EWTN On Location - 2016-02-06 - Lord Have Mercy

the wtn goes on location to Toronto Canada for the mercy and Kingdom conference that a dr. Scott Hahn discusses the divine love of our Heavenly Father in his talk lord have mercy all right I'd like to begin our time together once again in a word of Prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Almighty God our Father in Heaven we thank you for the gift of Jesus and for his super abundant mercy and once again in his name in his holy and powerful name we ask you to pour out your Holy Spirit upon us that as we continue our pilgrimage from Easter to Pentecost and beyond we would come to know the medicine of your mercy and how it heals us from the disease of our own sins so help us once again and hear us as we pray our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen hail mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of I will Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen real briefly because I've been asked several times about my mother a couple of weeks ago you might have heard that she had been diagnosed with cancer and a week ago we thought we might be just saying goodbye and then within the last five days or so we as a family have experienced the power of prayer like never before and she went into rehab yesterday they're trying to convince her that instead of the grave she might be able to go back home so thank you a thousand thanks for your grace we often hear the expression we ought to frequent the sacraments and we know that there are seven but what we seldom recognize is that of the seven they're really only two that you can receive frequently unless you're planning on a number of near-death experiences besides the Holy Eucharist and communion there is also holy confession reconciliation penance no matter what you call it the fact is we know from our experience that the more people needed generally the less they want it right and it's been that way since the dawn of history people don't understand the judgment of God is an expression of his love they don't understand that confession is really meant to dispense the medicine of mercy in a way that we can't do for ourselves or even our loved ones but as I mentioned this is true from the dawn of history for proof take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis and read about our first parents and what God tried to do with them in Genesis 2 we read that God took Adam and made him from the dust of the ground to show us our humble origins and yet at the same time he reveals to us our dignity when he tells us of how he into his nostrils the breath of life and that's how man became a living being God's own breath was fused to man God breathed into Adams nostrils the breath of life and so he became a living being so that in addition to the oxygen that he was breathing along with all the other animals there on earth he was breathing the breath of God's own spirit so in addition to just being human with a human nature on earth he had been endowed with the mystery of faith which is nothing less than supernatural life not human but divine not merely temporal but eternal that's important to recognize this mystery because in a few verses we read that God basically consigns everything to man all of the trees except for one the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil and the forbidden fruit he says the day you eat of it you will surely die God didn't need to be so specific you could have said on the day you eat of it you'll deserve to die you'll be sentenced to die you'll begin that long slow and painful process that you call dying but then that those are the things he said he said on the day you eat of it you will surely die the reason why that's worth emphasizing is because when you turn the page to the very next chapter what does the serpent do he contradicts the Almighty he says you won't die and so what did they do they went ahead and they ate the forbidden fruit and as soon as they did what happened they both dropped dead right wrong boy wait a minute I thought God said the day you eat of it you'll surely die the serpent said you won't this leads professor Moberly to write a famous article entitled quite simply did the serpent get it right or is the almighty you know in the business of issuing idle threats that he has no intention of carrying out we missed we misunderstand what God is doing in the beginning and after the transgression because we misunderstand the gift of life there is life that we all share as humans that's natural it's earthly but from the very dawn from the very beginning there's also life that is divine not human supernatural and not merely natural for us our life in heaven which is eternal and not just for a long and happy life on earth in order to lose physical life in order to experience natural death what does it take while a serpents bite might have done just fine but the only way you can experience spiritual death the loss of divine life is if you voluntarily give consent to what the Word of God calls what mortal sin first John 5:17 the sin unto death and why is it called mortal sin because it does to the soul what a bullet does to the body when it lands in the brain it's a it's an act of spiritual suicide when we prefer the earthly to the heavenly the natural is supernatural the finite to the infinite and that's exactly what the serpent got our first parents to do and subsequently most all of their progeny except for Jesus and Mary and so what we've got to recognize is that when God showed up on