Explaining the Faith - Islam: What We Need To Know

well hi and welcome everybody to the national shrine of the divine mercy i'm father chris aylar one of the marian priests of the immaculate conception and it's a joy and honor to be with you as we continue our explaining the faith series and we are definitely taking you back to seminary i had one of my favorite classes in all of seminary at my dominican house of studies seminary in washington dc was an elective that i took called islam and i cracked out the notes i cracked out my books and been working diligently this last week to summarize an entire semester for you today so bear with us as we best try to explain what islam is an understanding of the similarities and differences yes we have to understand that but most of all what links us together especially mary so let us begin 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 to grant us peace that all men and women may live in harmony with one another we ask that the truth of jesus christ be spread around the world and that we may be the beacons of that example we ask all this through the intercession of our mother mary and through christ our lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen well thank you we have a great group today with us here at the shrine we are live we also have a bunch of you with us and i think it's so important that we first must understand the mission of islam and we're going to tell you the similarities and differences what we can learn from them what they can learn from us what we don't want to learn from them what they don't want to learn from us and mostly the connection which is the blessed virgin mary and i've got a strong video from an islamic clerk cleric i'm sorry that will explain a lot of this in just a couple minutes now the goal here today is to give you the facts i am not getting into politics i am not getting into personal opinion it's to give you the facts and church teaching i can promise you that now as i said we're going to look at both the good and the bad of the christian approach and the islamic approach and what brings us together okay so the first thing we have to understand is what is going on now in our celebration of these two faiths in the people we have to understand start with the basis of islam now muhammad founded islam in 611. all right so over almost 1500 years ago claiming he had divine revelations from the angel gabriel all right the same angel that appeared to mary in the annunciation now he took some jewish mythology he took some of the scriptures and gospels and he kind of mixed them all together now when he did that though let's look at our next slide unlike christianity and if we look at our slide that's on the screen right now he created a political ideology that has spread mainly by the sword that map on your screen if you see the light green that's the sunnis that little dark green in the middle is the shiites you've probably heard the sunnis and the shiites i didn't realize until i took this class in islamic uh religion that the sunnis greatly outnumbered the shiites shiites are mainly there in iraq or iran and the whole point of this is even they don't get along kind of sounds like the christians and the protestants doesn't it we both belong to christianity but we don't get along in ireland and other places we need to the same with islam now here's the thing they created what is many people claim is not a religion but a political ideology spreading this this islamic mentality through the world but mainly by force muhammad said and this is his quote go and fight all men until they say there is no god but allah okay not pointing this out to cause dissension you'll see where i'm going with this to cross and create unity now at that time arabs were worshiping 360 gods 100 360 gods father chris they had won for each day of the arabian year there was 360 days in the arabian year so they had one for each day so the worship of one god was new to them just like it was to the jews and muhammad used that whole monotheistic mentality just like god the true god the father did with the jews so we have some core foundation here and so muhammad said listen there's one god and he effectively unified the various tribes of arabia through saying there's one god but he realized non-arabs jews and christians were not as willing to convert so here's the problem that he had he spread his teaching through military conquests and hence we have the perils of the relationship with islam jihad which means holy war is mentioned in the koran and it is to be fought against all non-believers now that being said why would you get somebody to fight this battle how do you get young men to drop everything come and unite and fight for this purpose okay followers are promised a paradise of carnal pleasure if they die in the service of religion i had a marketing course at the university of michigan when i got my mba and i remember the instructor it was not a religious course it was marketing it was a business course and my mark my professor at the time said you know who the one of the most masterful marketers in the history of the world was muhammad he said he gave young men three causes to fight one chivalry you're fighting for a cause everybody wants to fight for a cause and you're fighting the chivalry of your faith two was the spoils of war he promised that when they conquered they could keep the gold and the riches and the three in the third the promise of an x-rated afterlife carnal pleasure this is a reality and this is what this is what muhammad did to market this cause now let's look at our next slide all right the next slide is actually this on your screen a picture of the quran and look at that set of beads first of all doesn't that quran look like the bible and look at that set of circular beads that they prey on does it not look like a rosary we're going to get back to this in a moment now i had a class in islam at in washington d.c the professor was a catholic priest who used to be muslim he converted from the muslim faith to become a catholic priest and man i can't teach you half of what he taught us in that class because it would be a political nightmare for us but i can tell you what he said in some things and he said if you are a peaceful muslim and there are many you're actually not participating fully in the koran you're not actually fully following the quran he said because enslaving families of the infidels taking their women as concubines as an established aspect of the sharia that if one denies he's denying the quran and the narrations of the prophet in other words he's an apostate apostate's kind of like a heretic so basically he said if you are not following the koran then you're not peaceful and excuse me if you're following the qur'an you're not peaceful i was surprised by this and this is from a former muslim that became a catholic priest now he said their issue with christianity is because we teach jesus is the son of god this is blasphemy to them now they are defending what they think is the true truth of god you can't blame them for that they defend their faith much more than we defend ours and there's something to be learned from that we are told that islam is a religion of peace and most muslims want to live in peace this is what we were told by administrations in the white house and everything else and yes there is some truth to that this is an unqualified assertion however and it may be true i know a lot in michigan very peaceful good people no qualms no problems none whatsoever but this instructor told us that's irrelevant we went we went huh the very fact he said that most muslims want to live in peace is irrelevant we were glued to him we're like what and