it came to seeking and saving lost sheep, God's
will and work was ever Jesus's priority, whatever, whenever and
to whomever. On this occasion, Jesus demonstrated that each and
(14:38):
every soul would receive personal attention that was essentially fundamental
in the accomplishment of his mission. And one more indication
of how uniquely good was his good news gospel. The
Messiah had no place for patronizing bias. Family ties created
(15:01):
no precedence. And there he's quoting Matthew twelve forty eight
and Mark three point thirty three. Jesus was wont to
treat everyone, saint or sinner, with love equal to what
he had for his own mother. If he ever showed
any preference, it was for the sheep that was lost.
(15:23):
His loving concern of personal attention is a gift available
to all. A sinner's soul need is here apprized to
be at least equal to the dying request of a
faithful friend. So this passage really speaks to me about
(15:45):
how reading and meditating and trying to apply personal as
your understanding the meanings from love letters from your Father
is for each of us. We are each one of
these little sheep. And this isn't just written for the
world out there. It's written for you the listener, for me,
(16:08):
and to help us be in love, relationship and in
love with our savior Jesus Christ. And that is what
I love about these They help me to know the
real Jesus who he is, and to experience his love
understand his redemption and how it applies to me in
my great, sometimes crazy life. So anything else, Doctor Spastian,
(16:32):
do you have any more thoughts you wanted to share
with us?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Or only that my life has been blessed to know
that of Romy, even if it's if it was, you know,
not for very long. Robmie had a deep and from
everything I've heard him say, a personal impact on the
lives of others. And it's not just Ronny saying so,
it's everybody with whom I've spoken who's had a connection
(16:59):
with Robny, and this conversation, this call is affirming that,
particularly Sam's testimony and what he's been able to do
in carrying forth Romy's message to the students who are
now benefiting another generation into the future.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yes, and that is I'm so glad you mentioned the
impact to doctor Sebastian, because that's why I like to
try to replace some of Romy's old videos on the
Romob Simeon show, because it goes right to my heart.
It's personal, and his message has transformed my life with
(17:46):
a closer connection to Jesus. It's brought me and kept
me in connection with Jesus. Putting Jesus number one, and
removing fears, giving me a brave spirit. All of these
things that I've seen modeled in him, that He's taught me,
and that's what I want to pass on to you all.
(18:06):
So I hope that if the Holy Spirit so guides you,
you might wish to join us in the Scriptural Pastoral
Foundations groups that we will be starting online and at
some parishes that we'll be letting you know about and
you can hop on board where we'll have an experience
(18:28):
of reading a passage from the Love Letters, watching one
of his videos, and then as a group breaking up
into small groups and having a chance to share about
those And Sam will actually be helping with some of
the online breakout groups for those of you that are
(18:48):
across the country, I will be doing some in person
groups and that way we can absorb and meditate and
learn from each other how we apply the Gospel of
our Lord Jesus, how we can model Him in our lives.
So thank you Sam also for this beautiful testimony. Did
you have anything further you wanted to add?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Well, just from your reading that you just gave, it's
like the startling freedom that comes when you hear the
truth Jesus. Actually, it's like when he no favoritism between
he and his mother in he and I are here
the viewers, it's like he's right there in the speaking
(19:31):
of the truth. So I'm just thrilled with how real
the person of Jesus is to me, and so I'm
hoping that the viewers are willing to enter into that
as well. It's a glorious, glorious life.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yes, you're not too young, too old, to whatever, educated
or uneducated, it doesn't matter, because this is going to
impact you. And even if you just listen to the videos,
if you don't even understand everything you're reading, but you
watch the videos and hear us talk about it and
(20:09):
apply it to our lives, I think you're going to gain.
So you know, when you start to share and you
have a group that's facilitated where it feels safe and
there I use my psychologist's skills to create safety in
the group and confidentiality in the group that we can
open up and look at how this supplies. This allows
(20:31):
us to learn from each other and we get inspired
and we connect like, oh you struggle with that too,
and what's our Lord saying here? So it really helps
us become the person He has created you and I
to be so. God bless you all. Thank you Doctor
Sebastian for your time. Thank you Sam, and may often
(20:54):
feel a warm invitation to join us. Until then, Thank you,
k you bye now