the scene to confront them it wasn't like a cop trying to kind of coerce some sort of confession out of these guilty convicts God called with a man and said where are you that's the first in a series of four questions that he raises and Adam replies I heard thee in the sound of the I heard the sound of the in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid myself it's a rather long and wordy response but notice he never got around to answering the question the question was rather simple where are you it wasn't because GPS hadn't been invented yet and God knew exactly where Adam was in terms of space-time coordinates but he knew that Adam had sinned and no longer knew where he was or who he was in relationship to him God to himself or to his bride and so this response I heard this I heard the sound of the in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid myself is a rather defensive answer it's rather willful and defiant so like he just barged in haven't you ever heard of knocking you scared me you know if I were the Lord God I would say you know what I don't need this I don't deserve this we're gonna start over again you know but he goes along with him and he asked him a second question who told you that you were naked and then he follows it up quickly with a third one have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat as though the Lord God Almighty needed to you know let the deity on a dirty little secret God knew exactly what hadn't been done more than Adam did he's not trying to coerce a confession he's trying to sort of fix he's trying to coax out an act of contrition repeat after me yes Lord I ain't of the tree which you commanded me not to eat if only man had said lord have mercy I'm over here I'm hiding I'm ashamed of myself I really blow it big time have mercy he could have altered the course of salvation history for all of us but instead of repenting what does he do he responds the woman you see back in the Old Testament in ancient times men tended to blame women husbands tended to blame their wives now of course since we moved into the New Testament oh wait never mind but it doesn't stop there he says the woman you gave me to be a helper so while he passes the buck who is he ultimately passing it to some helper she turned out to be she doesn't know my real needs do you if you don't repent what do you do you resent you resent your spouse you resent your loved ones and you ultimately resent the Lord if you don't accuse yourself you end up excusing yourself and along with the excuses you accuse others and again this has been with us from the very beginning and will be with us all the way to the end until we are transformed and made holy at this point the Lord turns the woman and asked the fourth and final question what is this that you have done the woman said the serpent beguiled me and I ate short and simple finally a straight answer to a simple question and you can tell because it's really what the Lord was looking for because in the very next verse what does he do he announces that the salvation of the human race will come through the woman's seed now the word for seed in the Hebrew is Zahra in Greek it's sperma it isn't something you associate with the female but with the male but there will be a female a kind of new Eve who will produce the redeemer a kind of new Adam and he will go to a garden called Gethsemane and undergo a trial but he won't fail he'll end up at a tree but not the wrong tree but the right one and what are the early father's call the Eucharist the fruit of the tree of life the eating of which we live forever in the presence of God and so it is that they're banished until the Redeemer comes but when we read this and we hear about the defiance that offensiveness the willfulness the resentment and all of that I mean it reminds me of what really turned out to be a turning point for me I was barely 14 years old when I was on what you couldn't call a shopping spree it was a shoplifting spree for weeks we were stealing record albums long before they were lightweight CDs you know and my best friend Dave and I were on the way out of a store a department store with bags loaded with about 20 record albums apiece went out of nowhere for store detectives swooped down on us the three men came on me tackled me and sprayed mace in my eyes I couldn't move the other detective the only one of them who was a woman went after Dave I want you to get the picture because at that time Dave was about six feet one I was about five three on my tiptoes why the three one after me and she went after him you'll never guess who got away right they dragged me up into the room and began shouting expected me to rat out my best friend I wasn't about to the woman came back five minutes later huffing and puffing out of breath when she walked and she had heard the shouting she looked at them she looked at me and suddenly her face change it was like a motherly expression you know you're yelling at him did it ever occur that maybe he was forced to steal no I would never have thought of that myself but once that kind lady was sweet enough to plant that little seed in my fertile imagination I looked at her with the most innocent eyes I could muster Mike yeah and she's like you're yelling at him and listen to him and I'm like yeah and so I told basically a true story what happened the previous weekend I was up in the woods with my friend and these guys sniffing glue and smoking pot came out they tried to steal our bikes but they were covered with mud from