he used this example he said the fact is that fundamentalism terrorism is unfortunately ruling much of islam today now he used the example and actually i'm sorry this was not the professor this was another speaker that i heard he said a nazi minority ruled germany most people in germany didn't want the nazi minority they ruled a minority in nazi germany rule called the nazis and they killed millions of jews although most germans were peaceful he said communist russia was comprised of russians who wanted to live in peace yet russian communists killed over 20 million people he said china's huge population of people is almost all peaceful you ever meet a chinese they are some of the nicest kindest most gentle peaceful people there are yet the chinese communists have killed over 70 million people the point that he was making and he went on japanese i worked when i was in the automotive industry in detroit i worked with the japanese i admired their politeness their humility their peace the average japanese person in world war ii was not a war monger yet japan's forces murdered its way across southeast asia killing 12 million chinese this trend continues today most islam in the same way is peaceful wants peace but a minority group of fundamentalists and terrorists don't we have to face this reality am i criticizing the people no way we christians fall into the same category we teach one thing but many christians live another so here's what happened this trend continues today over a hundred thousand christians lose their life every year for their faith so right now all those examples of people being killed it continues today especially with christians but god is not absent god is with us he is present if we seek him let's look at our next slide what image do you see on your screen the image of divine mercy look at your screen this is the answer why jesus said in diary number 48 i promise that the soul that will venerate this image what image the image of divine mercy will not perish listen to this this is one of the few times jesus talks about your enemy defeating your enemy in the scripture we talk about turning the cheek and and not taking up uh action but listen to what jesus says to saint faustina the diary i also promise victory over your enemies already here on earth and especially our at the hour of your death i myself will defend it as my own glory this image along with the chaplet and the rosary is the true weapon this is the true way not killing the people not warring with the people not condemning the people not wishing the people to go to hell the answer is the rosary in the chaplet and the image of divine mercy here we have the means of defeating the enemies not meaning enemies as in people enemy as in satan this is key the enemies of the church can be defeated with mercy the image of divine mercy the chaplet of divine mercy so where do we disagree all right let's do the fundamentals here where do we disagree and where do we agree all right peter kreeft you've heard me talk about him he said as a christian i say that islam lacks the cross and jesus christ and his radical love and he said there are things we should not take from islam he said we should not take from them their hatred of other people and civilizations mainly the west preventing apostasy by murdering apostates meaning murder those who don't believe in your faith don't do that treating women as slaves don't do that prioritizing justice over mercy as they do don't do that continuing century-old grudges don't do that fear of freedom fear of using reason don't be fearful he says they have a slavish fear of god they are to be slaves to him god wants to be father not slave terrorism has caused unitarianism the theology that there is not three persons in the godhead but only one and that christ is not divine but only human peter kries says we can't take that from islam but likewise he says there's things from us that muslims don't like either and shouldn't learn from us we are a bad example he said to them what did he mean materialism consumerism sex on demand drugs addictions pornography reason without any faith redefinition of marriage embracing abortion adultery fornication contraception sterilization euthanasia we can go on and on the big one he said was provocative dress mary warned us in 1917 at fatima the impurity of clothing and attire i mean i'm a priest but i'm still a man and when young ladies 20 30 years old come up to communion and they're wearing little more than a piece of fig leaf this is very difficult and so islam should not learn this stuff from us they're much better in that sense so what christians should learn from muslims we have a real common enemy it's not each other it's sin it's satan it's selfishness it's secularism the four s's satan sin selfishness secularism peter creed says as a christian i also say that islam has great and deep morality and sanctity he said this should inspire us even shame us to be and brought us to admiration and imitation so you want to know what we shouldn't learn from each other as i just said what about what we should learn from each other okay he says you know what we can learn from islam faithfulness and prayer they pray five times a day do we pray five times a day i'm consecrated religious we're required to pray five times a day and sometimes i don't even get to do that their devotion to fasting and alms giving prayer fasting and almsgiving that's biblical sacredness of the family they don't believe in abortion they believe in children and hospitality their families are large the absoluteness of moral law the demand to be just and charitable the absoluteness of god and the need for absolute submission surrender and obedience to god do you know the meaning of the word islam the meaning of the word islam is to surrender your will to god we should do that so you will not find many muslims who are indifferent don't care moral pragmatists hedonists utilitaria you utilitarians materialists relativists or libertines we as catholics and christians have many however we seem to value life outside the womb [Music] they seem to value life in the womb it's kind of interesting isn't it islam doesn't believe in abortion and they could totally protect life in the womb but life outside the womb they don't seem to have the same value suicide bombings killings terrorist attacks we're the opposite once the baby's born human life here in the west is sacred you kill somebody you go to jail or you're executed i just watched a thing where a little baby girl fell in a well back in the 1980s and it was worldwide it was on the news and everybody was trying everything risking their lives to get this little girl out of a fallen well because life outside the womb was so sacred but yet here in the west life in the womb we kill at will if we could just put together their respect for life in the womb and our respect for outside the womb you'd have the answer you'd have the answer to everything and so we can learn from this peter krieff went on this says there's one character trait i find in muslims and jews that i don't really find in christians spiritual toughness he said it is a determination to follow god's will at any cost instead of following our own will he says i see in the west that we have reduced faith has become feelings boy isn't that true do what you feel like and the kingdom of god has been reduced to mr rogers neighborhood that's what he sees great saints are not wimps all right they are often made up of great sinners every saint has a past and every sinner has a future saints have been haters and persecutors like saint paul saints have been passionate sex addicts like saint augustine saints have been rich and spoiled like saint francis