Episode 166: Dodgers Playing Dodgeball (June 3, 2023)

In this episode of Saint Paul's Letters to America, Ray Gerard and Bob Hennekeys talk about Dodgers playing Dodgeball. (June 3, 2023)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, yourhome for authentic Catholic programming. Hello,
and welcome to another edition of Well. This is Saint Paul's Letters to America.
I'm in studio today. My nameis Ray Gerard and I'm in studio
today with Bob Henk as Bob.Thanks for being back here again. Wow,
it's nice. I've been out ofSaint Louis and away for about nine

(00:22):
or ten months and back here andabsolutely love being here and certainly being a
part of this. This is great. So today you know the aim of
this instruction, I would say,is love from a pure heart, a
good conscience, and a sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and
turned to meaningless talk, wanting tobe teachers, but without understanding either what

(00:45):
they are saying or what they assertwith such assurance. But this saying is
trustworthy and deserves full acceptance. ChristJesus came into the world to save sinners.
Of these I am the foremost,but for that reason I was mercifully
treated, so that in me asthe foremost, Christ Jesus might display all

(01:07):
his patients as an example for thosewho had come to believe in him for
everlasting life to the King of Ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God,
honor and glory, forever and ever. Amen. Now I gave no
introduction to that, and for awhile it might even seem like, you

(01:30):
know, this was something that Iwas saying, that I had written,
even talking about myself. The partabout being the foremost among sinners, that
part I can relate to. Butnow it's actually a letter from Saint Paul
to Timothy. And this I thinkletter is particularly important if there was going

(01:53):
to be a message given to Americatoday, if Saint Paul were alive today,
I was going to give a messageto America. Perhaps among all the
things he would say would be this. I mean, what is not contained
in this the aim of this instruction, everything saying Paul would teach is simply

(02:14):
this love from a pure heart.And what's the other main concept that this
saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came to save sinners.
If you studied the Bible back tofront, have you spent years of questioning

(02:37):
you know what's the meaning of life? And you read the best philosophers and
the greatest scholars, and spent yearsand years in study, and if you
came away with only these two things, what else would you need to know?
So why is this relevant? Well, today we're going to talk about

(02:57):
baseball. We're got to about baseball, and baseball and Saint Paul have have
something where they connect, and we'regonna exactly We're gonna show you exactly how
So the La Dodgers have been inthe news like baseball, Bob, it
was just in a game this week. I absolutely love the game and I
love being a fan, and mydad did and my son does. And

(03:19):
it's sort of a sort of afamily thing. It's a it's a time
my grandfather did. It's a timefor us to get together and share and
enjoy. So I'm a big fan. Hey, Field of Dreams. Right,
you know, if you if you'veseen that movie, I mean,
baseball is America. Baseball has whatdoes James Earl Jones says, you know
they passed the you know it hasmarked the times as America has grown.
All that's correct. I mean,so part of our national identity baseball,

(03:44):
But now part of our national identityincludes you know, I don't even I
guess I could rename them, Icould call them the Sisters. I like
to refer them as this, theSisters a perpetual blasphemy, the name they
chose for themselves, however, asthe sisters a perpetual indulgence, and not
the kind of indulgence you're thinking of, where you know it involves the remission
of sins. Now, this isindulgence where you're told, as their website

(04:11):
proudly states, to go forth andsend some more. That is the model
that appears on their website, atthe bottom of every page of their website,
go forth and send some more.Took that right away from Jesus in
the story of the Adulterous Woman,where he said the exact opposite, go
forth and send no more. Sothey're they're going after it the exact opposite

(04:35):
of what Jesus said. And that'sprecisely the point. So if you don't
know the background of the story withthe la Dodgers and the Sisters of perpetual
indulgence, this group they call themselvesan order of sisters, I guess what
is it? Maybe just by chance, just similar to oh, you know,

(04:59):
an order of nuns in a Catholicfaith that they try and to perhaps
of course they are um They useso many Catholic symbols, Catholic terms,
um, all kinds of just justyou know, things that are Catholic things
that we identify our faith with.They have taken them and then they use

(05:20):
them for their own purposes. Theyeven have habits and whatnot that they wear.
Do they not ray from the picturesI've seen, That's what I've seen
of it. Yeah, they werehabits with with coronets, so some of
them do. They each have theirown individual costume that they use, but
absolutely the dress that they use thecrucifix um in celebrations in a mocking fashion.