the storm so they threw him over the hill and then I embellished just a little and they told us that we had to steal record albums and leave them by the tree stump or the track is down and beat us up and she's like hasn't he been through enough yeah and the oldest detective said you know what it doesn't matter we already called the Bethel police they're on their way and sure enough a moment later in walks this policeman and as he's taking me away the woman says officer stop before you take him there's something you need to hear he might not tell you go ahead well what could I do I was obliged to repeat what had happened so out it came verbatim you know leave him by the tree separate that track us down and beat us up and the cop looked at me a little dubious you know you wouldn't be willing to tell me their names would you I'm like well I know jack and Gary so-and-so I didn't know the other guy and he's like you know what that's exactly what those guys are up to we've been building a case against I'm so sorry you had to go through this along it so okay he had some paperwork to fill out so he took me down to the station when we got there he asked me once again for my best friend's name I wouldn't give it up so he called my mom he said don't be upset just get down here and I'll explain in a few minutes and so sure enough she walked down she walked into the office she was staring at me with angry eyes sit down mrs. Hahn tell her what happened last weekend and so I did and I went through the whole thing and then suddenly she said Oh Scotty why didn't you tell me and I'm like we were scared mom and the officer backed me up oh you have no idea what these young people are the kind of peer pressure they face it was nothing like what we had when we were their age I'm like yeah really and then he turns to her and asked that fateful question he won't tell us the name of his best friend who he was with were you mom please don't well of course Dave key do you know his phone number mom please no she said oh sure eight three five zero seven four six I'll never forget those digits because I knew it would be my undoing because he didn't know the story and so the cop called got Dave's mom said bring Dave down he's not in trouble yet but come down soon and so 15 minutes later in walk Dave's mom and Dave glaring at me for ratting him out they both sit down and I'm thinking I got about a 17 second window of opportunity so I blurted out the fourth time we were up in the woods last weekend these guys sniffing glue and smoking pot tried to steal her bikes they were covered with mud and so they threw them over the hill and then they said we had to steal record albums and leave them by the tree stump or else they track us down and beat us up and in the corner of my eye am trying to figure out if dave has taken all the details down he slumped over I thought he was crying he told me later he was suppressing laughter it was the dumbest story had ever heard and it couldn't believe the cop had swallowed it hook line and sinker but he did and within 10 minutes we were released on her own recognizance or as they put it later we got off scot-free and so I was in the clearing or so I thought because there was one more hurdle left to clear and that was my dad and I heard the garage door from upstairs and I heard the conversation downstairs and then he came up he knocked on my door I opened the door and he looked at me and he looked right through me they were making you steal record albums yeah and leaving them by a tree stump yeah and you could show me the stump yeah well show me like sure after dinner no now well dinners up now okay so he walked out the door we walked down the street we got to the woods it's about a half a mile of woods I'm leading the way as we walk down the path my eyes are darting furtively in different directions thinking I'm going to have tree stumps to choose from right I'm half way through the woods there wasn't a single stump somebody must have come earlier that day and uprooted the last of them I am running out of woods the mall is looming larger on the horizon I see a big mound of dirt I'm like there's the clump right over there he said clump you said stump I'm like what club stump they were here they told us to leave them there at the club Club stump let's go home and he turned around and this time he began leading the way down the path while I braced myself for the explosion of his German temper which I had experienced more than once were half way through the woods I'm like to get it over with would you but he didn't say a word he wouldn't even look at me and the silence was worse than his yelling would have been we got all the way home and finally when we go through the door my mama's wedding and patiently dinner's getting cold he says I'm not hungry and he looks at me with a face filled with shame looking at a son who had lied his way so clever that everybody all day long I wasn't hungry either I went upstairs I closed my door he wasn't gonna lower the boom he wasn't gonna start yelling or hitting me he just let me stew in these juices and I gotta tell you in the next hour or so my conscience woke up for the first time in ages it was like Rip Van Winkle after 20 years I mean suddenly instead of feeling proud of being so clever and gotten off scot-free I'm ashamed of having lied to everybody but my dad saw right through me I am convinced to this day that this was a matter of divine timing because within a matter of days I was invited on a retreat which I would never have gone