Explaining the Faith - How to Understand the Bible: A Catholic Book

hi i'm father chris aylar thank you for joining us here with the marian fathers at the national shrine on labor day weekend a beautiful day here 68 degrees sunny and so we are glad that you joined us and for prayers for all those laborers out there who are taking a well-deserved break this weekend we're so happy you joined us let us begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask you send the holy spirit down upon us through the words of scripture lighten our minds and our hearts to receive your word you wish to give and we ask all this through the intercession of our mother mary saint faustina and all the saints and through christ our lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen thank you again everyone for joining us as i said i'm father chris aylar and these talks are continuing series of explaining the faith that i have been doing now for 18 straight saturdays we're excited as you can see on your screen if you would like to get my dvd three set dvd series please pick it up on shopmercy.org where you can get the hard copy dvd or if you want to live stream it you can go to thedivinemercy.org explaining the faith or call 1-800-462-7426 to get a copy of these talks all right now today as you saw on the title slide we're going to be talking about understanding the bible a catholic book i am super excited about this talk because as i was finishing it late last night and early this morning i was like wow there's so much richness in our catholic faith that is united to the bible we hear questions like you're you're catholic you're not biblical uh where is that in the bible where is mary in the bible where's purgatory in the bible although i've already done those talks on mary and purgatory which you can find on our youtube channel divine mercy we're going to summarize the bible today and why it is a catholic book and to help you understand it better when you read it to be able to make better um use of the prayer and the study that you want to do with the bible all right so let us begin now the first slide that i want to show is what is the role of sacred scripture all right this is an important question that few of us ponder every day right all right here's the key as christians we believe that god speaks to us through both private revelation and public revelation now we know the private revelation like mary appearing at lourdes or fatima we know this or the sacred heart of jesus to saint margaret mary ellicott but public revelation is the highest form of what we believe because it's truth that comes directly from god in a public manner such as scripture that's why public revelation is really really manifested in scripture holy scripture now it makes sense that this public revelation comes in two ways both written and oral most of what we learn in our lives is oral most of our conversations are oral if somebody says to you that your grandparents came from italy and you are italian are you going to say well i don't see that written down therefore i don't believe it no you accept it as a very as a truth a given truth and so the oral and the written are both important now sacred scripture is that divine revelation that was written down under the inspiration of the holy spirit and sacred tradition is that part of divine revelation that was not written down but still transmitted from the beginning by the mouths of the apostles and others now the bible says though however father no need to follow tradition this is matthew 15 3. but that's referring to man-made tradition and boy do we hear that a lot as catholics you catholics i don't go for your man-made religion stay with us because i'm going to tell you how to answer that but what the bible does say because when it says don't follow tradition it means man-made tradition but what it says in 2 thessalonians 2 15 is we must follow sacred apostolic tradition with sacred scripture together and this is what our catholic faith teaches how do i know this let's show our next slide hold fast or hold to these traditions which you were taught whether by word of mouth or by letter from us this is second thessalonians 2 15 very important right there the bible tells us that you need to hold fast to that tradition apostolic now not man-made meaning coming from god through the apostles now let's look at our next slide this is the church this is the magisterium of the church a bunch of bishops ah father that's not important that's that's something from ancient times and you know back in the 50s you know we don't need this anymore well to ensure that we receive public revelation without corruption or misinterpretation we need not just sacred scripture because we could misinterpret it and not just sacred tradition because we could possibly misunderstand it but we need the official teaching authority of god he gave us that teaching authority in the church called the magisterium the bible says that jesus christ founded a church with divine authority to govern in his name did you hear that let me repeat that the bible says jesus christ founded a church with divine authority to govern in his name don't believe me matthew 16 verses 13-20 and luke 10 verse 16 we need an authority we must have an authority to guard and interpret any document that dictates how we are to live you know the us government does the same thing the founding of our nation is based on this what is the written document that guides our nation the constitution but what is it let's show our next slide what is it it's the the constitution is like our bible the bible is written down to guide how we live and the constitution is written down to guide how we live now can you interpret the constitution in any way you want could you say well you know what i'm just going to go do this because i believe the constitution says i have the right to kill somebody who upset me the constitution says i have freedom wait a minute the constitution says you have freedom to kill somebody because they upset you yeah it says they have complete freedom no that's a misinterpretation well who interprets that you don't tell me your view i have my view that's why we have the supreme court when the supreme court works the way it's supposed to it interprets that constitution so this is what we have if we didn't have a magisterium we would interpret the bible in forty thousand different ways which is exactly what is happening right now in in the fragmented christian denominations all right let's look at our next slide this is from second peter 3 16. peter said this of paul this is interesting peter said this of paul his letters meaning saint paul contains some things that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction are you kidding me how come we never hear about this verse that verse from peter is basically saying that you're going to be distorted because these things are hard to understand so how do we answer it how do we understand it properly that's why our catholic faith let's look at the next slide has three legs of our catholic stool they are scripture tradition and magisterium you know the jews had the same three legs of their stool they had the scripture they had the torah and the ten commandments they had their tradition which was uh came down with moses from mount sinai they had the magisterium which was the the law that or the teaching authority of of the um of the pharisees and and the law of moses so now you can see how this all comes together so here's the bottom line everybody the bible is the teachings of god in the words of god yes divinely inspired without error god is the author however all of our catholic church documents are also the teachings of god but in the words of men yes but they're still the teachings of god even though they are the words of men it's like any professor in the world that teaches at the university what does the professor say he teaches you the true meaning from you know you have i had philosophy so my professor would talk about aristotle he put aristotle in his own word so i could understand him it was still the words of aristotle but explained by my professor this is what the church does for us they take the real words of god they're not the words of men they're the words of god through i should say through the words of man okay to explain it so when i hear somebody say or you hear somebody to say i don't follow the teachings of men you can say neither do i i'm catholic i follow the teachings of god explained to me by the very men christ entrusted to teach me you see christ gave authority to the apostles who then gave that authority and passed it down to us and this is in the acts of the apostles this is scriptural socrates he entrusted plato and he taught plato his teachings and he in turn then went and taught with authority to aristotle this is how it is handed on and this is how we do it in our church now this brings me to the most amazing scripture verse again why do we never hear this let's go to our next slide from 2 timothy 2 verse 22 what you have heard from me this is paul's letter to timothy right what you have heard from me entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also their scripture telling us that men will be used to teach this is what the catholic faith is this is incredible to me that we don't understand this let's keep going let's now get into the heart of it the next slide how do we read and understand the bible how do we do this we read the bible primarily why to become holy so it helps when it is explained in ways we understand that's what the church is for now how do we read the bible let's go to our next slide first we must read it with holiness our goal has to be to get closer to god second we read it with faith we believe in god's word and we believe this is it this is truly the word of god and then third we have to read it with humility recognizing our need to live what we read very powerful important now we must read the bible as a whole reading isolated passages and taking it out of context distorts it this is what the devil did so when non-catholics start spewing individual verses at you don't get discouraged the the the whole understanding of the whole bible as a whole which we're going to talk about needs to be factored in not just isolated versus the the devil did that that's can be distorting we have to understand it as a whole this is why let's go to our next slide full sola fide as an example faith alone this is a perfect example of taking something out of context how do i know this well because john 3 16 basically says we'll be saved if we believe in god period many people believe this to mean faith alone you know in fact i was at walmart once in north carolina and a woman saw my benedict cross and she came up to me and she said you must be catholic because you know the body of christ is on that cross and so i said yes and she said how could you belong to a religion that's not of the bible you're not scriptural you're not of the bible i said how she says romans 3 28 you don't know your scriptures you you catholics don't know your scriptures you're not of the bible and i said why she said romans 3 28. so i said uh okay what does romans 3 28 say so i didn't even know my gospel so she i kind of fell into her own her own trap but anyway she said you are saved by faith alone and not by works now do we as catholics believe that that you are saved by faith alone and not by works no we don't so wait a minute we go against what's in the bible you'll be told you do but actually that's not what the bible says if you go back to what the bible actually says in the original language it says you are saved by faith we as catholics believe that it does not say alone martin luther added the word alone and not by works of the law we believe that when we say works we mean works of love and matthew 25 like the sheep and the goats it says unless you love my sheep you can't enter the kingdom of heaven this is what we as catholics believe so when luther was questioned why he added the word alone listen to this quote you can look it up he said i will it i command it my will is reason enough no that's not reason enough for me martin luther that you added it no it's not you know uh first corinthians or excuse me corinthians 13 2 paul says faith without love is nothing and cannot save james 2 24 see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone that's the only time faith alone appears in the bible james 2 24 you are not saved by faith alone for as the body apart from the spirit is dead so faith apart from works is dead and they mean works of love not of the law matthew 20 19 17 jesus says we must keep the commandments to be saved so it's not just faith alone matthew 25 i said the sheep and the goats so we approached the bible as a bigger hole not just isolated passages today many disregard the tradition of the church and the church fathers they think they know better this is a lack of humility because we think we know better than 2 000 years of church teaching i don't and i don't think you do either we don't so anyway this seems like there's a contradiction in the bible are there contradictions in the bible it seems like it doesn't it in one place jesus will say one thing and then another place you'll say another like in one place he says call nobody your father but yet the ten commandments say honor your father and mother we'll get to that catholics believe scripture's both inerrant meaning without error and inspired meaning from god so we can't have contradictions well father how do you explain that it doesn't say this in matthew but it says it in luke remember two witnesses will always describe the very same accident in different ways neither is lying they just saw it in different ways because one leaves something out of it doesn't mean that it didn't happen or maybe they didn't observe it that way so we have to understand this this is why we need the church to interpret like a judge interprets what happened at the accident based on the case of all the witnesses so the church takes all of the gospel and interprets it for us just like a judge does for all the witnesses in an accident it makes perfect sense well let's get back to that father call no one your father i hear this way more than i ever thought i would since i've been doing these talks why are you catholic call no man father chris thought your father chris elar why do you say father jesus said call no one your father well jesus didn't mean not to say the word father or to not refer to someone in the earthly sense my goodness the fourth commandment says honor your father and your mother the rich man in the rich the parable of lazarus and the rich man he called out father abraham come dip to dip his finger in cool water that's the parable luke 16 24. saint paul calls religious leaders fathers in acts 7 verse 2 and acts 22 1. paul tells the corinthians i became your father so a priest is a spiritual father that's why we say father we have many children not biologically but spiritually jesus in john 8 56 said quote this is quoting jesus who said call no one on earth your father he said quote john 8 56 your father abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad so what jesus means there is we only call one abba father one creator father one who made everything father that's who he meant we don't call any other god god but our god abba all right hopefully that makes sense so let's go to the next slide should catholics read the bible as literally true i have a question for you should we as catholics read the bible as literally true the answer yes now go home tonight and cut off your right hand because it says if it causes you to sin cut it off well wait a minute father you said to read the bible literally now you're saying you're you're kind of joking around about cutting off your right hand no here's the thing by literal when we you need to erase from your mind what you think literal means by literal the bible means the intention of the author what the message is that the author is trying to convey is true so what is the message of that passage if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off it means if there's something in your life causing you to sin get rid of it is it a computer with pornography is it a alcohol bottle is it a drug is it drugs is it is it maybe even a relationship what is it that's causing you to sin you got to get rid of it the literal interpretation is true there's something causing you to sin get rid of it but it doesn't mean we read it as literal lists meaning you actually get a saw out and cut literally off your hand this is not the way we read the bible the church tells us this is why we need the church they explain this to us so in the not the literalist sense but literally it means get rid of it if i say today i got a thousand things to do am i lying am i lying if i say have a thousand things to do today no i'm not lying i have a ton of things to do but that doesn't mean that if you follow me around with a pen that you could probably count one thousand that means literalist the literal meaning is i have a lot to do that's true the literal list meaning means actually 1999 thousand and that's not how we read the bible so sometimes the writers are referring in this way they use figures of speech similes metaphors hyperbole so we don't read it as literal lists all right when it says god is a rock we don't mean he's literally a clump of hardened dirt okay so sometimes the writers are referring even now let's go to historical events sometimes they are referring to historical events sometimes not what the authors intend to communicate is true and free of air whether it is historically happened or not like the man in the parable does jesus told a parable did he mean that that actually that man did that or is jesus telling a story the truth is the meaning so let's get a little bit more to that that's how we read the scriptures let's go to our next slide this is very important okay this is going to be the most technical i get on you today so don't turn me off yet because you're thinking i'm getting father chris is getting too technical stay with me this is just a little technical part there's four ways we read the bible the first way is literally we have to understand the