saints have even been professional trained killers like saint ignatius so there is hope for all of us saints have to be tough and tender jesus was the toughest and the most tender person who ever lived mother teresa saint john paul ii tough but tender so basically we have two islams and we have two christianities we have two islams and two christianities it depends on which one muslims follow and which one christians follow what do i mean by that many say there are two islams in the world those of peace and the islam of terrorism the shiites and the sunnis they hate each other because a heresy more than they hate us in the west is kind of surprising islam has good things like total surrender to god but they have bad things like the rejection of christ as savior the word of god in the bible and love not just servitude but there are also two christianities one we have a christianity of the new testament love god love your neighbor surrender your will die to yourself do most of us follow that no probably a lot of us follow the christianity of accommodation to modernism consumerism niceness relativism individualism so it's not easy for either side to point fingers here all right now let's talk about some of the similarities because i'm getting here to the good part which is the answer to the problems now there are some not exact similarities but they are similarities now i want to talk about this islam is a weird filtered version of judaism and christianity it's actually a christian heresy islam is actually a christian heresy and i'll explain that in a moment do you know every one of the 99 attributes of god mentioned in the quran is also mentioned in the bible did you know that in both books god's mercy is cited 10 times more than his justice but in a different way let's look at our next slide our next slide shows the difference abba versus allah abba is our god father loving became sent his son their god is allah which is more about servitude now there's a similarity and a difference there but let's talk about the quran's reference to mary 34 times she is the only woman that is mentioned by name even muhammad's daughter is not mentioned by name in the quran fatima his daughter's name was fatima the commonality islam shares with us and the jews is called its five pillars listen to these five pillars and don't tell me there's not a similarity here the five pillars of judaism i'm sorry of islam is one a declaration of belief we have the apostles creed what's our declaration of belief the apostles creed they have a declaration of belief next prayer that's their second pillar prayer should be our second pillar third fasting fasting should be our pillar fourth almsgiving almsgiving should be our pillar and fifth pilgrimages at the end here i'm going to show you a pilgrimage that i'm leading and i hope you can join us it's a big part of our christian tradition theirs is a pilgrimage to mecca so we have the same five pillars in a sense not exact the simplicity of islam together with these devoted people helps explain its popularity john paul ii however said in crossing the threshold of help hope the muslims devotion to prayer is a model for christians who have deserted their magnificent cathedrals and pray only a little bit or not at all so john paul ii is even saying we can learn from their devotion you know who i keep thinking of when i think of islam saint paul god chose saint paul because he had the most zeal and devotion yeah it was completely in the wrong direction he was killing christians saint paul was killing christians his devotion was complete in the wrong direction but remember god said i'd rather have you hot or cold this is cold hot is great because you're warmed to god but saint paul was as cold as you could get he was in the opposite direction but god saw something in him he didn't go to the lukewarm guy sitting on his couch watching sports he went to saint paul who he saw persecuting christians he said i love that zeal not that he's killing christians but i love the zeal and he converted him to saint paul from saul this is important now do muslims worship the same god okay this is one where i i agree with every single line every single paragraph of the catechism every single word in it because i am a priest in essence i have to but even if i didn't have to i actually do i've read the entire thing but there's one paragraph that i struggle with in the catechism paragraph 841 and the church quotes it in lumigentium let's look at our slide we're going to put up on the screen the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator in the first place amongst whom are the muslims they profess to hold the faith of abraham and together with us they adore the one merciful god mankind's judge on the last day man do i struggle with that statement because i don't believe they can worship the same god our god is abba father who sent his son and god condescended to become one of us i always claimed this can't be the same god because allah would never condescend to become a man he would never lower himself he's he's way up here and we're just servants we're just slaves it can't be the same god and i used to argue this in seminary this is why i love taking you back to seminary you you're spared all the time and trouble that i went through and i can share it with you so i went to the professor of this islamic class i said i do not agree with this it's the only paragraph in the entire catechism i don't agree with how can we worship the same god they can't be and then one of the students pointed out and heard my question tim staples a convert to the catholic faith said these are two distinct declarations notice how the catechism is written muslims profess to hold faith in the god of abraham they profess to hold the faith of abraham in other words it doesn't mean they do it says in the catechism they profess to hold the faith of abraham i went whoa and secondly the phrase together with us they adore the one merciful god mankind's judge on the last day tim staples says the declaration that muslims muslims adore the one god is made without qualification he said we can he said we can see that islam links itself to abraham this is not saying there is a link i went wow john paul ii acknowledges the truth that muslims get it right when they profess faith in one god but he says that they have it wrong when it comes to what god has revealed in scripture hmm fascinating they misunderstand john paul ii said who god is and what he asks of his people john paul ii said quote islam is not a religion of redemption there is no room for the cross nor for the resurrection he says however the church remains always open to dialogue and cooperation because we have a common link called mary and that's going to be the answer so we'll get to miri in a second i want to say a couple more things jimmy a can weighed in on this he said the church's understanding is that muslims don't fully understand god that's our belief as christians but that doesn't mean that they aren't genuinely directing their prayers towards him they just have some incomplete misunderstandings about who he is they have error but it doesn't mean that they don't have a genuine desire for a relationship with god and with that you have a starting point like jews they don't understand that god is trinity and they don't believe that jesus is god but that has never stopped the catholic church from recognizing that the jewish people do worship god i found that fascinating so what he's basically saying is we as christians look at the jews they don't believe in the trinity and they don't believe in jesus is god but yet we believe the jews worship our god so he's saying wait a minute islam also doesn't believe in