to but I knew I was in need of something and I also heard that Kathy was going and I had a crush on her so I signed up that first night Friday evening this guy was talking about Jesus in a way that just sank in he kept pointing to a cross and saying things like Jesus paid a debt he didn't know because we owe a debt we cannot pay and I felt like he was talking to me because I suspect that was true or for me than everybody else put together in that room by the time Sunday morning rolled around I thought you know if he gave his life for me he's the son of God the least I can do is return the favor as a sinner and so I did within a couple of weeks Dave my best friend and all of my other buddies figured it out I was no longer invited to parties I was all alone I had to find new friends and really they found me I got invited to Bible studies and I had a turnaround that my parents were still grateful for he later but at that time I really didn't understand what God was doing in my life not fully we never really do press the fast-forward button because when I got to college I had a dream come true a sort of prayer was answered because I got to study theology Scripture Greek and eventually Hebrew and seminary and I also found the most beautiful gal on campus and we got engaged and right after we graduated together we got married and right after our honeymoon we packed up a u-haul we went off to Boston to study at this amazing evangelical seminary where I got to study Hebrew and not just Greek so I could read the old not just the new in the original languages and it was really cool because our first semester was like an extended honeymoon she was taking classes we were comparing notes and every time at dinner we would debrief about the the good things for the day and then one night she's looking at me she's like you look really down I'm like yeah I am why oh it was Old Testament that's your favorite class well it was until today why oh the professor went over two passages that really I found quite disturbing what were they and I pulled up the Bible and I said well the first one was in Leviticus five and I read verses five and six as he had done earlier that day when a man is guilty in any of these different categories of sin he shall confess the sin he's committed to a Levitical priest he explained and he shall bring a guilt offering to the Lord for the sin which he's committed a lamb or a goat or perhaps a bowl for the sin offering and the professor explained that he thought it was a light matter you might bring a lamb but if it was really serious the priest might say go get a bowl and she's like well so what like confess your sins well I'm just sitting there thinking in class that's in the old that's not in the new and he quotes James v where we are obliged to confess our sins to one another and I had forgotten about that and so I was a little disturbed but what really bothered me was the next passage we consider in the second half the class of numbers 5 verses 5 through 7 and I read it to her what a man or woman is commits any sin by breaking with the Lord and that person is guilty he shall not only confess his sin he shall also make full restitution for his wronged and she's looking at me somewhat surprised well you knew that I'm like no I didn't know that and I'm thinking once again that's true in the old it's not true in the new and then the professor points out that Zacchaeus the tax collector in the Gospel of Luke paid back restitution to all those he had defrauded and that was the way he received the mercy of God and she's like well of course that's true now as much as it was then and I'm like well okay it's disturbing because I guess there's stuff in my past I haven't told you about like what like I don't want to talk about it I thought we weren't going to keep secrets well we're not but I'm not going to tell that's a secret so out it came for the first time the whole thing you know clumps thump and all the rest and she's like ok so the Lord used that to kind of show you his love and forgiveness I'm like that's right but you never did anything to make it right no I didn't think I had to well what are you gonna do now I don't know what you don't know you can't study the Word of God and then turn your back on the light you can't sin against the light and then continue learning more besides she said the Lord is never outdone in generosity boy did our God use my bride that night it was so deeply disturbing but I knew she was right how can you study God's Word and then pick and choose what parts you'll obey and what parts you won't some like girl you don't know what we're talking about here so let's do the math after dinner and we did and she's like wow that will wipe out what little we have I told you you got to do it I'll just make arts and crafts for Christmas gifts this year and she did it wasn't until after Christmas I got up enough courage to go to the mall and I'm sitting down with this accountant from Sears and he's staring at me from across his desk he's like you did what when why he said you're gonna foul up our bookkeeping today more than you did back when you stole get out of here kid and I was only too happy to do so but I had stolen like two or three records from Sears so I had to go down and confront the accountant from the department store from which we had really hauled the most and he's staring at me from across his desk like you did what when he laughed he said so many of you born-again types are coming in and fessing up we set up a restitution fund how