bible i already explained the literal sense but this is where most people stop just give me the meaning but we also have the spiritual sense those are two three and four so we have the literal sense which is the meaning of the of the gospel meaning if there's something in your life causing you to sin get rid of it but what is the spiritual sense number two three and four okay there's the allegorical which is basically the typology which means there's god uses uh like like uh like the noah's ark is gonna be a symbol of coming baptism or or um coming of christ is prefigured in the old testament to be shown in the new we'll get to that then you have the moral sense and the anagogical sense now don't get intimidated i'm going to give you an example here all right the temple of god let's talk about the temple of god number one on that list was the literal sense so what do i mean literally when i say the temple of god that's what we read about in scriptures about the actual stone building a big building where everybody went to worship so now we know the temple of god in scripture in the literal sense but we also have to understand it in the spiritual sense the allegorical the moral and the anagogical don't get worried about the big words i'm simply going to explain what it means so jesus was also talking about the temple in the allegorical sense how when he said destroy this temple and i will rebuild it did he mean the stones no he meant himself right there are simple levels of meaning in the spiritual sense this is typology his body is the new temple all right it's the meaning below the meaning if that means anything now let's go to the moral sense the moral sense of scripture is how the verse applies to you and your personal morality so for you in the moral sense your body is a temple the holy spirit your body is the temple of the holy spirit this is first corinthians six so we should never desecrate our body and which is a temple by getting you know overly drunk or watching impure movies or gorging and gluttony this is abusing the temple of our bodies this is the moral sense so the moral sense teaches you how to live in your sense but there's one more the anagogical sense and this is what it means in the bigger picture of eternity and in a heavenly sense so that last sense is the anagogical and that refers to the heavenly or future sense now in catholicism we call it eschatological eschatology means study of the end times so we know that after the second coming there will be a new heavenly temple this is revelation 21. the old earth and all of its temples will pass away even the churches so this is the temple of god in the heavenly sense now you see how they all fit together so augustine of dossier captured this understanding of the four senses of scripture i want to summarize it he said the literal or historical teaches the event or what something is like the temple was the building the allegorical teaches what you should believe right so uh that is that the temple is the body of christ morality teaches what you should do that means don't abuse your temple your body and the anagogical teaches what you should be aiming for which is the temple of god in heaven for all eternity so cassian wrote this quote let's look at another example of jerusalem he said the one jerusalem can be understood in four different ways in the historical or literal sense as the actual city itself of the jews in the allegorical as the church of christ that is the new jerusalem in the moral sense as the human soul and in the anagogical sense is the heavenly city of god which is the mother of us all that's galatians 4 26. this is beautiful but the problem is a lot of fundamentalists stop at the literal the literal sense and then tell catholics that you're not reading the bible the right way actually we're reading it the way christ explained it and how do we know the church teaches us that jesus told us that all right let's keep going on this typology thing i think it's very interesting the catechism tells us that the new testament lies hidden in the old and the old testament is revealed in the new for instance jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale that was typology for christ going to be spending three days and three nights confined in the tomb and we're going to talk about you know towards the end of the talk was jonah and the wheel a real event stay with us let's go to our next slide noah's ark first peter 3 said he pointed out st peter pointed out the flood of noah anticipates christian baptism look at the water there this is the wiping away the cleansing the washing away a sin just like it was in noah's time so typology is the notion of what preceded christ was just a shadow of what was to come in christ in the new testament this is why at the mass we read the old testament first and then the new testament and they usually go together like when the serpent moses carved the serpent right and and put it on the pole for people to look upon and be saved then the second the gospel reading of that same day is jesus being nailed to the cross and being lifted up on a pole to save people it was prefigured by the serpent bronze serpent by moses and now we have christ as the real one on that pole or cross to be saving us now persons or events of the old testament are understood to be types of people in the new testament you want to know what one of my favorite ones is i'm going to tell you this one this is one of my all-time favorites let's go to our next slide does anybody know what this is on the left is isaac taking the wood that abraham is going to sacrifice him because this was god's command and then on the right we have christ how does the old testament isaac look at isaac there hearing the wood how does he prefigure christ how is he a type of christ this is what i learned in seminary i had some of the best seminary um scripture study scholars and i'm teaching you what i learned i'm giving you basically six years two years at franciscan and four years at dominican house of studies and holy apostles of the best i learned to scripture and i love this all right isaac let's compare isaac as a pre-figure a typology to jesus isaac carried the wood for his sacrifice that's genesis 22 that's a type of christ carrying his cross to calvary the wood both jesus and isaac took a donkey to the place where they were to be sacrificed two men were by their side each of them we know the two men by christ's side the good thief and the bad thief but did you know the two servants were next to isaac when he traveled the journey to the mount was a three-day walk for isaac and abraham and jesus was in the tomb for three days abraham knew that isaac was to be sacrificed so to him isaac was as good as dead and it broke his heart broke his heart but isaac was released from death on that third day when they got there like jesus was released and resurrected on the third day as well and it looked like he was as good as dead so for three days traveling abraham's thinking isaac my dear son is as good as dead then for three days the apostles are thinking jesus christ our dear friend as his for three days as is good as dead then christ resurrected and isaac in its sense was resurrected by god because it was stopped both jesus and jesus and isaac carried the wood on their back up a hill to be sacrificed again it was god who provided the lamb to be sacrificed in the case of isaac there was a lamb caught with his horns in the thicket and in jesus case he was the lamb again both jesus and isaac were fastened and placed on wood to be sacrificed for abraham aram was then caught in the thicket of thorns the head of the ram a male lamb was caught his head in a thicket of thorns just like the crown of thorns placed on jesus's head this is incredible many say these things happened at the same place cavalry this is the tradition of the church there are numerous other examples that's what we call typology in the gospels this is amazing to me i can give you so many of these examples but that's just one of my favorites all right the bible has a literally true meaning adam and eve noah the red sea they all have a true meaning but did adam and eve really exist yes i'm going to talk to you in a minute about some scientific research that's very interesting about adam and eve i was working with brother mark on this he sent me some information we must believe it god will however will always bring a greater good out of any evil what greater good did it come out of adam and eve they fell that man they got us in a mess the greater good was the promise of a savior and the gift of a mother jesus and mary in the bible we see typology of the greater good to come so here we see this in the flooding of noah it looks like a tragedy but the greater good to come was baptism and a new creation the ark of noah was a pre-figure of the church as i said before this this shrine here even kind of looks like an ark it's a figure of one church that brings us baptism the waters of baptism the family of noah listen to this was saved by wood and water because that's how we in the church are saved christ's family is saved by water and baptism and