the trinity and doesn't believe in jesus christ as god but they possibly could have the desire to worship the same god i went wow this is interesting some say at death any who sought god will have a special revelation and a chance to accept jesus christ are you praying that all pagans who have rejected jesus because they were taught or raised or shown a different way will be given that revelation when they die and that they will accept it if you're doing that you're a true christian but i got to admit even i haven't been doing that and i remember after i took this course in islam i started doing it for a while and i fell away from it after a terrorist attack a few years ago and i started doing this report last night and i'm doing my studies this week and i'm putting this talk together for you all and i said man this is what we got to start doing again now thus there are major differences we have to recognize that there are major differences in the quran such as that women are inferior to men that's surah 4. that men can and even should beat their wives in some circumstances also surah 4 belief in the crucifixion and resurrection of jesus is false belief in jesus christ as the son of god is blasphemy that's sera 19 god wills moral as well as physical evil we do not believe god wills physical evil or moral evil and god does not love unbelievers third surah we do not believe that god loves everyone so what do we do the differences between islam and christianity are prominent well you got to go back to the root let's look at the first 400 years of both religions that'll tell you an answer christians in their first 400 years were persecuted did not have political power and were peaceful muslims in their first 400 years were at war and converted through the sword not love that's why islamic reformers who say we want to go back to true islam go back to the first 400 years which was jihad and so we have to realize this but you know what you really should go back should we go back to the first 400 years of religion or should we really go back to what the catechism said is our base core abraham hmm abraham is really the beginning and his faith was based on trust not violence let's look at our next slide isaac and ishmael the two children of abraham won isaac through sarah and the other ishmael through a concubine hagar isaac became the jews and ishmael became the muslims the wild ass of a man we can start here because abraham trusted god would spread his progeny throughout the whole world even if isaac was killed he trusted god he'll find a way so let's think about this abraham trusted god when god told him that through isaac who will become the jews your descendants will spread as far as the sands of the seashore the stars in the sky but he also said ishmael his lineage would spread far and wide god says this in the bible well that's the muslims the muslims proclaim they come from ishmael so this is interesting muslims would spread too and they have do you know i said this the other day for the first time ever there are more muslims now in the world than catholics the first time in world history today there are more muslims than catholics the gap's going to widen muslims have large families they don't believe in abortion we catholics believe in abortion we're not supposed to i'm just telling you when you're not living your catholic faith misguided catholics believe in abortion birth control in small families this gap is going to continue to widen and the rivalry between the jews who came from isaac and the muslims who came from ishmael continues today and their goal is to destroy the jews now i want to tell you something that i learned in my scripture class throughout history many people have tried to destroy the jews you ever wonder that why is everybody after the jews you ever think about this the assyrians the babylonians the canaanites the muslims the turks the russians the nazis the muslims why is everybody after the jews i want to tell you something fascinating that father seraphim taught me always going back to father seraphim father seraphim says satan wants to destroy the jews i said well father seraphim wouldn't he want to destroy all people he said specifically the jews i said why he said because then satan could call god a liar i said huh he said god told abraham that through isaac the jews would spread far and wide more than the sands of the shore or the stars of the sky so if he if satan can destroy the jews god's a liar so satan's mission has been to destroy the jews so that we can say god is a liar this is interesting now father servant told me this story he said do you know that hitler had 10 henchmen that he hand-picked to carry out the destruction of the jews they ran the concentration camps the rounding up of the jews the slaughter of the jews and father seraphim taught me something unbelievable he said when they went to execute the last of those ten they were getting ready to hang him and they put the noose on his neck this was after world war ii and they went to execute this final henchman hitler's ten henchmen and as they put the noose around his neck just before they executed and i know i'm not gonna pronounce this right i never can he yelled param p-a-r-i-m param and nobody knew what that meant and a jewish rabbi came forward and he says this is a jewish feast that goes back to the book of esther and what he says was in that book an evil man named haman like hitler he had ten henchmen to eliminate the jews and let's look at our next slide this is esther esther who is a righteous woman she foiled the plot and she reported it to the king this is what the book of esther is about in the bible and she reported it to the king and on the feast of param those ten henchmen were executed in the old testament so here you have haman who had ten henchmen to wipe out the jews it's discovered and they executed all of them on the feast of param here you have hitler who found ten henchmen to eliminate the jews and the last one is executed on the feast of param i went whoa this is unbelievable these ten henchmen now we christians are the ones that are persecuted because now carrying on god's work we continue to be the ones satan pursues that's why there's so many persecutions that's why over a hundred thousand christians a year lose their life for their faith now the only options because of this persecution that you will never hear on that on the news you will not read in the newspapers you will not hear anybody stating but i'm going to give it to you it's called the truth if you are a christian living in islamic territory you only have a certain amount of options one you convert to islam two you pay a huge fine to practice your faith if you are jew or christian three you can become a slave four you can leave the country as a refugee or fifth be killed that is the reality people don't hear about all we hear about on our news today is the century-old horrible wrongful european slave trade it's all we hear about it's what they teach in the schools but i defy you to find one school that teaches you about the islamic slave trade barbarossa who was a muslim said that he took more slaves christian slaves in one day than an entire year of slaves going to america think about that for a minute this isn't my words i'm not a racist please don't send me the letter calling me a racist i am simply telling you that the muslim barbarossa himself said i took more christian slaves in one day than an entire year of slaves going to the americas but we never hear about this the expansion of islam therefore was directly linked to military success in jihad but unlike jihad our crusades which i talked about last week were not to expand christianity by force he was