(05:45):
Um. They have contests every Easterwhere they there's a there's a contest
involving um. It's called honky Andthen they have I mean, I don't
like to actually repeat these things,but they referred to it as the Hunky
Jesus and the Foxy Mary contests.And they use a crucifix is like,

(06:08):
uh, you know for pole dancing, and there's all kinds of sexual movements
and innuendos and so forth. Andthe Blessed Mother is portrayed and and horrible
and black. It's simply profane whatthey do now they do it for the
purpose of celebrating the lifestyle. Thelifestyle is the lifestyle of transgenderism, same

(06:33):
sex unions. And the other thingthat appears on the website very primarently is
this idea of removing stigmatic guilt.So it's a direct repudiation of the Cross.
The passage we just read from SaintPaul talks about, you know,

(06:56):
it talks about the Cross itself,talks about the sacrifice of Jesus. This
Christ came into the world to savesinners. The whole purpose of the Cross
was to xpiate sin. If weaccept Jesus, if we try to try
to follow his you know, hishis you know, try to follow his

(07:21):
example, try to live like him, try to imitate him. You know,
then if we're lucky, perhaps,you know, we can enjoy eternal
life, which has only made possibleto us because of the Cross. These
are all major tenants of obviously theCatholic faith and a lot of other Christian
faiths as well. And so notonly did they mock it, um,

(07:45):
they repudiate it. And I thinkthat's the key here. You know.
The backstory on this is that theDodgers invited this group to receive an award
on Pride Day. Now, theDodgers have had Pride to recognize transgender,
same sex people and so forth.They've had that I think for ten years

(08:07):
running now, and it's never beenon such a big thing. But this
year they decided to invite this groupand to give them an award, some
community service awards, some kind ofcommunity hero reward, I don't know exactly,
but anyways, and then they caughta lot of backlash and a lot
of people objected because of the blasphemousnature of what they do, and so

(08:31):
they disinvited them. Well then theycaught more backlash having stepped into this you
know this you know this puddle.Now they're they're kind of stuck in there.
Anyways, So then they decided toreverse course again, and so they
reinvited them. And when they did, they actually apologized to this group.

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They said, among other things,the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to offer
our sincerest apologies to the system isa petual indulgence members of the LGBTQ plus
community and their friends and family.So now they're apologizing, they're they're sorry,
and so in reaction to that,a lot of people have spoken out.

(09:16):
Clayton Kershaw is a pitcher for theLos Angeles Dodgers. Pretty good one.
He you know, he's mentioned inthe same you know breath with guys
like Sandy Kofax. I mean alltime grades. I mean, Kershaw is
going to end up in the Hallof Fame for sure. And you know,
he said things such as, well, this is a group, this

(09:37):
is simply a group that was makingfun of a religion. And he said,
I don't agree with that. Iwas Clayton Kershaw. They have another
picture on the Dodgers, another AllStar pitcher is a relief pitcher and uh
yeah, Blake Trinon and he said, quote, I am disappointed to see
the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence being honoredas heroes at Dodgers Stadium. He said,

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many of their performances are blasphemous.Their work only displays hate and mockery
of Catholics and the Christian faith.It's a picture for the Washington Nationals.
He said something similar. He said, to invite an honor group that makes
it blatant and deeply offensive mockery ofmy religion and the religion of home for
four million people in Los Angeles Countyalone, undermines the values of respect and

(10:28):
inclusivity that shouldn't be upheld by anyorganization. Senator Mark of Rubio came out
with a statement, you know,former Vice President Mike Pennce came out with
the statement, there is a professorat Catholic University of New York excuse me,
Catholic University of America who came outwith and they all kind of basically

(10:50):
say the same thing, that thisgroup is offensive, They mock the Catholic
faith, that it is an affrontto everybody who shares the Christian faith,
and that we are seriously offended.Well, in my view, while those

(11:11):
reactions are correct and true, they'rethe wrong message. They're just simply the
wrong message. Why because they missedthe point. They're all wrong in a
certain respect, they miss the point. The point is what we've been talking

(11:33):
about. They honor sin, theyrepudiate Christ. If you're going to honor
a group that repudiates Christ, canyou really just stand back and say,
well, we're not taking any positionon this, We're not making a real
decision. We're not ourselves saying weagree or disagree with them. We're you

(11:58):
know, I mean, so we'renot taking any stands at all. We're
neutral on the question of Christ.Can you do that? I don't think
so. To step up just fora second and say that we want sin,
we like sin, that's something that'sgood goes against the fabric of who
we are. We know we willsin. I know that I have sinned.

(12:22):
I know I'm going to sin more. I hope it's not today,
but it could be. But mydesire is not to sin. The desire
of Christ was to forgive our sin. And yet to put that on a
mantle is something to strive for,is absolutely crazy. The fact of the

(12:43):
matter is Jesus Christ came to saveus from our own sins. He was
crucified to save us from our ownsin, and we couldn't get to heaven
without him coming and dying for oursin. And then to say somehow that
this sin is a good thing,it's something to be lauded, it's something
to be applauded, is not anargument. It's absolutely absurd to put that

(13:09):
on some sort of good basis.If you think about what sin is,
it goes against all the rights thatare in our constitution. The belief that
we will not kill, we willnot hurt, we will not do those
things. Those they are all illegal. And yet that's what sin is.
And so it's not a contest ofright of I'm right, you're right,
I should be apologized to in humaninteraction, it is a reality. They

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are picking something that is dead wrongby our society and by our God and
making that a champion. Oh,when you give them an award, when
I think there's something about being acommunity hero. When you give them a
ward and you call them a hero, yeah, how do you stand back