much do you owe and I proceeded to write on a cheque for a little more than a thousand dollars he said thank you have a nice day like yeah whatever I drove home we had to borrow money from my dad just for the gas to get back to school for the new semester we didn't even know how we were gonna pay the tuition three weeks later Kimberly's Oracle came true when an anonymous donor who knew nothing of our situation contributed just enough for us to pay the tuition that semester and the next year as well the Lord has never not done in generosity even if he doesn't give it back to you in financial terms you can't go wrong following the Lord and taking that his word again to make a long story short after graduation came ordination and I was ordained a presbyterian ministry in Trinity Presbyterian Church and it was a small congregation but it was highly educated the average educational level was about an MA and so they wanted a sermon to last at least a half hour preferably 40 to 45 minutes and by now you know I'm the guy for the job but they also wanted me to do a lot of study and research and so I did and after the first three or four months our church was growing and the people loved the preaching but I also discovered that in addition to the preaching there's this thing called pastoral counseling that is as much a part of pastoral ministry as preaching and teaching well I began to discover after a few months that I had members in my church even the leaders who were really dodging all kinds of things not taking responsibility not repenting but resenting excusing themselves accusing their loved ones I'm watching as marriages and families are beginning to totter and two or three businesses are falling apart just because no one will take responsibility and fun i sat down with one of my main leaders unlike what gives why won't you accept responsibility said because though I want to I don't have to like what do you mean theology Scot were saved by faith and faith alone I believe in Jesus and saw him going to heaven and even though I ought to do these things I don't have to and he was defiant and defensive and he never did what he knew he needed to do and I saw it again and again and I thought at first I'm just a lousy pastoral counseling and and I was I was not that good as a counselor but I also discovered that they kept throwing my theology back into my face that it was this idea that you're saved by faith alone that the obedience of faith all as Paul describes into Romans 1/5 just didn't enter into our categories after less than two years I began to realize that my study of the Bible was leading me in search of a church that really fit what I found on the early father's what I discovered about the Holy Eucharist and so I resigned my pastor and I went in search of this church and I ended up discovering the Catholic faith but as I got closer to coming in to the church as I got closer to coming home and becoming a Catholic I experienced the mass for the very first time I fell in love with our Lord in the Holy Eucharist I began attending secretly daily Mass in a basement chapel sitting in the back pew finding heaven on earth I set up an appointment with the local pastor Monsignor brusca woods he later became the bishop there in Lincoln Nebraska but not until after he'd become my spiritual father we had a series of meetings we talked about the Eucharist about the Bible the early church fathers and how the New Testament is concealed in the old and how the old is revealed and fulfilled in the new and he was so on track with me week after week after week we were talking about the Saints we were talking about baptism we were talking about the sacraments until finally I got up enough nerve to say you know what a Protestant minister who is convinced the church have to go through a whole year of RCIA first hypothetically speaking he laughed he said Oh hypothetically speaking of course I could receive you into the church this Easter like when is that oh that's less than a month I'm like let me get back to you on that so I went home and I talked to my bride who had extracted a promise from me to wait five years now I was saying in less than five weeks and she's like release you from a promise to wait five years why would I do that and I said because delaying obedience to what I know is true is feeling more like disobedience every day she said that's clever and I thought so too I'd worked on that line rehearsing at several times you know later she came to me and she said I'll release you from the promise but what are we talking about here and I said this Easter she said that's less than a month I'm like yeah so I went back to Monsignor with the good news that I could be welcomed home I could be receiving with a church and he had this expression changed right before my eyes well okay there's some other things that we need to discuss them and I realized that out of the seven sacraments there was one that was still sort of untouched so he brought up confession and the need that I would have to go and like okay okay let's back up here because I've still have a few questions about that one sacrum he said I thought you would I'm like okay first of all why do you go to a priest instead of going to Jesus he said I don't Catholics shouldn't like wait what do you mean we don't go to a priest instead of going to Jesus I go to Jesus every evening I make an examination of conscience and then I make an act of contrition all of which was new vocabulary I'm like what are you talking about here I got an extra