to liberate the holy land and protect pilgrims and not to allow them to be forced into slavery so the crusades were a direct response to muslim conquests of christian lands but i want to get to the good news all right father you've been really giving us a downer today let's finish with the good news mary look at your slide mary and islam mary is the key to bring peace and the muslims to jesus our faith teaches to jesus through mary mary promised peace at fatima if we pray the rosary and we do the five first saturdays guess what today is first saturday join us at one o'clock as we do that you know fulton sheen bishop fulton sheen he said conversion of the muslims in their hearts is possible and the answer is mary fulton machine let's read our next quote look it up on our screen as dale puts it up there fulton sheen said it quote it is our firm belief that the fears that some entertain concerning muslims will not be realized but that islam instead will eventually be converted to christianity this is fulton sheen and in a way that even some of our missionaries will never suspect it is our belief that this will happen not through the direct teaching of christianity but through a summoning of the muslims to a veneration of mary the mother of god whoa that's incredible you know the quran says that mary was immaculately conceived and was a perpetual virgin many christians don't even believe that but the quran says it is she's the only woman as i mentioned whom muhammad refers to by a proper name and i said not even his own daughter fatima is referenced by her own name the quran says the angels declared quote oh mary god has chosen you above all women of the earth this is in the quran the 19th chapter of the quran has 41 verses about jesus and mary and muhammad said quote she has the highest place in heaven after the blessed virgin mary talking about his own daughter in other words he's saying mary has one of the highest places in heaven wow i want to show you now a two-minute video of an islamic cleric this is an islamic cleric it's only two minutes but this host asks this cleric this muslim cleric about mary you will not believe his response let us take a look dr shabir the question we have here can you explain why virgin mary is well considered and even put on a kind of prominent place within islam well i can say that first of all mary is an important person in her own right she's the mother of jesus on hombre peace who is a prophet a messenger of god and a very important figure in history he is the founder of christianity which is a world the most major religion of the world so it's natural that she should have a prominent place moreover when the quran came on the scene the quran is actually appealing to followers of previous religions the quran is appealing to christians in particular and people of the book more generally and asking them to rally to this new message and so the new message was shown to be in harmony with the messages of the previous prophets so that islam and the quran itself was shown to be a natural continuation of the messages which were once delivered by abraham moses and jesus on humby peace and since the mary being the mother of jesus had already a great importance in christianity and especially in catholicism naturally the koran in appealing to people who already believe in in mary would make a prominent mention of her and also would not hold back from giving her that great importance which the koran can give to any individual while reserving the utmost importance for god himself so in that vein we see that the quran says that the angels announced to mary that god has chosen you and preferred you above all of the women of the world so it is quite a glowing tribute sofia okay we're gonna leave it at that okay i mean if you had more time i just had one last uh thought mary is mentioned by name many times in the quran often in conjunction with her son but she is also mentioned as a model and her own right for believers to follow thank you for that dr shabir you're welcome all right now is that statement from an islamic cleric not hopeful to you my gosh when you listen to that you can really see we do have the core based commonality and it starts with the mother of god to me this is amazing you know fatima portugal is actually named as i said over under uh after a muslim princess fatima as we said was muhammad's daughter and fulton sheen believes that the conversion will come through our lady of fatima the conversion of islam the islamic terrorists are terrorists did you know this this is fascinating do you know the guy who tried to assassinate john paul ii was an islamic terrorist i think he was turkish or something i'm sure somebody can correct me he assassinated or tried to assassinate john paul on may 13 1981. do you know he has converted to catholicism did you know that do you know that he made a pilgrimage to rome and laid flowers on john paul ii's grave after he got out of prison do you know that it was reported that he could not believe that john paul ii survived and he attributed it to our lady of fatima he said there is no way this man could have lived i shot him i am a trained assassin i shot him at point-blank range but what did john paul always say mary guided the bullet it went around his main artery so this assassin or attempted assassin said i can't believe it there's no way he could have survived i'm an expert i shot him at point-blank range and he said it must be this our lady of fatima fatima he didn't know the date that he shot john paul was the anniversary may 13th of fatima prophecy is very important with dates you know i mentioned earlier the word islam means submission what do we turn to mary for as an example for us christians mary fully submitted to the will of god fiat yes she is the model of submission i surrender my will to yours god this is what islam is all about islam is all about surrender so mary is the prize example to them that's a building block everybody furthermore as dr muravali a great teacher at franciscan said he says in her in mary opposites are united this is fascinating she is a privileged place of unity there's nothing more different than divinity and humanity yet in mary the two were united so think about this for a minute there is nothing more different than divinity and humanity but in mary they united in the hypostatic union right so he said this uniting took place in the womb of mary so muslims in catholicism may also be brought together in mary we are a lot less distance than divinity and humanity if you have humanity here and divinity here and they are that far apart muslim and christians are about this far apart if mary could unite this she sure as heck can unite this you see the point that's amazing man and when i cracked out my seminary notes i'm like oh man i can't wait to bring all the viewers back to seminary with me i would give anything for all of you to be in that class because this is what we learned how come we're not hearing this how come we're not spreading this message when i bet you if you explain this even to the radical muslims they would say you know what i got to admit there's something to that this is fascinating to me now let's look at our next slide mary's many involvements i want to talk about right now let's start with lepanto anybody here ever heard of lepanto oh come on catholics your rosary your rosary okay the feast of our lady of the rosary which we celebrate when anybody october 7th do you know why the our lady of the rosaries on october 7th because that was the day of the victory of our lady at laponto it used to be called our lady of victory you know when i was high school football we had this burly football coach coach sanderson and he used