(13:54):
and say we're neutral on this?You're not? I mean I heard that
after they reinvited them. There's agroup out in It's a national group called
Catholic Vote, and so they reachedout to the Dodgers to try to engage
in a conversation with the Dodgers.And apparently the Dodgers did agree to talk
to them, but just simply dismissed, you know what they said. And

(14:20):
so by reinviting them, by apologizingto them, by giving them an award,
you are making an approval. Youdon't do you mean, you don't
honor somebody for no reason? Wouldwe honor a mass murderer, you have,

(14:43):
a serial murderer, would you puthim in front of fifty thousand people
at Dodger Stadium and call him acommunity hero. Would you do that?
I hope not. I somebody goesinto a school and just shoots up a
school? Would you bring him afour fifty thousand people and give them a
plaque, a little trophy of whatever? Would you do that? Why not?
Why not? You are so beinga mistake. You can't dance around

(15:07):
this. They're not being neutral.Oh we're going to give one group one
day and then we're going to givethe Christian group, you know, another
day. Um, that's just Imean, that's that's self serving. Um.
So you can't really avoid the question. If you're going to give it,
you have to decide. So whois Christ? Was Christ? Good?

(15:28):
Was Christ? Bad? Is there'ssuch a thing as good and evil?
Are these not questions that you haveto ask yourself before you honor a
group that has as one of itsvows. They they say on their website
that they take that all these socalled sisters their men. But anyways,
so called sisters take vows vows Asa as a Catholic, none would take

(15:50):
vows to promulgate universal joy and anduniversal joy. It sounds good. What
it means, obviously, is anything. If you know, whatever, whatever
pleasure you want, you do andto expiate stigmatic guilt, so get rid
of any kind of guilt. Youare using the wounds of Christ, the

(16:15):
stigmata, the piercing of his hands, the piercing of his feet, the
horrible pain, the agony that hemust have felt. For what reason he
underwent this suffering to make an offeringto the father, his father in heaven,
to repair the harm done by oursin. You're talking about sin,

(16:40):
Bob, That's what it was for. If you're going to expiate stigmatic guilt,
any feelings of guilt for doing somethingsinful, for doing something wrong,
for doing something for which Christ gavehis life and suffered all that pain with
that, you know, these woundstershands, his feet, the piercing,
you know, the piercing, butthe spirit in his side, you know,

(17:03):
the crown of thorns piercing into hisskull, all of that horrible pain.
You're going to remove any guilt from, you know, committing any sins
that were part of the reason whyhe underwent that. If you're going to
get rid of any guilt, youalso get rid of any gratitude for Christ

(17:26):
suffering. There isn't suffering that pain, There is no Basically, it's a
statement that there is no sin,there is no line between good and evil.
Go forth and sin some more isa mockery of the of the whole
concept of sin. It simply saysanything is right, if it feels good,
just go ahead and do it.There is no right, no wrong.

(17:48):
It is essentially in well in nounequivocal terms, it's a reject it's
a rejection of any line between goodand evil, which is where we all
should be in making that decision.You know, how many think about this
for a little bit, ray Catholic, non Catholic. How many parents go

(18:08):
and teach them their children to dowrong? Now, there are few,
right, There's no doubt that thereare those that are teaching their children to
do the wrong things and to actpoorly. But the vast majority, I
don't know if it's ninety nine percentor ninety nine point nine percent, I
don't know what it is, butit's a big number teach their children to

(18:29):
do right, to do the rightthings, to love one another, to
take care of one another, Religiousor not, Catholic or not, it's
a huge number to try to teachpeople to understand that there is right and
there is wrong in the world,and we need to do the right and
not do the wrong. This isbasically saying, hey, everything's okay,
it's all relative. You do whateveryou want, whatever feels good, as

(18:55):
opposed to something being right or wrong. We have a system in place where
we have laws that say can dothis and you can't do that. There
is right and wrong. There isright and wrong in terms of sin and
the Catholic Church, there is rightand wrong in terms of our legal system.
What's right and wrong, and it'sit's stunning that we're blurring that line.
That's not more obvious. You knowthat their message, but that is

(19:21):
their message to blur that line completely. Their message is not limited to sexual
orientation or sexual preference. Their website, you go to the website, it's
to get rid of stigmatic guilt.It's not. They don't say stigmatic guilt
with regard to sexual orientation. Imean their statements there, go forth and
send some more. That's not limitedto there's no reference references in any of

(19:45):
that to sexuality. Their message isnot limited to sexuality. Their message is
broader no sin, no cross,no crucifix, no sacrifice, no guilt,
no gratitude, the removal of oursin. It's a rejection of the

(20:06):
cross, you know, Cardinal Ratzingerwas. It was funny because Cardinal Ratzinger
gave homily. So Pope John Paulthe Second passed away, they're going to
hold a conclave. All the cardinalscome to Rome. We're gonna lock the
new pope. Well, they havea preconclave mass, and Cardinal Ratzinger gave

(20:30):
the homily. Cardinal pell from Australiaresenting in the news himself not too long
ago accused of crimes and for yearshe suffered under the accusations, then ended
up being fully exonerated. But that'sanother story. But anyways, in two
thousand and five, before and ifyou're interrupted in his backyard, he was