copy you can have it and I'm looking down this list that was called an examination of conscience takka bruh talk about a brutal self inventory it's like I wouldn't ask my enemies whose question up flip it over and when I did there was an act of contrition where you asked Jesus to forgive you every day for the sins you've committed and he said I go to Jesus he's the high priest but I also go to a priest just like John Paul does when I worked in the Vatican we knew that he went to confession at least weekly the Pope he said yeah what would he have to confess why he said Scott whoever knows can't say because of the seal and like what do you mean seal and when he explained the seal my heart began strangely opening up and warming to the idea that if what I say can't be repeated okay maybe I'll reconsider this and so as I began thinking more about this you know he brought up the fact that look when you go to a priest it's really Jesus who works through that priest from heaven and like I understand what you're saying but help me here because you're devout you're faithful and I really connect with you but there are other priests I know down at Marquette who take issues with John Paul who really dissent from the church and they're all over the map he's like well I'm sorry about that it's a little confusing but the fact is you could go to them as well because it is Christ from heaven as the high priest who's administering the grace of the sacrament through these mortal men that we call priests or ministers and like okay so what do you mean he's like well X Oh pre-op urato I'm like I can't I get that with the Eucharist he said yeah when you come here for Mass you don't hear me saying looking up to heaven this is your body I don't look out of the congregation and say this is his body I say this is my body because when I become a priest I give my whole life to our Lord along with my lungs and my lips so that he can speak through me and act in me in Persona Christi and as he explained all of this he said the words of Absolution are like the words of consecration it isn't the babblings of some clergymen these are powerful words that come from God from Christ through these earthly priests and I'm like okay I'm following you and he said oh yeah more powerful than when God said let there be light like that's creation how is it more power than that he said when God created the world by the power of his word he brought finite creatures into existence out of nothing but Scott when he pronounces through the priests the words of Absolution he is restoring infinite life that is eternal to finite creatures who have fallen into sin he is restoring something much greater than all of creation he is restoring that which is divine and not merely human that's why a mortal sin ought to be dreaded more than anything because what it destroys is this life in our souls that is not human but divine it's not temporal it is eternal whoa Scott is more powerful than when Jesus said Lazarus come forth and I'm like there you go again how he said he restored Lazarus his physical life by giving him back his natural health but he had to die again whereas the words of Absolution impart this life to the sinner who is repentant so that you can restore eternal life it was the first time I really began finding myself almost wanting to confess at that point and I said I guess I just have some questions about well the biblical and the theological grounds he's like this is what I was waiting for here and he gave me a card and on the note card there were these texts and they said look him up and get back to me I want to talk with you about these next time and so I did I went home I looked them up and the first one was a very familiar story from the Gospel of Mark in chapter 2 that you all know it's the story of the paralytic who's lowered through the roof by his four friends because the room is too crowded and so Jesus looks at the paralytic and what does he say my son your sins are forgiven and all of his opponents in the crowd are wandering themselves who can forgive sins but God alone and Jesus could read their mind but he doesn't say you're wrong because in the Old Testament not even the high priest of ancient Israel could pronounce the forgiveness of sins and so he says to these opponents and the crowd which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or rise take up your pallet and walk and before they can answer he goes on to say so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins he said to the paralytic rise and go home at which point the paralytic Rose took up his pallet and left rejoicing and as I pondered this story it occurred to me that Jesus wasn't simply exercising a divine prerogative he was exercising two divine prerogatives and in fact as far as he was concerned the first order of business was not healing the body of the paralysis it was healing the soul by administering mercy and forgiveness and being the god man in a way that his opponents didn't really understand her believe he had the authority to do what nobody could do before the Incarnation and he did so but in a way he only heals the body to prove that he has the authority to heal the soul through the forgiveness of sins which up until then only God could do as Saint Agustin explains in one of his sermons the outward sign of the physical healing authorizes the interior miracle of the cleansing of the soul and why as a Gustin explained to his congregation because sin is what really paralyzes us more than any ailment sin is what renders