wood of the cross just as every kind of animal was aboard the ark believers from all nations are aboard the church isn't this amazing all right let's go to our next slide but is the bible 100 historical all right this is where it gets a little interesting don't flick me off yet we said at times that the bible authors now who's the author of the bible maybe i didn't explain this well enough the holy spirit and the men who wrote it down guided and inspired by the holy spirit the men also were involved in the authorship that's why they have different perspectives but it's ultimately the authorship is god we said at times that the bible authors use figurative language some more than others because that's their own unique style but is it possible for something to be truthful yet not necessarily factual ah no way father well actually that's what a parable is a parable is an illustrative story that didn't necessarily have to have physically literally happened in the way that it was told when scripture says for instance god is my rock that's psalm 18 2 do we believe that god as i said before is really a clump of hardened dirt no that image well and not intended to be literalist it's literally true he is a solid foundation this is god in a figurative way he is a rock he's strong he's steadfast solid we can lean on him just like a rock so it's true the church insists that the bible is inspired meaning from god and inerrant meaning free of air and what it teaches is the truth so the point of these stories is god is faithful he's solid he's he's steadfast he's a rock now it's more important than trying to identify specific details so the catechism tells us that we are free to understand every bit of the bible as historical or not so the meaning is true but the parts of the text can be symbolic and you say well wait a minute father there's nothing in the bible that's symbolic there's nothing well wait a minute are those parables that jesus talked about a man in the vineyard literally doing something and planting did it actually happen right in front of jesus well let's read what the catechism says before you flick me off catechism next slide 337 no i'm sorry i don't have a slide for this i apologize let me read you catechism 337 i was supposed to make a slide god himself created the visible world in all its richness diversity and order scripture presents the work of the creator [Music] symbolically as a succession of six days of divine work concluded by the rest of the seventh day that doesn't mean you don't you don't have to believe that it was seven 24-hour day period you are free to believe that but the church does not say if you don't believe that it was seven 24-hour periods that you can't get to heaven don't please don't write me and criticize me i'm simply giving you the teaching of the catechism of the catholic church again catechism 3 37. god himself let me read it again created the visible world and all its richness diversity and order man i wish i would have made a slide for this scripture presents the work of the creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine work concluded by the rest on the seventh day what the catechism means there's a day could have been a thousand years remember the bible also tells us doesn't it a day is like a thousand years a thousand years are like a day so don't get hung up on that we don't want to be you're missing the point of the bible if that's what you're if we're too hung up on what matters is that god did this he created all right that but does it but it says that god was for instance um what let's talk about god in other ways um well you know what because of time i think i have to skip that section um you know talks about god with hands and feet you know feet in exodus arms in hosea hands in exodus here in daniel a face in psalm 27. these help us to picture god as a way we can picture him to understand him why it's true literally that for instance god was angry with us it says that god for instance um was angry and was moved by emotion and he was regretted that he created the human race can god regret no he cannot be moved by emotion or a wave of regret god doesn't change his mind or repent as man does it makes us understand god in our terms that we can better understand all right sorry i can't explain that more let's go on don't be however too quick to dismiss the reality of the bible this is one of my favorite sections of this talk noah actually did no ozark really happen or is that a symbol father chris well noah seems to be based on a factual event since archaeologists have found evidence of great floods let's look at our next slide dr ballard i studied him since seventh grade when i first learned about him look at that picture there it says wave adventure in ocean exploration from the discovery of the titanic to this uh gotta read it here to the search for noah all right you know what he found dr ballard who also did the titanic found flooded civilizations living civilizations in the black sea near turkey he said that the salty black sea was once fresh until it was flooded all of the sudden they dated it to around 5000 bc where there were towns that disappeared instantly fits right in time place with noah this does not mean that every detail the story of noah's ark had to have happened exactly like it did but there's evidence that it's scientifically a real event whether or not the giraffes entered in before the elephants or vice versa it doesn't matter what matters is what it prefigured and that mankind's wickedness was was washed away and prefigured in baptism what about jonah jonah it says we always say joan in the whale but the actual excuse me but the bible actually doesn't say whale it says big fish and this can be explained now because there's only one type of whale that they believe could actually swallow a human that's a sperm whale and in a fish it could be possibly a great white both of those are apt are able to swallow large victims whole well people argue well that's not true father because there's no whales in the mediterranean you know what they found out recent discoveries is that there were whales in the mediterranean and that they were hunted to extinction by the romans and so there could have easily been a whale in the mediterranean sea to swallow jonah the smithsonian website itself talks about the parting of the red sea and says that this really could have happened it says atmospheric effects and lake effects could have parted the red sea at the time moses was there well wait a minute father and then you're saying it wasn't moses no who controls nature and the weather god does so what this is showing is that it's physically possible by god controlling the nature he could have made it happen now let's get back to adam and eve we have to believe they were real people but you know what i find is interesting scientific proof that says they were real people there's a lot of confusing data out here but i read through the information brother mark sent me and here's what i gleaned out of it and i'm going to read you quote if you trace back the dna in the maternally inherited microchondria that means the genes from your mom's side if you trace back the dna in the maternally inherited mitochondria within our cells all humans have a theoretical common ancestor this woman is known to scientists as the mitochondrial eve isn't that awesome i mean that is just amazing so science the church isn't against science people hear this all the time take our next slide galileo people are constantly jumping here's a side of galileo people also jumping on the catholic church oh they they beat them and they and they threw them into prison and chained them and excommunicated them and treated them horribly and they wanted to block science they didn't want the people to be educated wrong wrong wrong the true story of galileo is first of all when he stated that the sun the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa actually wasn't his idea it was actually a catholic priest named copernicus a polish catholic priest when galileo made this statement the church stated that this appears to contradict scripture you know that part in the scripture that talks about the sun standing still and this and that and this appeared to contradict scripture so the church told galileo please you can teach this they never told them no they said but don't teach it as scientific fact because it appears to contradict scripture so what was the church doing they were protecting scripture they said it appears to contradict scripture but they didn't fully understand scripture nor science so when it ended up being proven that the sun does or excuse me the earth does revolve around the sun galileo really copernicus ended up being right but the church had a problem with galileo wasn't because he was teaching it because they asked him to do it as a hypothesis not a scientific fact and he didn't he disobeyed that would be like me disobeying and i'm told to do one thing i've done another i should be dealt with i should be disciplined and so this is a black eye the church gets unfairly all right now let's go on on how the bible should