(20:55):
in Rome for this conclave and whenhe first heard this homily from Arnold Ratsger,
he thought to himself, Wow,this guy doesn't want to be pope.
He ended up being elected Pope atthat conclave, but he gave a
harsh assessment of the world such that, you know, like I said,
some people thought this guy was notangling to say things that would get him

(21:18):
into the papacity. But he gave. He gave, like I said,
a harsh message, and it wasan appropriate one and very appropriate for our
world today. What did he talkabout he talked about He talked about relativism.
He said, well, relativism,which is letting himself be tossed and

(21:40):
swept along by every wind of teaching. And he's quoting Saint Paul. There
looks, he says, looks likethe only attitude that is acceptable to today's
standards. We are moving towards adictatorship of relativism, which does not recognize
anything as for certain, and whichhas as its highest goal one's own ego,

(22:03):
in one's own desires. He said, however, we have a different
goal, the son of God.Period. End of story. It's the
same message that we had with thereading from Saint Paul with which we started
those same two points. Saint Paultalked about teachers, talking about the people

(22:26):
want to be teachers. They don'teven know what they're talking about. But
there's one thing that's trustworthy. Christ. It's the same thing that Cardinal Ratzinger
said, and he talked about thisdictatorship of relativism and isn't that what we
have from the Dodgers. Oh well, we're gonna honor one group they happen

(22:48):
to promote sin, and then we'regonna honor another group they happen to believe
in Christ. You know, sohonor one one day, we'll honor you
know, somebody else two weeks later. You know, it's all the same.
Everything's okay. Each of us getsto choose. There is no right
and wrong. Everything's okay, andeach one of us has the capability to

(23:10):
just sort of choose and figure outwhere we're landing. As opposed to that
there is some set of real truths. There's a whole book on this called
the Bible, and it has allthe truths that God, through his profits,
through his people, have given tous to help us understand what truly
is right and wrong, and thatthere is a right and a wrong.

(23:32):
And that's that's relativism. Right todecide that I don't have to listen to
anything else. I am the ultimatejudge. I can do anything I wish,
even if it hurts somebody else,even if it causes trouble for somebody
else. And that's the danger ofrelativism. Get I get to do.
I'm in complete control as opposed toknow, there are things that you cannot

(23:52):
do, and there are things thatyou cannot do in our society. Right,
you cannot break the law, andthere are things certainly that will keep
you from getting to heaven, tobeing with God forever, and to not
accept Jesus is the foremost of thoserules. So you're right, Bob,

(24:14):
I mean, you're absolutely right aboutthat. What I means these dangers of
relativism, you're relative to right andwrong as you're talking about, Bob.
But relativism, relativism taken to itsextremes, um, leaves you completely rutterless.
Should you be relative to the questionof God? Should you be relative

(24:37):
to the question question of Christ?Should you be relative to the question of
good versus evil? Because that's whatthat's what you're talking about, Bob.
You know, anything goes, nothingmatters in terms of you know whether or
not you're going to make it toheaven or not. There is no good
and evil anymore. Um. Shouldyou be relative to other people? Should

(25:00):
be relative to people? Even ifyou don't believe that there's any life after
this. How about being relative tothe people that you're sharing this planet with
today? Could you be completely relativeto those people? What is we're talking
about this this thing about sin,and if you're relative to good and evil,
you're relative to people? What issin? What? If you go
to the Catechism, you'll I don'tI can't quote it verbatim, but essentially

(25:26):
the definition of sin involves harm topeople. It could be harm to yourself.
Mostly more often than not, it'swell, I don't know. I
could say it's harm to other people. I guess most more often than not,
it's probably a harm to other peopleand you at the same time,
and against God and against God.But you're harm but it creates harm.

(25:49):
If you lie, you're harming somebody. If you lie to someone that you
love, you're breaking You're breaking atrust you have with those people with that
person. If you steal from somebody, yeah, you're definitely harming, creating
some kind of a harm to thatother person. You're taking something from that

(26:10):
other person. That other person can'tuse it, whether anymore with its food
or what have you. If youcommit some act of violence, well that's
certainly harmful against some other person.You know, whatever it is, I
mean, you're harming other people?Is there no room to ask anymore whether

(26:32):
we should allow that or not.You know, we you know nowadays,
I mean, there are lots ofcities in this country where as long as
you steal less than a thousand dollars, it's okay. So you know,
do we not care any more?Can we just simply be relative to these
things? Is nothing right and nothingwrong? Can't we even talk about this

(26:57):
anymore? So you know when yousay, well, you know, hey,
what the Dodgers are doing, andGod bless them, I mean the
people that are standing up and tryingto push back against what the Dodgers are
doing, whether it's under Rubio,vice president Penns, whether it's you know,
the professor Gribowski from Catholic University ofAmerica, whether it's Bishop Baron who

(27:18):
I know it's taking a stance onthis as well, whoever it is,
whether it's Clayton Kershaw, whoever itis, God bless you. You know,
you're you're standing up in a time, you know, in a society
when it's not easy to stand up. What you're missing the point? Okay,
they offend the Catholic faith. Theydo things, they've they've actually desecrated