to say i want you to get out there knock him down rub him into the ground then help him up now let us pray and we would pray to our lady of victory i never knew what that meant i just thought man win the game our lady of victory is winning the fight for christianity and your soul our lady the rosary used to be called our lady of victory it's the anniversary of the victory of the christians over the ottoman navy at lepanto in 1571. i don't want to get into history i did that last week let's talk about this real briefly though the turkish ottoman empire as i explained last week had invaded much of byzantine much of the catholic christian byzantine empire by the mid-1400s and they had brought a large portion of the christian world under islamic law this was happening we are seeing this again today that's why we need to pray the rosary in the same way they did back in the 1500s they stopped it there was a holy league that was created when i was a kid i used to watch the super friends called the justice league and i used to be like that's a cause it had superman and batman and wonder woman and aquaman and they brought him together and they called him the justice league and they would meet and they would fight against injustice and i'm like i'm this little kid jumping up and down i want to be part of the justice league well the catholic church did form it it was called the holy league and it was a group of christians gathered together against this invasion the catechism allows for defense i'm not promoting war i'm not promoting attacks or aggression or spreading your religion by the sword wrong wrong wrong what we are promoting is the fact that if we are forced into saving christianity the catechism says we can and that was my last week talk on the crusades now crew members on 200 ships before the war began and you know who one of the sailors was you ever hear a don quixote one of the great writers the spanish fighters he was on one of the ships well anyway these 200 ships all the men prayed the rosary in preparation for the battle and the crew members turned to mary and so did the christians throughout europe they were encouraged by pope pius v to pray the rosary and they did and it prevented the invasion of italy and ultimately rome which would have brought an end to christianity this woman i've been talking with online says father i don't understand why you said that last week in the crusades hell cannot prevail against the catholic church and you're saying if it wasn't for the crusades we would have lost christianity god would have found another way i said well that's your answer god found a way for hell not to prevail against the catholic church it was the intercession of the blessed virgin mary in the defense of christianity am i promoting war no but the rosary was the key to stopping conquest this is what mary said to do at fatima pray the rosary to stop this conquest of communism and she she says it will bring peace communism will spread its errors that's what's happening today back then it was another error today it's communism now let's keep going i want to talk more and more about some of these involvements in mary all right let's look at our next slide 911. does everybody remember if you're old enough where you were on september the 11th 2001 i worked seven days a week at a business in north carolina i worked seven days a week non-stop kind of like i'm doing now but i had to take one afternoon to take rocky my big yellow lab to the vet this was tuesday september the 11th 2001 and i'm sitting there waiting for the vet and the vet comes in and we're talking about rocky and this woman comes in and says the terrorists just blew up the twin towers and are attacking and she walked out the door and the vet went she doesn't know what she's talking about obviously she's she's mixed up kind of like the assassination of john f kennedy if you're old enough everybody remembers where they were when they heard that news now let's talk about this though september the 11th god can bring and this is going to blow your mind i think god can bring a greater good he doesn't want evil he doesn't want it in his ordained will god does not want bad things but his permissive will he allows them why because he gave us free will and if he gave us free will he has to give us the opportunity to choose for good or against good now what was the greater good that came out of 9 11. father we lost 3 000 lives how dare you indicate that any good came out of that god can bring a greater good out even the worst evil what's the worst evil in the history of the world nailing our savior to a tree what greater good came out of that every one of our redemptions so i think back what possible good could come on out of 9 11. you know what happened i remember did you go to church the following sunday does anybody remember what church was like the following sunday well i'll tell you what it was like at st mark's huntersville north carolina you couldn't get in the line was all the way outside onto the sidewalk and so i went to this church and you know there are still people that came back to the catholic church after 9 11 that are still here millions of souls god can bring a greater good as crazy as it was but i'll never forget what the priest said that day it shocked the daylights out of me this is after 9 11 after the terrorists just bombed the trade center and killed 3 000 people and the priests got up you could have heard a pin drop and the priest got up and he said how many of you are praying for the victims everybody rose their hands and he said how many you are praying for the perpetrators nobody raised their hand and he reminded us of jesus's words to pray for your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you but at that time i don't think too many of us wanted to hear that we were too angry and he says i know you're going to throw me off the altar here but i have one question for you as messed up as this was as culpable as these terrorists are and as much as their souls are in jeopardy they have violated the natural law and as wrong as what they did was how many of you would be willing to die for what you thought was the will of god i was like what how many of you would be willing to sacrifice your life for what you thought was the will of god show your hands and like three people everybody i think was in shock as that condoning what they did no is it saying what they did was justified no all that was saying and he followed up by saying so please don't be so quick to condemn them to hell he said in fact pray for them you couldn't believe the feeling in that church [Music] unbelievable and i'll never forget sitting there and he said this is what separates christianity from the other religions we don't want them to go to hell yes they are responsible yes they did something bad yes they need prayer pray for their conversion not their damnation jesus said that this prayer is his most pleasing jesus told saint faustina do you all remember what jesus said to do at the three o'clock hour everybody's going to say pray the chaplet right jesus did not say pray the chaplet at the three o'clock hour we do it because he said meditate on my passion and the the chaplets about the passion right but what was the first thing father seraphin points this out all the time what was the first thing jesus said to do at the three o'clock hour anybody yes you got it pray for the conversion of sinners did we do that on 9 11 some yeah most probably not i could think of a family member of ours sitting on the couch screaming actually wasn't a family member as a friend family member of a friend and i was over at his house and was his uncle and he was laying on the couch screaming at the tv i