be read let's keep going here it's actually a collection of books separate but a one volume library think of a one volume library and those individual books of the bible have all types of different genres you got history you've got liturgical writings you've got prayers you've got poetry you've got apocalyptic prophecy you've got letters you've got all these things you can't expect to understand the bible if you only tried to read it in one way as just one of those things or as a single book and you can't expect to understand the bible if you read it as a bunch of collection of individual books that have no relation to each other either they are a coherent whole a unity the unity of scripture comes from its divine author the holy spirit and the diversity of the scriptures comes from the human authors who wrote it down in a bunch of different times places and events so to treat the bible only as divine which some fundamentalists do or only as human as some scientists do guarantees that you are not going to read the bible accurately like jesus the bible is both human and divine in its authorship this is powerful now let's get to some really good stuff here next slide how did the bible come about all right fun stuff here nine out of ten early christians could not read so how did they learn not the bible they learned by tradition they couldn't run from the bible they couldn't read so they had to be told orally so this argument that it's not written in the bible would have fallen apart in the first several centuries what would you do with all the people who couldn't read it was passed on orally tradition where did they learn their faith and the scriptures the mass the bible was created to be read at the mass whoa father what are you saying stay with me the mass came before the bible christ instituted the mass the night before he died not a word of new testament scripture had been written for decades at that point in fact most new testament consists of letters and who did write those did paul write those letters to the churches the the letters that are in the bible were written to churches it was for their purpose for use of that church the bible is meant to be used for the churches in worship and not just memorized and individual scripture passages quoted there is most scripture at the mass do you know there's more scripture in one weekday catholic mass than any sunday protestant service period the early church to use scripture for worship and only secondarily for study this is interesting that's why when the priest gives a homily in the catholic church we different from a sermon and a homily are different in non-catholic phase they do sermons which are talks about any general topic but in the catholic church we give homilies which means we talk about a specific scripture passage of the day non-catholic faiths don't have particular scripture passages for a given day like we do this is systematic it's beautiful it's how we learn our faith through the bible and that is truly catholic so the priest gives a homily on non-catholics give sermons but let's go to our our our next slide who determined what books went into the bible all right who determined what books went into the bible this is a critical question if you only stay with me for one more slide stay with this one even though they get better but who determined it nowhere in the bible does it say what books belong in the bible god never gave a table of contents he never said you need to include the the book of revelation you need to put the gospel of james but not the gospel of thomas or or gospel of peter how come they didn't make it in the bible during that time of the early centuries we had the gospel of thomas the gospel of peter the gospel of mary how come they didn't make it into the bible who said that they that matthew mark luke and john do but not thomas and in in peter and mary's gospels who who made that determination all right when i was in north carolina i had a good friend um good man fallen away catholic and i had behind me a crucifix on my wall and in my crucifix on my wall um i would have my business meetings and sometimes my employees would come in and one day my good employee ed came in and he's sitting in front of me and he's looking up at the crucifix and and and finally he just breaks down he says chris can i close your door and i said okay and he closes the door he says why do you crazy catholics have all these statues and and this image of christ they said well because christ died for us and when we go to mass you see the crucifix because you're there at calvary as he's paying our debt to sin which is his death he said chris all you need is this and he held up the bible and he says this is all you need you don't need anything else you don't need four walls of your church you don't need the magisterium you don't need tradition even though the bible says we both need oral and written tradition and the bible says the church is the pillar and the bulwark of the truth he said you don't need those things all you need is scripture i said okay and he held up the book god bless him he meant well i i'm not offended and he he handles the book and he says chris this is all you need he says you don't need anything else i said ed do you believe what's in that bible he says of course i said do you believe everything that's written every word yeah do you believe it's true yeah do you believe it comes from god yeah well who do you think wrote it down man right but ed if you believe everything in that book which you said you do do you believe the authority from which it came he said yes i said congratulations ed you accept the authority of the catholic church because that bible you hold in your hand was put together at the councils of carthage and hippo in 393 and 397 a.d that's when the bible was canonized meaning that of all the scriptures floating around out there this one is inspired this one is inspired and this one is inspired of the holy spirit and they put them together in the bible we have known today and people say this is crazy this is the truth all right you can't i said bob uh ed you cannot accept the bible and reject the authority of the catholic church because it is the catholic church from which that bible came he was speechless you know i also uh tried i was one of the first guys in north carolina ever to try online dating back when i moved on to north carolina i started my business this was way prior to priest days or even thought of priest days and i was working seven days a week till midnight i never had a social life and then one day i realized gee maybe i ought to try this new thing called online dating never never tried it back then there's all the seven girls on the internet and so i met this girl we talked and emailed and i didn't want to embarrass her by saying i'll pick you up i didn't want to make her uncomfortable so he agreed to meet at this restaurant in charlotte north carolina and what are the two things they tell you never to talk about on a first date yeah religion and politics right so sure enough i'm eating and here it comes so she asks what religion are you and i mumbled through my spaghetti catholic she goes she goes how how could you belong to a religion that burned bibles chained them to rocks so nobody could have them and put them into latin so nobody could read them you know what my reaction was we did i didn't know my own faith thank god you are joining me today to learn your faith did the catholic church burn bibles chain them to rocks and put them into latin you bet we did but you got to ask why the bibles that the catholic church burned were heretical bibles one's not inspired by the holy spirit all those other bibles i told you about they call them the apocryphal bibles not of the holy spirit they're not necessarily evil but these other gospels are not of the holy spirit so the church burned them what do you do when you find counterfeit money you burn it you burn counterfeit money that's what the church did they protected the real money the rear of the real bible what about they chained them to rocks yeah they did chain them to rocks because back then it took three years to copy one bible and if you would have put it out in the public square it had been gone in an hour because it would have had a lot of value on the black market and so they chained it to rock so everybody could read it and not take it i always say you all remember the days of the phone booth what was chained to the phone booth the yellow pages not so that i could walk off with them that's so that i didn't walk off with them so that the next guy could have it that's good for the church to do i always say remember the pen at the bank it's chained to the desk not because they say you can't use the pen they chain it to the desk so nobody walks off with the pen and what about they put it in the latin yes the church put it in the latin because then no at that time still more people read and wrote latin than any other language so putting it into latin the bible was much greatly increased in its expanse in reach this is amazing but nobody ever talks about this all right let's keep going all right