us spiritually blind and deaf and sometimes even dead and Christ is the one who alone can do what no one could do in the old so as I'm reading this I'm realizing that Jesus introduced the a measure of mercy the likes of which ancient Israel had never seen but Jesus did this I thought not the twelve I had my rebuttal because in the public ministry he sent the twelve and the seventy to go out preaching and teaching and even performing miracles and delivering people from evil spirits but not once do they ever forgive sins like he did so this was his prerogative not theirs and he must have been reading my mind because the second passage on the note card was John 20 verses 20 through 23 where Jesus appears out of the blue in the upper room where the doors are locked after the resurrection and there he says to them peace be with you and he continues speaking to the eleven as the father has sent me even so I now send you and when he said this he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit and interestingly it's the same rare Greek verb there in John 20 that you find in Genesis 2 verse 7 where God breathed into Adam's nostrils and gave him the breath of divine life and now Christ was breathing it into the disciples for them to become instruments for this divine mercy in a brand-new way and then he continued receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sins of any they retained it what occurred to me is how would they know what sins to forgive or retain unless they were going to be told specifically what sins had been committed this is where Jesus not in the public ministry but after the resurrection establishes the grace of a sacrament whereby these disciples who are now apostles who are out who are being sent out to bring a healing love and mercy like divine medicine to do for us what we can't do for ourselves how do i rebut this ok well Jesus gave it to the twelve but where else does he give it to anybody besides them well then I looked at the third and final passage and the notecard and it reads James and five 14 through 16 so I looked that one up and this is what I read is any among you sick let him call for the elders of the church the Greek word I noticed was pres beuter who's where we get the word presbyter or more popularly what is the term that we have derived from presbyter priest so as any among you sick let him call for the presbyters the elders the priests of the church let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord oh that's the other sacrament and the prayer of faith will save the sick man and if he's committed sins he will be forgiven so therefore confess your sins to one another and I realized that if the president our by the spirit to do what Jesus empowered the twelve to do and James isn't introducing something novel or controversial he's simply reminding his readers of what they presumably already know but may be tempted to neglect and that is the anointing of the sick also the confession of sins to a presbytery that this was so but without any real debate my subsequent research showed me that in the first second and third centuries it's in the did okay Justin Martyr Irenaeus everywhere I turn even Cyprian and so I went back sort of humbled to Monsignor I'm like okay I admit it you've got biblical grounds that I had known before and he said okay so what now and I'm like well to be honest it's daunting to think that I have to confess every serious sin that I've committed you know since baptism since I was a presbyterian at birth I I was baptized as an infant and it's like well this is where a prayer to the Holy Spirit will come in and he handed me another prayer card and I'm like okay so I pray to the Holy Spirit to help me remember all this yeah like well if God already knows all of my serious sins why do I need to bother dredging them all up and telling them if he knows them he's like Scott we don't confess her sins to let God in on our dirty little secrets we Lent we confess our sins so that he can let us in on this gigantic secret that we don't know and that is the power of his love the medicine of his mercy and like that was clever was a good response and he said the Holy Spirit will help you you just ask him you know here's a blank note card well within less than a week it was filled up on both sides I mean you would have thought it was chicken scratch or Egyptian hieroglyphics because I didn't want any human eyes to decipher this especially one in particular my spouse I how was on my second note card in about a week and a half and then as I got closer to Easter Vigil Monsignor helped me get more and more ready for this sacrament and he mentioned that there's a retired priests that I could go to or I could go to him on what's the retirement I'll go to him yeah for sure and so I set up the appointment and I got there and in less than an hour had gone through both sides of both note cards he asked me a few questions and then he gave me a ridiculously disproportionate pen to do for all of the things and I had missed done and after that he then pronounced the words of Absolution and when I heard that for the first time I felt ten twenty thirty forty thousand pounds lighter I mean I knew for years that Jesus paid a debt he didn't know because I owed a debt I couldn't pay but I never experienced the freedom that comes when you hear Jesus speak these words of Absolution through a priest to really let you know how much God loves me and when I walked out I could see tears in his eyes just as he could see in mine it was like