hope they rot in hell how horrible these people are this is a baptized catholic who wasn't going to church at all wasn't seeking the sacraments was given the grace of baptism was given the gift of the catholic faith was given faith in jesus christ and let it waste away for 25 years he had not been to church the sacraments confession communion i'm sorry to say but i believe his soul may be just as much in jeopardy if not more because who was given much more to whom much is given much is expected pagans weren't given the gift of the catholic faith they weren't given it we are do not waste it this is something to be aware of all right so i want to finish with 9 11 because this is this is very powerful all right saints tell us you'll be surprised to who is in heaven and who is not do you hear that saints tell us you will be really surprised who's in heaven and who is not now i think this is a little fascinating sidebar do you know why the terrorists picked september 11th do you think it was just a random day oh no it was very calculated september the 11th was picked because it was the highest point of islamic power in history september the 11th 1683 it was the height of islamic power they were on the verge of conquering all of europe and the next day look on your screen was a battle you've probably never heard of that saved the world it's called the battle of vienna vienna austria the next day september the 12th islam's reign was over through the intercession of the blessed virgin mary who they prayed to they were conquered on their attack of vienna after assuming that they would take vienna the muslim sultan said his next step there's nothing stopping us to take saint peter's once we take vienna there's nothing stopping us world domination the end of christianity the battle marked the end of the expansion of islam in europe how because a little ragtag group of christians defeated what to some say was up to 300 000 muslims and it was from this victory that we celebrate the holy name of mary the holy name of mary why because no nation would step up except a little guy from poland named jan sobieski my dad declared him his new hero my dad never even heard of him we're learning all this garbage in schools never do we learn about who jan sobieski was a polish general who stepped up and entrusted the battle and led a calvary from poland in the name of mary shouting our lady of chestahova [Music] can you imagine what a battle cry our lady of chestahova and what happened the pope and the european leaders hailed jan sobieski as quote the savior of western civilization this is what they claimed happened the day september the 12th 1683 why did the muslims choose september 11th because the day before they were at the height of their power and they said we are now going to return to the height of our power september the eleventh two thousand one now the day was commemorated in vienna by creating a new pastry called a croissant let's look at our next slide here you have a picture of a croissant circular shape next to the islamic flag a circular shape with a star now marie antoinette you all hear isn't she the one that said let us eat cake or let them eat cake or something she introduced the croissant to france everybody thinks it's french she brought it to france in 1770 she was born in vienna marie antoinette was not born in france she was born in vienna the croissant is not french it's from vienna after the battle because it was the conquering of the islamic symbol of the semicircle it was eaten along with coffee get a load of this which they found in the abandoned tents of the muslims the europeans had never tasted coffee not until 1683 and then they found coffee in the abandoned tents of the of the turks and sobieski the winner of the battle found these bags of coffee beans revealing wondering how the turks could fight day and night they were living on caffeine so he's wondering how the turks could fight day and night they could fight day and night because they were drinking this coffee so this coffee these coffee beans actually came from ethiopia the one african country which remained christian so the muslims called the infidels the christians coffer they called them coffer which means infidel and that's how we get the word coffee isn't that interesting so christian roots are everywhere legend has it that pope clement viii was told to declare the coffee was the drink of the devil and so he ready to declare the drink of the devil because it came from the islamics the muslims and so they gave it to him he says declare this a drink of the devil and he tasted it and he said the devil's drink is so good we need to cheat the devil by baptizing it and making it our own isn't that the catholic way that's hilarious so after the victory of vienna a polish general opened the first coffee house this is why vienna is known as the world's greatest location of coffee this is fascinating our christian roots run so deep now it doesn't stop there mary keeps involvement i only got a few minutes left thank you for your patience everybody i know you're getting antsy but we've only got just about a few minutes left let's look at our next slide later barbary pirates were attacking u.s ships look at that scene there those are u.s sailors being enslaved by muslim pirates and they were attacking u.s ships and taking americans as slaves this is why let's look at our next slide thomas jefferson created the united states marine corps in 1775 my dad and his buddies my dad's a vietnam marine still celebrate the birthday of the marine corps at a pub in philadelphia in 1775. guess what the marine corps hymn is from the halls of montezuma to the shores of tripoli we will fight our country's battles on the air and in the air in the land and the sea from the halls of montezuma to the shores of tripoli that was protection of islamic pirates the shores of tripoli and so the united states even has a hand in this history the ambassador to the united states quote said because they said stop attacking and enslaving our sailors thomas jefferson god bless and we need more like thomas jefferson today and yet we're writing them out of the history books i get so upset with that i got to go to confession and so thomas jefferson's being written out of the history books and he had had enough when the ambassador the islamic ambassador said quote it is written in the koran this is what he told the united states that all nations who don't acknowledge our authority are sinners that is our right and duty to make war upon them whoever they could be wherever they could be found and to make slaves of them all that we can take as prisoners so they justify taking the united states sailors as slaves and thomas jefferson said that's it and he founded the united states marine corps god bless all you have served for justice and the protection of freedom so what happened mary doesn't stop at the break i told everybody here that mary is so into this that she even appeared on television what are you talking about father 1968 mary appeared in zatum egypt hovering above saint mark's coptic church she was there 1968 especially at night everybody could see her it wasn't just visionaries like a few people at fatima a few children or medjagori the church that she appeared on is believed to be the same place that mary and joseph and jesus stopped at their flight into egypt this church is dedicated to the holy family and the reason this church is dedicated to the holy family is because again they believe mary joseph and jesus went there and rested during their stay in egypt that's why they built this church to the holy family and this is where mary appeared on the church so let's look at our next slide i'm sorry i want to try