then she said how could you belong to religion that added books to the bible what's she talking about all right catholics and non-catholic christians have the same new testament 27 books with the gospels of matthew mark luke and john but we differ in our old testament by seven books we catholics have seven additional books maccabees sirach wisdom tobit these are additional books that people blame the catholics for adding those books no no no martin luther took them out here's the thing luther claimed these seven books were not in the original hebrew actually now they're finding they were in the original hebrew through the dead sea scrolls but anyway hebrew was the original language of the old testament scriptures and it was translated into greek about 200 years before christ they called it the septuagint this was what christ and his disciples and the new testament writers worked from christian churches or the the catholic church used the septuagint from the very beginning and gave us our catholic bible however in the third century at the council of germany i think it was rabbinic rabbinic jews rejected those seven books that were found in the septuagint but remember these were not christians these were anti-christians martin luther went with their decision of the rabbinic jews and rejected christ or excuse me who rejected christ i'm sorry he went with the rabbitic jew rabbinic jews who rejected christ and persecuted the church so here's the point everyone if your bible has those seven books like our catholic bible does then you followed jesus and the early church if your bible does not have those seven books which most non-catholic bibles don't you follow the non-christian rabbis who rejected christ because that's who martin luther followed so these deuterocanonical books are part of church tradition and of our faith and most people don't know that so don't say that we added books to the bible no all right i want to go on here to a quote let's go to the next slide this is a powerful quote this is from martin luther he said we concede as we must that so much of what they say who is they catholics is true that the papacy has god's word and the office of the apostles and that we have received holy scripture baptism the sacrament and the pulpit from them what would we know if the of these if it were not for them meaning the catholics martin luther says right there scripture comes from the catholics so the next time you said you're not of a catholic religion say if you are of a non-catholic religion you follow martin luther martin luther said the bible comes from the catholics i just read you the quote all right so then let's go to sola scriptura next slide the next slide is the famous question sola scriptura question mark meaning bible only well the bible doesn't say so the script torah the bible says it is not the only authority how do i know this it says it in the last chapter of john the last chapter of john says scripture is necessary but not sufficient meaning there's more to like to scripture like tradition and the magisterium how do we know this john 21 25 let me quote jesus did many other things as well if every one of them were written down i suppose that even the whole world would not have enough room for the books that would be written all right john is saying here that there are things that jesus said and did that were not written down does that make them unimportant do you really believe that jesus at the end would say you know what okay i did all these things during my life which we just read if they were all to be written down all the books couldn't contain them but do you really think jesus would say but those things aren't important no they are important that's what tradition of the catholic church is so the scripture is not in the bible it was basically unknown for 1500 years so jesus never promised us a book but next slide what did he promise us a church this is my famous saint albertus in detroit beautiful downtown churches first timothy 3 15 says the church is the pillar and the bulwark of the truth it tells us what makes up the bible that's first timothy 3 15 the church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth as i said we need an authority to guard and interpret any document that determines how we are to live our document is the bible the church interprets it the magisterium it is from the catholic church that all other christians have a bible at all so we are scriptural the bible is a catholic book the new testament was written copied collected and preserved by the catholic church to trust in the bible is to trust in the authority of the catholic church if you believe in the bible you can't reject the authority of the catholic church they canonize the bible to reject that authority that christ gave is to reject christ himself so if you reject the authority from which the bible came the bible came from the catholic church you are rejecting christ's authority who established that so like evangelicals catholics use we use scripture to determine doctrine and moral principles this is true the difference is that the catholic lay person or even the pastor me doesn't do so on our own as paul gave timothy the authority to quote rightly divide the word of truth that second timothy 2 15 so the catholics believe their bishops inherited that authority as the apostles taught them therefore it is the bishops through apostolic succession christ ordained the first bishops the apostles then they laid their hands on the next bishops and made them bishops and those bishops laid their hands on and made the next bishops there's an unbroken line since the time of christ going all the way down to every catholic clergy today despite their brokenness those are the ones who interpret the bible any official catholic teaching or document is always based on scripture yes we are scriptural this is the teachings of god remember only written by man and explained by man all right let's go into the versions of the bible now here are the catholic versions you know don't get confused here because a lot of people say father what version of the bible should i buy the version of the bible that you should buy is probably one of these because they keep those seven books plus part of daniel and esther that were taken out but they are the rsvce that stands for revised standard version catholic edition so the rsvce is probably the best then you have the nab the new american bible that's what's used to be read at the mass but there's some problems with some footnotes on that one you have the new jerusalem bible you have the navare bible these are very very good catholic bibles to get now remember the chapters and verses those were all invented those were not part of the original writings those were invented in the 1200s by guess what a cardinal cardinal stephen langton all right now we want to finish i want to finish here today how do we summarize the bible the bible i thought of this long and hard this week as i was working on this talk i had at one point i was going to explain to you a little sentence or two for every book in the bible and i could still do that in a later talk i was going to explain to you salvation history but i think the best way to explain the bible to you are the covenants the covenants what is a covenant this is the whole basis of the bible all right now before i show the next slide what is a covenant a covenant is is like a contract but a contract usually exchanges property or goods or services covenants exchange persons so when people enter into a covenant they are basically saying i am yours and you are mine so god uses the covenant to enter into a relationship with us when you establish a covenant you establish a family bond and this is what happened in god's old testament covenants he is fathering his people operating throughout the whole of scripture are god's efforts at attaining the ultimate end of his creation what is the ultimate goal divine sonship of us remember the catechism baltimore chad because why were you created to know god love him and serve him in this world and be happy with him forever and the next we do that as sons of god that's why after the fall in the garden and christ came and redeemed us we were made adopted sons of god sons and daughters this is the goal of all the covenants in fact the goal of creation to know god is father abba all right so let's show this first slide here are the covenants i borrowed this from um ascension press they have a adventure great adventure bible series which is fabulous if you ever get a chance to to see it let's go through these covenants all right you have the covenant sign and who the covenant was with and what it was about all right we have the adam covenant or the edenic from the garden of eden that was basically one holy couple and i think we have it up on the screen do we have the slide up on the screen yep yep okay so we're trying to expand it trying to make it a little bigger um then we have noah noah was a covenant based on one holy family so now god went from a couple to making himself known to a family then through abraham's covenant he made himself known to a tribe these