(27:42):
a consecrated host um, they commit, they use sacred symbols like the Cross
and so forth in sexual and sexualacts of one sort of another. I
mean, plainly profane blasphem is andsive. If we are so concerned today

(28:02):
about, hey, whether or notthis group is offender or that group is
offender, I'm sorry if you're profaningthe Cross on which millions, billions of
people around the world believe. Andno, by the way, it just
happens to be the truth. Butbillions of people believe, you know,

(28:22):
God who died for our sins,you're profaning them. Excuse me, that's
not offensive. We shouldn't care aboutthat, Okay, I get it.
It's but to say that it's offensiveto us simply uses the playbook that that
other people have given us. It'sthis I'm offended game. Well, okay,

(28:51):
there's room for that. There's roomfor discussion about that. There's certainly
there's there's certainly room for discussion aboutthat, because if we talked about sin,
Hey, if you install somebody,you offend somebody, you're sinning,
you're harming somebody. So there's obviouslyroom for discussion about that. But it's
also a personal way of looking atthings. It takes things down from any

(29:11):
kind of a vertical sphere and makesthem horizontal. The only thing we care
about is whether or not this person'sfeelings to hurt or that person's feelings hurt.
Bibe, you said you were righton before you said sin involves offending
God. Now we're going vertical.Now we're going vertical, this whole idea

(29:32):
of individualism. Only you know thatthe relativesm rests on personal ego. As
Cardinal Vertical said, it's only theonly thing that matters is what I feel.
There's something more real than simply whata given person feels. That that

(29:52):
other reality is that world we don'tsee. That's the world where God is
everything. That's the sphere of divinitythat is hard to see from our vantage
point. But there's a reality there, and it's the most real thing that

(30:14):
this business about our feelings. Like, in a certain sense, who cares?
Who cares? I can put asidemy feelings. If somebody offends me,
I can put that aside. Youknow, it doesn't matter somebody who
says something that's offensive to me nowin this instant, Okay, supposing in
the next instant, I forget it, it's gone. It doesn't matter anymore

(30:40):
unless I keep it alive and makeit as something that matters. All that
stuff it vanishes. It's temporary,it's transient. But there's one thing that
lasts all right. It's Christ.It's God. It's the reality of the
afterlife. There is truth here.This is why relatives is so wrong,

(31:03):
because it denies the fact that there'seven such a thing as truth. All
that matters is what I think,what you think. It's all relative.
Nothing matters. There is no truth. There's nothing that's true tomorrow and yesterday
and today and that has always beentrue and will always be true. None
of that, none of that,None of that matters anymore. If everything
is simply relative. And if wesay I'm sorry, this group should not

(31:26):
be honest because I'm offended. Okay, Like I said, there's a place
for that discussion. But it's simplyreiterates their outlook that personal feelings are the
only things that matters. It doesn'ttalk about whether or not there is something

(31:51):
deeper. It doesn't talk about whetheror not there is something true. It
doesn't talk about whether or not thereis such a thing as good and evil.
There is such a thing as thereis such a thing as God,
there is such a thing as thesacrifice on the cross. Before that sind
it doesn't bring any of that intoplay, And why are we afraid to
talk about that? Well, itseems ray. This is to me,

(32:13):
I think we can sort this outin a reasonable length of time, and
that is it is now felt thatif you take something of value from someone
else that's less than a thousand dollars, that's not wrong. I'm not going
to be prosecuted for that. I'mnot going to do anything that's message that's
the message is not wrong. Butyou and I both know that if we

(32:35):
go to anyone else and take somethingthat's worth a thousand dollars, that's dead
wrong. We feel horrible about it, we'd feel guilty about it. Now
there's some that don't, but itdoesn't make that's it's not acceptable to do
that. We know it's we knowin our heart. When each of us
was born, we knew that itwas wrong to hurt other people to take

(32:55):
something that that's not ours. Nowyou can, with time, try to
get over that, but every oneof us know it's wrong to hurt someone,
to punch someone, to murder,someone to steal someone's things. We
know it's wrong before we even knowwhat the commandments are. We know it's
incorrect, and yet we're trying somehowto make what's deep in our gut,

(33:19):
that God has put in us,in our heart, in our soul,
that these things are wrong, andwe're trying to twist it around to make
it that it's somehow okay. Andit's not okay. It's not okay to
harm someone else, it's not okayto do wrong. It is incorrect,
and we have to strive for that. We have to find what it is
that God desires, what he wants, and to do that. And these

(33:43):
folks are saying, no, it'sall okay, anything you want to do.
I remember, since I'm old,I grew up in the sixties,
and there was a phrase that said, if it feels good, you should
and people use that phrase and saidyou don't have to worry as long as
it feels good to you. Butthat's absolute, lutely incorrect. There are
things that you can and cannot do. And it's not about our momentary feeling