the prodigal son finally coming home and he whispered in my ears welcome home son and he embraced me and I just cried harder and I gotta tell you I experienced a freedom then that I would have done anything for but I didn't believe in it until people had shared it with me and it's what the Catholic Church does talk about comprehensive health coverage talk about a you know a medical plan not for the body as much as it is for the soul but this is something that no politician could ever deliver on a promise and yet it's ours for the asking you know if our doctors could do this free of charge you know for our bodies what we do we wear them out but I mean that's a physical life that's you know natural health that's hygiene that's diet that's medicine this is eternal life this is the soul where the Holy Trinity dwells and it shows us who we are for all eternity a week after I came into the church I was back at the parish in line for confession if it's good enough for John Paul I'm no better I went for several weeks in a row my wife noticed this and he goes weekly I go weekly and you know for almost 30 years nobody in my family has ever said dad oh come on you don't need to go to confession you go too much they're like yeah go but then came final exams and I went two or three weeks without going and out of the blue one Friday night at dinner it was hence what's wrong oh nothing come on what's wrong I'm looking at my wife I'm looking at my boys we don't know you tell us what do you mean and then Kimberly says when's the last time you put the confession and I'm like what who do you think I mean you don't even think it's a sacrament where do you get off asking me I don't know all I know is when you come back you are kinder and gentler is any boys and they're like I'm like three weeks now pass the potatoes and just changes and then after dinner it occurred to me that if I gone three weeks without showering would I have been startled that they noticed the stench but I had a nice shower looked every day and if I had gone three we thought washing my hair or brushing my teeth or washing my clothes but I did all of those things because I didn't neglect the physical and the natural and the human I was only neglecting the spiritual the divine and the eternal the next day I was in line at st. Bernards and that night at dinner they're all looking at me suppressing a smile like what's so funny they're like Kim reason you've been to confession haven't you like yeah so don't stop that's all I'm saying fine and I haven't and I've never complained I'll be honest this sort of mercy is what we need the sacraments are not what we do for God to kind of get him to do what we want the sacraments are primarily what he does for us to empower us to do what Eve wants what he longs for us to do which is its experience his love in a life-changing way and especially when it comes to the sins that we commit the most and enjoy the most because he knows what we forget and that is these are the ones that do the most damage you know when I was working on a book called lord have mercy the healing power of confession I was still going weakly the confession I remember stopping one evening and wondering why is it not making any more of a difference so I brought it up to father Marti I'm like I'm wondering what difference does it really make and he's like what are you talking about I'm like I come back week after week and I'm struggling with the same weaknesses I'm struggling with the same sins and he smiled I'm like what's so fun he said well what are you looking for new sins like no I want to get rid of the old ones and he's like well if you stop going to confession I can guarantee you one thing new sins like that's good you're right and he said the fact is this is a sure cure Scott but it's not a quick fix it is a divinely guaranteed healing but it's not a sprint it's a marathon and why because these sins are so deeply rooted in our pride and what you're expressing to me is humility and humility is the virtue that takes out the source of all of our sin which is the vice of our pride so if you keep coming back this sin is going to diminish and gradually you're going to grow into holiness and virtue trust me I'm like that was good and I'll be honest that's what I've tried to do for the rest of my life that's what all of us can do and again I want to propose to you that it's time that we start taking care of our souls like we do for our bodies comprehensive health care for every member of the family with the divine guarantee and it's free but it's not cheap because Christ has paid it all because we couldn't pay even a part and so I would I would say it's time for us to lay hold of the medicine at his mercy it's time for us to frequent the sacraments including that other one and the process to allow God to do for us what we can't do for ourselves or for our loved ones to bring a healing grace to me to you to our marriages to our families to our parishes and to our communities as well and believe me he wants to do it more than we want him to and he's able to do more than we have enough faith to ask him to but let's ask him to increase our faith in Him as our Father so that he can heal us and make us holy in a way that we could never do for ourselves in the name of the Father and of the son the Holy Spirit you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 11,956

Rating: 4.8991594 out of 5

Keywords: EOL, EOL02149

Id: 4dnRsDWC1NQ

Length: 48min 50sec (2930 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2016