were the israelites so he brought himself to be known to a tribe then god brought himself known through moses the mosaic covenant to a nation now we have the united nation of israel then he made himself known through the davidic kingdom to an entire excuse me through the davidic covenant to an entire kingdom now all of those are fulfilled in the final and great covenant of christ the new covenant where god makes himself known through one holy catholic and apostolic church catholic meaning universal this is incredible this summarizes everything for us and so this is a beautiful little summary through my friends at ascension press in the great adventure bible series now i want to explain each of these a little bit and then we're going to be done today the edenic covenant what is the eden covenant this was the covenant of adam that applies to all humanity so let's look at our next slide the covenants of god the edenic covenant all right it can be found in genesis chapter 1 and there god gives mankind the mandate to procreate and he gives and god gives mankind dominion over all the earth and the animals so we know through this covenant that we have dominion over the earth in it we also experience the covenant of marriage adam and eve the first married couple right let's go to our next covenant noah the covenant of noah in this covenant god promises never to destroy the earth again by water by flood and he created the rainbow as the sign of the everlasting covenant between god and every living creature of all flesh that is on earth sadly our symbol of the rainbow has been hijacked by some special agendas let's say it's really a meaning of god's covenant with noah it's not to have an immoral support meaning it is a covenant with god noah and his descendants were required to return to never shed human blood murder ever again because mankind was made in the image of god now here's what's interesting so mankind was forbidden to consume meat with blood in it this is where the koshered meat comes from the blood had to be drained from the animal before consuming it because their covenant was to never murder and blood is the life so it's interesting isn't it all right let's go to the next covenant of abraham in the abrahamic covenant to make abraham a great nation this was the covenant and bless abraham and to make his name great to spread his progeny as far as the stars of the sky or the sands of the seashore to bless those who blessed him and cursed those who cursed him basically meaning god's people will be blessed and their enemies cursed to give abraham's descendants all the land from the river of egypt to the euphrates which is the promised land so now the promised land was given to make abraham the father of many nations and many descendants and to get the whole land of canaan now circumcision was the sign of this covenant this is also interesting circumcision was the permanent sign of this covenant with abraham and his offspring all right why all right this is interesting let me read you from one of the scholars covenants in biblical times were often sealed by severing an animal in half meaning the party who breaks the covenant will suffer the same fate so in hebrew eight to see excuse me in hebrew to seal a covenant literally translates to meaning to cut so it is presumed by jewish scholars that the removal of this foreskin on the male penis symbolically represents the sealing of the covenant that's what circumcision is very interesting that's how important it was to them let's go to the next covenant the mosaic covenant the covenant of moses this is found in exodus and deuteronomy god promises here to make the israelites his treasured possession among all people of priests and a holy nation so now we're talking a nation if they follow god's commandments as part of the terms god gives moses the ten commandments the blood of the sacrificial oxen is then sprinkled on the altar and on the people to spray to seal the covenant so now you went from circumcision to seal the covenant to sprinkling of the blood that's why they sprinkled the blood on the doors posts right to protect from the angel of death beyond its central religious purpose the mosaic covenant was also guess what political because now you're dealing with a nation now god enters into politics so don't necessarily criticize your priest yes we cannot support particular politicians or or political parties but we are to preach on social justice and other issues that are political basically here god established israel as a holy nation as god's special possession this was the covenant of moses now let's go to the last one before the coming of christ next slide the davidic covenant here was a royal covenant now we mean royal what is that king the davidic kingdom the royal covenant was made with david this is second samuel chapter seven it promised to establish his dynasty or kingdom forever this covenant establishes david and his descendants as the kings of the united monarchy of israel this is why jesus said he came i came to unite the tribes of israel for the jews the messiah is believed to be a future jewish king well that's who jesus was from the davidic line that's who jesus was who will be anointed with oil remember jesus was in the scriptures by the woman greater or to gather i'm sorry the jews back into the land of israel that's what jesus did he said i came to the house of israel to bring him together and usher in an era with a male heir to rule the jewish people during this age that's what we have fulfilled in christ so david kept this or built this kingdom and christ fulfilled it in the line of david remember in the line of david the divinity kingdom who was the queen the queen was the mother not the wife of the king the mother of the king mary and we'll be finishing with her in a second and david kept the tablets let's look at our next slide in the tablets of the ten commandments in the ark of the covenant and this became the symbol of the israelite people and god's presence is with his people thus when king david wanted to establish jerusalem as the capital city he brought the ark of the covenant there now this is interesting all of this has been fulfilled now see our next slide by god's new covenant look up right there we'll now write it on the law on your hearts look at that slide that is beautiful and let's look at our next slide that's the new covenant the death of christ shedding the blood the blood of the new and everlasting covenant we read those words in scripture this is the new covenant so let me explain it we catholics believe that the new covenant was instituted at the last supper as part of the eucharist which in the gospel of john includes the new commandment of love a connection between the blood of christ and the new covenant which i just showed you is the new covenant or the new testament i'm sorry which i just showed you is the new testament and in it it says quote the cup is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood christians see jesus as the mediator of this covenant and that his blood shed at the crucifixion is required blood of the covenant replacing the animal blood this new covenant is associated with the word testament this is interesting we don't know this is why we call the new testament kind of like in the sense of a will and last testament right in the sense of a will left after the death of a person so christ is leaving this is his testament after his death like a will and testament the instructions for the inheritance that you are to receive in this amazing we only think of a will as oh man give me my inheritance you're given the ultimate inheritance in what christ just willed you in the last supper through the covenant of his blood christ is fulfilled now all the other covenants the kingdom is now as that chart showed you one holy catholic and apostolic church which is now the eternal kingdom of god here on earth oh i don't need that church father i'm not about man-made religion i'm spiritual i'm not into man-made religion really or i'm not into organized religion really this isn't a man-made religion christ made this religion well i'm not into the hierarchy i'm not into organized religion really jesus organized religion he established the college of bishops he established the throne of the pope and placed peter upon it he gave the authority to the bishops the first bishops who were the apostles ordained them and gave them the authority to ordain the next bishops he established the magisterium who using scripture and tradition teach us and guide us as we were commanded in those scripture passages i gave you at the beginning of this talk the scripture passage that says entrust the men that i have entrusted to teach you and then the other passage it says hold fast to the traditions that i teach you both oral and written both this is the one holy catholic and apostolic church the new covenant of christ that has fulfilled all the old covenants all right we would be remiss if we didn't finish with our blessed mother mary let's put it up there now the reason i'm not doing a whole thing on mary please tune in i have my talk on mary where i explain all