(34:06):
of happiness or tenderness or whatever itis. It's about what's right and wrong.
It's about God. It's about arewe separating ourselves from our maker that
wants nothing more? He doesn't,he doesn't want anything but for us to
share him and his life and eternitywith us. And he's helping us understand
what that requires and what that is. And it means to love him,

(34:30):
to love his son who gave hislife for us. So if there's you
know, if it feels good toit. So there is no right and
wrong. I mean, really,you talked about bringing up your kids right
and how you bring up your children. You got children, do you tell
them that's okay? You can youknow, if you're bigger than that other
kid in school and you want tobeat him up, you go ahead,

(34:51):
you beat him up. I mean, do you really say that to your
kids? Society makes a big pointabout bullying and how bad bullying is.
So there is right and wrong,isn't there because you're not supposed to tell
your kid go ahead and beat somebodyelse up. But at the same time,
we can honor our group that doesbelieve there is no right and wrong.

(35:15):
We can give a pass to peoplewho steal well less than a thousand
dollars from other people, to thepoint where Nords, drums and all these
other stories in San Francisco are leavingbecause they just simply can't afford it.
Is there such a thing as rightand wrong? Is there not such a
thing as right and wrong? Sometimeswe say, sometimes society says, yes,

(35:35):
there is right and wrong. Youcan't bully. And then sometimes they
say, no, there's no suchthing as right and wrong. Well,
which is it? Is there somethingthat is true? You know I said
before that, you know I thinkyou know. A sin is what I
feel. If I feel offended,that goes away. If I am insulted,

(35:58):
if somebody does something to insult me, they've committed to harm. It's
a sin. If I do it, Let's go the other way around.
If I insult you, Bob,I've committed a sin. I've done something
wrong. I've offended both you andGod. And but if you forgive me,
and you say I forget I forgot, not only do I forgive you,

(36:21):
but if you tell me I've forgottenall about it, I don't even
remember that anymore. Well, nowit's gone. But what has had to
happen there? You had to knowabout it. You had to consciously decide
to forgive you had to extend mercyto me. I've hurt you. You've

(36:42):
extended love in response to me.Not easy for you to do something like
this. You had to put asideand your feelings have hurt. You had
to make a small sacrifice. Whathappens if you don't do that. What
happens if neither one of us thinkthere's such a thing as sin or we

(37:02):
don't care about hurting another person,Well that it lingers. It's somewhere in
the back of your mind, Bob, and at some point there's gonna be
some still resentment towards me. Youknow. You take that small example and
put that on a massive scale.And that's what Christ did for us.
He'd be paid, He'd be paidhurt and hate with love and sacrifice.

(37:30):
This is the concept of sin andsuffering. People ask why why has it
got to be suffering in the world. It's to make up for the sin.
You had to make a sacrifice.If I insult you, and you'll
forgive me by putting aside your feelings, You've made a small sacrifice. That's
what this is all about. Andit's so that the sin doesn't linger if

(37:51):
there's no If you're not if wedon't even think there's any such thing as
sin that hurt's going to linger.Um, you know how about this,
there was just a little mental mentalimagery. It wasn't. I got a
swimming pool, and um, it'sa nice brand new, you know,

(38:12):
Gunnight pool, and the water islike crystal clear, and the Gunnight's got
this color to it, and sothere's a nice, pretty light blue aspect
to it. And you can seeevery small little nuance in the bottom of
the of the pool ten feet below. I mean, the water is pure
as crystal clear, as as crystalclear as it can be. Now,

(38:34):
I go out and I put myhand down and I pick up just a
just a pile of dirt, andthen I go over to that pool and
I throw the dirt in the pool. I just throw that in there.
Well, you know, there's acertain section of the pool that's still going
to be cloudy, and eventually it'llsink down to the bottom. But it's

(39:00):
gonna be there at the bottom ofthe pool, and it's just not going
to go away unless I go inand clean it out, I suppose.
And I threw another handful and anotherhandful and another handful of dirt At some
point am I gonna feel? Andthen what if I just said, you
know, I don't care. I'mjust gonna go in there and I just

(39:20):
gotta swim in there. I justjust let's just go swimming too. Who
cares about you don't have to clean, We don't have to clean. Let's
just go swimming in there. Thatis, you know, sort of like
what are inner personal relationships are like? If we just keep sleaning dirt at
each other and then we just keepswimming around in it because we don't even

(39:40):
even no, we don't even careabout the dirt? Are we really don't
want to live like that? Ireally would you? Really you don't want
to go swimming in the pool likethat? Wouldn't you want that thing to
be cleaned out? If you sayeverything is relative, nothing matters, There
is no good, there is noevil. We don't have to worry about
it. I mean, it's it'sgonna be like swimming in a cesspool.

(40:01):
It's a numbing of our senses tounderstand what's right or wrong. It's exactly
correct. Ray. We are numbingour senses. We are dumbing down what's
acceptable and not acceptable, and noteven making the realization that what we are
doing has harmed for other people andthat that should not be what we do.

(40:22):
What we should do isn't love oneanother, to take care of one
another, to help someone else getthe dirt the heck out of the pool,
to take care of it, totake care of one another, to
be their shoulder to cry on whensomeone else has harmed them. Those are
the things we ought to be doingto loving other people and taking care of
them instead of throwing the dirt inthe pool. We should be going exactly

(40:45):
the opposite way. And somehow we'rearguing is it okay to do that?
Well, ask you this. Ifyou have a house, then you are
an apartment and you rent it oryou own it wherever you are, and
someone else throws a brick through yourwindow, is that acceptable? Is that
okay? Well, what's going tohappen is you're either going to have hot

(41:07):
or cold coming in your house becausethe window is there to try to keep
that temperature and that other air out. You're going to go through some expense
to fix that. Is it fairfor someone to have done that damage?
And if it's less than a thousanddollars, if it's a small window.
You're probably okay. If it's alarge window, you might not make it
for a thousand. But that thereforeis not something you should be arrested for

(41:27):
because it's a minor offense. It'sokay. We shouldn't be doing that to
each other. We shouldn't be forcingthat clean up. Instead, we should
be taking care of one another.Exactly as your point. We should know
that there is right and wrong.We know we shouldn't be harming anyone,
and somehow we're dumbing down the systemto say that that's okay as long as
it feels good for us. It'sokay to harm, it's okay to hurt.

(41:49):
And that is not what God's tellingus. He's saying, those indiscretions
are not there. He said,I, the Father of the world,
the maker of the world, thecreator of the world, can give you,
and I hope that you forgive eachother. I hope that that's the
desire of each of you. Butit doesn't mean it's right to be going
doing all these things because you're beingforgiven. It means that there is right

(42:10):
and wrong, and we need toforgive one another. We need to take
care of each other. Very welldone, We do we so okay?
Baba fide insults you that hurt lingersunless you forgive me. Um, what
about me? If I've done this? If I just keep doing this and

(42:34):
I never ask anybody for forgiveness,I never apologize to you, I never
say I'm sorry. At some point, does that, you know, just
just mess me up? Do Ibecome I don't know better? You know?
Do I think? Well? Youknow, I don't. I don't
have to. I don't have tobe sorry for anything I do. Am

(42:57):
I going to feel? Okay?What that Isn't there not going to be
some part of me you know insidethat somehow knows that's not okay? I
think the worst thing that these thisso called sisterhood does is it taking Christ

(43:17):
away from people. You talk aboutsin, you talk about forgiveness, you
talk about offending God. Where doyou go to get rid of it?
Where do you go to clean outthe dirt from the bottom of the pool?
How do you fix things? Howdo you find it in your heart
to forgive somebody who's maybe very deeplyoffended you. Where do you go if

(43:43):
you can't you know, if youcan't get away from alcohol and you can't
forgive yourself. Where do you goto fix that? You haven't talked to
a family member in twenty years becausehe did something, you did something,
and you both hate each other's gutsand you know you just don't have the

(44:06):
I'm not going to go to thatperson and apologize because he's not want He's
got to apologize to me first.Where do you got to fix that?
If you take Christ away from peoplestigmatic guilt, it's not stigmatic guilt,
it's stigmatic mercy. There is joyto be found in the cross. There

(44:29):
is joy to be found with themercy of God. There is love and
joy. They talk about ultimate joy. They take vows to promulgate universal joy,
which simply means you can do whateveryou want. That kind of joy's
not gonna be. That's not realjoy. Taking pleasure and whatever you know,

(44:52):
and this kind of and something youwant to do today tomorrow, whatever,
that's not ultimate ultimate joy. Doyou do you want to feel real
joy? How about ultimate joy?The ultimate joy of being connected to God
forever forever? You want to feela real joy? If you haven't,

(45:15):
really, if you don't know whatit feels like trying to get closer to
God, try to get closer toChrist. I think the real problem,
the worst thing about all this istheir message is to take people away from
Christ. They're not going to feelthe joy of being close to God.
If you don't accept Christ, belongto another religion. You know, there's

(45:44):
one God. If you want toapproach God from a different angle, but
still trying to approach God, that'sbetween you and God. From you know,
from my perspective, there's so muchevidence, so so so much evidence.
Christ has not made it hard forus. He's made it easy for

(46:04):
us. There's so so much evidencethat Christ is real, his love is
real, He rose from the dead, the witnesses of the five Hundred that
are spoken about in the Bible.If you don't believe in the you know,
there's a story that just came out. You talk about nuns, You
want to talk about sisters, Youwant to talk about a religious order,
you want to talk about people whote vows. Well, here's one.