of the scripture where is mary in the bible where's purgatory in the bible i have all that on my explaining the faith series if you go to our youtube channel called divine mercy and in that youtube channel called divine mercy there's a playlist that says explaining the faith all my talks are on there including purgatory where that's in the bible and mary so i'm only going to say a few words but i'm not neglecting our blessed mother i'm a marian i don't want to do that she's in that other video or at least i'm sorry she's everywhere but my explanation is now regarding mary many of the events and figures of the old testament foreshadow christ and his church but so does they foreshadow mary we see mary and old testament accounts of israel the daughter zion in the ark of the covenant mary was the most faithful of all the daughters of israel the woman who would actually bear god within her womb so he could see she was truly the typology as the new ark of the covenant she the ark of the covenant hold that held the old law she holds the new law in fact the whole first chapter of luke especially verses 26 to 56 is the hail mary see my other talks as i said on mary and other things in the bible all right last page the bible we want to summarize the bible here is discipleship and mary was the ultimate disciple to follow her example and remember what the discipleship was in the bible deny yourself pick up your cross and follow him that's the message of discipleship in the bible we need to know that but there's more there's more john 13 34 tells us this is how all will know that you are my disciples that you have love for one another all right so to summarize let's go to our our slide the story of the bible you want to know the whole story of the bible i'm going to summarize it for you in three minutes and we're done the bible is a love story the bible is about a groom god calling back his wayward bride us us the church that is seen in the bible the bible starts with a wedding in the garden and ends with a wedding in the book of revelation the feast of the lamb this is where you as a bride come up and receive your groom at the mass the book of revelation is about the mass i do a whole another talk on that as well on my talks called explaining the faith called holy communion please watch that one in summary the bible brings us a message of life-giving self-sacrificing sonship familial love we came from god i did this in the talks we came from god we will return to god so we came from the love of the father and now he wants us to return back to him through our own love we came from his love but he wants us to come back through his love it's kind of like augustine god created you without you but he won't save you without you it's the same thing here but we do how do we know god loves us so that we can love him with trust the entire bible and the diary of saint faustina tell us so we can know the father by the son and the son by the holy spirit and the holy spirit by mary and i know i'm running out of time here but you know what that's how you know the meaning of the bible god wants to reveal himself as abba father so that we will love and trust him but how does he do it he did it how do we know the father through the son god the father sent his son to reveal himself jesus said when you look upon me you've looked upon the father so how do we know the father we know him through the son now how do we know the son jesus said you can't know me but through the gift of the spirit so we know the son through the gift of the holy spirit when pentecost remember the apostles hid in fear in the room until jesus sent or to god sent the holy spirit then they were in flames so they knew who jesus was fully after the holy spirit came and enlightened him now how do we know the holy spirit through his spouse mary she's she's a quasi-incarnation of the holy spirit which means saint um maximilian kolbe told us she's not actually the holy spirit walking around in flesh and blood but she's a quasi incarnation she embodies everything the holy spirit her spouse was so if you want to know who the holy spirit was go to mary and if you want to get back to god the father come back the same way from which you came go to mary she'll she'll show you the holy spirit her spouse the holy spirit will enlighten you to understand who christ is and christ is the door to the father this is what we do at the mass the holy spirit by his powers taking us through the sacrifice of the son back to god the father at the mass this is what it is this is the whole message of the bible god revealing his self to us so that we will know he is father that we will trust him father mike gately's book 33 days of greater glory is all about this the revealing of himself so that we can know him love him and trust him all right we need to trust him so that we'll return to him and after the fall since we strayed god gives us tools to help us he gave us the gift of a mother here's one of us we're broken skittish scared creatures but he gave us one of us a creature mary to help bridge that gap so that we wouldn't be afraid of the father who do we run to normally our mother and so when we strayed he gave us the gift of a savior and the promise of a mother all right and in it's a faith of in love and having trust that we are meant to be members of god's family and that he loves us as father as abba so what is the essential message of scripture you can boil it down to one thing jesus christ is lord so trust him that's the message of the diary that's the message of the bible and our last slide finally the divine mercy image that is why he demanded on the divine mercy image it be put jesus i trust in you jesus is the face of the father's mercy so the central message of scripture is divine mercy pope benedict told us this mercy is the central nucleus of the gospel message so if we receive the mercy of god and then we live it then we give it to everybody we meet we will have eternal life and we do that by trusting him you don't receive anything from somebody you don't trust so it starts with trust so when you trust him you'll receive his love then you can love him back and others as your neighbor as yourself this is forming you into another christ christ receive the love of the father and gave it to mankind be formed like jesus in the womb of mary into another christ so when you love like him then you are merciful like him that is what mercy is love put into action the love of god when it's put into action is mercy and when your love is put into love of god and your neighbor that is mercy and you have got the message of the gospel and you have found salvation amen amen alleluia hallelujah again i'm so sorry i went along but god bless all of you keep staying with us i'm going to start we're answering a lot of questions and getting topics we'll try to shorten up each week so we hope that you'll stay with us and please pray for us we'll pray for you you can find all of this again on my dvd i talked a lot about this on my dvd series called explaining the faith that you would like to get cds at shopmercy.org or 1-800 for marion or live streamed at divinemercy.org explaining the faith god bless you we can't wait to see you next week it's a beautiful day here may the lord be with you and through the intercession of saint faustina mary and all the saints may almighty god bless you the father the son and the holy spirit amen why be a marian helper because we mary and father celebrate a mass for you and all our members each and every day you can share in all the prayers good works and merits of all the miriam priests and brothers around the world and now you can share the graces just as if you were a marian priest or brother every all souls day we see a mass for all the deceased members of the association of marian helpers again there's no way that after we die we can help ourselves but we have to rely on the prayers of those here on earth and we members of the marian fathers will be praying for you as a deceased member of our association you can share in the graces of the perpetual novena to the divine mercy remember jesus told saint faustina that the chaplet of divine mercy is one of the most powerful prayers we can make and every day here at the shrine of divine mercy we pray it and you can share in those graces so if you have any questions or you want to learn more how to be a marian helper please visit micprayers.com or call 1-800-462-7426 and let me personally pray for you and your loved ones thank you and may almighty god bless you the father the son and the holy spirit amen you

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 225,157

Rating: 4.8681221 out of 5

Keywords: Divine Mercy, alar, National Shrine of Divine Mercy, Chaplet, Catholic, God, Jesus, Christ, Mary, St. Faustina, Faustina, Marian, priest, spiritual, spirituality, eternity, live, life, grace, pray, prays, praying, Mass, teaching, saint, chris alar, fr. chris alar, father chris alar, bible, catholic bible, magisterium, tradition, covenant, scripture, holy scripture

Id: sx-qIvG-c9M

Length: 92min 47sec (5567 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 05 2020