(46:28):
Here's one that happened that this week. Is this a coincidence? Okay,
we've got this bruhaha over the sistersof Perpetual Intelligence. Oh isn't it beautiful?
I just showed Bob the I justpulled out a printed article, an
article that are printed off the internet, and he knows exactly what I'm talking
about. Um, is it justat the very same moment in time,

(46:52):
we've got all this business about theLA Dodgers and these so called nuns that
are going to be honored, there'sthis little story, Bob and I we
live here and say, Louis,there's this little story from this little old
nun in Missouri. And oh,it's just I don't know how many people
catch this story. I don't It'scertainly not going to get as much in

(47:14):
a way of headlines as the LADodgers and their controversy, but it should
anyways. So her name, let'ssay there was a there was a nun.
She did not belong to the Sistersof Perpetual Indulgence. No, she
belonged to the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Her name

(47:36):
was Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster. She wasthe foundress of the Order of the Benedictine
Sisters of Mary Queen. She foundedher own order. She happened to be
African American. We talked about beinginclusive. God's kind of an inclusive guy,

(47:58):
and he decided to use this noneum for a little purpose perhaps um.
So she had been buried. Shedied four years ago, four years
ago, twenty nine, twenty nineteen, at the age of ninety five,
and she was buried in a simplewooden coffin. She was not embombed.

(48:21):
There's a little miracle story that's cominghere. She was not embombed. Matter
of fact, this wouldn't this,this, this coffin was so meager,
this would simple wooden coffin. Sowe get a big crack down, the
middle of it cracked down. Soafter four years, water, moisture,
all this stuff, all the elementsfor decomposition, and guess what, they

(48:45):
decided that they were going to moveher body, because well she was the
foundress of this order, and theywere going to place her body inside the
chapel, as is the customs insuch cases. Well that happened to find
happened to find something out they openedas they were moving her. They happened
to catch a glimpse inside the coffin, and the coffin broke, and then

(49:08):
they saw inside what was there.And that's that's when the things got very
wonderful. And loving and interesting isthat in the movement they actually broke.
The coffin broke, and they sawsome of the miracle that had occurred,
and then they then they went aheadto take care of it. Now,
this coffin um was had a certainlining to it um. That lining was

(49:32):
completely gone. It had deteriorated um. The habit this this sister also wore
a habit um, But the fabricof her habit was not deteriorated at all.
The lining on the coffin gone,her fat, the fabric of her
habit that she was buried in,it's perfectly normal. I'm looking at a

(49:55):
picture of her right now, andshe looks, you know, not very
different at all from what she wouldhave looked like on the day that she
died. You bet so. Nodecomposition. The laws of physics didn't apply
inside her coffin. Why Why didn'tthe laws of physics apply inside her coffin?
Why? I mean, do wereally want to be in the point

(50:21):
where we don't ask these questions?Everything is relative. We don't even need
to ask whether or not God isreal. It doesn't matter, really.
Is it just a coincidence that thishappened at the very same moment in time
when these other nuns, so callednuns, are getting are getting an award,

(50:45):
they're being honored. Well, herewe have a nun, a simple
nun in Missouri, who didn't tryto attract any limelight to herself, and
yet she was being given She's beinggiven an honor. She's given an honor.
This one came from up above.Yeah. The habit that she wears
everything else is just a perfect fitfor for what's going on. Because these

(51:09):
sisters of perpetual indulgence wear habits andmake themselves look like a real set of
nuns. And here they're going onabout this and her body is discovered with
no no deterioration whatsoever. It's absolutelywonderful the way God works little you know,

(51:31):
inconsistency. Yeah, it's just amazingthe way it works. Yeah.
Um oh, Bob, Since sinceyou're here today, could you perhaps lead
us with a closing prayer? Sure, in the name of the Father and
the Son the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father, we thank you,
We thank you for all you giveus. You give us love, you
give us caring, You gave usyour son to show us the way we

(51:53):
know. Not everybody understands this.We know not everyone knows who Christ is,
but allow us every moment of everyday to continue to let people know
who Jesus is, what he did, what the Father's message is, and
it's one of love, of forgiveness, of kindness. We want to go
out and help other people and helpthem understand why Jesus died so that we

(52:16):
could be saved and we could spendeternity with Him and the Holy Spirit and
the Father. Allow us always toknow that there's right and wrong, Always
to know that God has given useverything we need, and allow us to
truly love Him with all of ourheart, to worship him, to follow
him, and not to be dissuadedby the foolishness, the cruelty, and

(52:37):
the indifference of the world, butto follow him because of the love that
He's given us. And we prayall of this through the wonderful and glorious
name of His Son, who isour Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
And for your clothes. Let mejust add a little adjunct to this.
Let me just add one other prayer, and as to our bless a Mother,

(52:58):
that she may be with you andguide your efforts as you continue and
to continue your studies and your workin the seminary on your journey toward becoming
a priest. And so we pray, as you say, we pray all
this in the name of our blessedLord and Savior, in the name of
the Father and of the Son andof the Holy Spirit. Ammen. Thank

(53:19):
you ray joining us, and Ihope you'll join us again next time.
Hello, God's beloved. I'm AnnabelMoseley, author, professor of theology and
host of then Sings My Soul andDestination Sainthood on WCAT Radio. I invite
you to listen in and find inspirationalong this sacred journey. We're traveling together

(53:40):
to make our lives a masterpiece andwith God's grace, become saints. Join
me Annabel Moseley for then Sings MySoul and Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio.
God bless you. Remember you arenever alone. God's always been. Thank

(54:06):
you for listening to a production ofWCAT Radio. Please join us an obmission
of evangelization, and don't forget Lovelifts up where knowledge takes flight.