to show everybody here if i can show it i don't know if everybody here but on our screen if dale could see that's actually i don't know if you all can see it but it'll be on our website tonight on my talk on this on youtube but you can see mary very clearly appearing on the top of this church now what's fascinating is christians jews muslims they all saw even unbelievers even unbelievers saw her she was up there and it was broadcast on television why are we not learning this why are we not being told this even in our own church how many people refer to homily on this how many people have heard a bishop talk about this all i've heard some bishops say is that we've got to capitulate and we have to stop our christian ways no we don't we have to live the gospel mary is going to help us do that if we live virtuously so an estimated 40 million people saw her 40 million and the apparition was approved by the orthodox pope because this was over an orthodox church so unlike other apparitions it was not just visionaries but everyone saw her this is fascinating it doesn't stop there in 2014 boko haram muslim terrorists took 200 young girls in nigeria you might remember this and a catholic bishop was ready to take up arms to condone it and he had a vision that jesus appeared to this catholic bishop in nigeria and jesus was holding a sword and the bishop's like yes and he reached his hands out and jesus handed this sword to this bishop and the bishop took the sword and it turned into a rosary in his hands it turned into a rosary and so this is an example and he said the rosary was the weapon to overcome boko haram after that most of those girls release and boko haram surrendered we have a priest that's maybe coming back but he had to go back to nigeria named father richard i don't know if you ever saw him when he was there i think mary here saw him and remembers him the nicest guy in the world i went to him for confession you ever want to go to one of the best confessors ever go to father richard from nigeria he's not here now but you basically could tell him anything and he would be like seeing the good in it i'm like my goodness and father richard was telling a story it's one of the most incredible things we have a new youtube ewtn series starting september 1st i invite all of you to tune in every wednesday at 6 30 i'll be hosting a new show on ewtn with my marion priest and brothers and we're trying to get father richard he's going to be a guest on one of those shows he's going to tell this story father richard told me the story that he was celebrating mass in nigeria and he was celebrating mass and in walked a dozen islamic terrorists strapped with explosives they were going to blow up the church this happens regularly you don't hear about it and he was going to strap it the explosives and to blow up the church all of a sudden the leader fell to his knees and he went into a trance now all his other assistants were around him and all of these others that were ready to participate in the explosion of the church were prepared to give their life for what they thought was the will of god no wrong wrong wrong violates the natural law but this guy fell to his knees and he went into a trance father richard said and all sudden he stood up and his partners are all looking at him and he goes jesus is lord jesus is god they're like huh he had a vision of jesus and mary and jesus showed him his divinity and mary took his hand and led him to jesus this is our whole faith to jesus through mary and he got up and he told all the others that were ready to blow up this church that jesus is god and mary is the way to him and they all converted why don't we hear about this if we heard about this is the purpose of why i'm teaching you to take you back to seminary so that we can understand yeah there's fundamental differences but look at the connection there's hope but we got to pray we got to believe we got to have faith i want to show this next slide fulton sheen suggests that mary's apparitions in fatima will play a major role in the conversion of islam our lady of fatima queen of the muslims that's what fulton sheen said that's incredible our lady of fatima queen of the muslims wow can you imagine if humanity came together like that is that the triumph of the immaculate heart wow so fulton sheen suggests this he says many muslims already pray on a string of beads did you know this fulton sheen pointed out that muslims pray on a string of beads it looks very similar to the rosary let's look at our next slide i already pointed this out earlier but i want to point it out again doesn't that look like the rosary that's the muslim string of beads on the quran which looks like the bible this is not truth the bible the rosary is the truth please don't send me the letter father you're justifying the qur'an and the muslim like bees no i am not i'm trying to say that mary and god will meet you where you're at and get you to where you need to go that's why mary appeared to the mexicans as an aztec she met them where they were at and took them where they needed to go she was dressed that way i'll get to her in a moment but i want to talk about this this string of beads they prey on do you know that the mysteries of the rosary are actually in the koran the enunciation the visitation the nativity it's all in the quran they're already praying this and i'm almost done i know i keep telling you almost done i'm almost done the exchange of the muslim prayer beads for the rosary will be an easy one they already pray on these beads it'll be easy to switch out to the rosary there must be a reason why god has allowed islam to flourish and spread all over the globe is god planning a wonderful event for our times an event that would lead an entire religion to god kind of like the catholicism in guadalupe all the aztecs were led to god millions were affected i don't know but let's look at our last couple slides this is why mary appears in the culture as an aztec this is our lady of guadalupe maybe could we please turn our cell phones off please mary in the quran is a muslim girl and this is why many catholics and christians say well that makes it invalid yes in a way it does it's not how we understand mary but again god will meet you where you're at if to the muslims mary being a muslim gets them to open their eyes and then she takes them where they got to go to jesus christ she did just what she did with the aztecs in guadalupe she met him as an aztec dressed as an aztec but then took him to jesus christ this is fascinating this makes sense marian the koran is a muslim and minis criticized it but it could be the key until then we need to pray for mary's intercession and that's where i want to finish with two quotes that i think i need to leave you with today they're two slides i'm going to read them to you these two quotes and we are done all right the first quote is what saint faustina said jesus said to her quote my pupil isn't that beautiful that's what i'm saying you guys are right now you guys are pupils you're going back to seminary you're learning about your face so you can love god more my people have great love for those who cause you suffering do good to those who hate you i answered o my master you see very well that i feel no love for them and that troubles me so sophist faustina herself is saying i can't love someone who hates me you think faustina's perfect here she just showed her she's not jesus answered it is not always within your power to control your feelings so don't get discouraged if you don't feel like praying make an act of the will that's what love is not a feeling an act of the will you will recognize that you have love if after having experienced annoyance and contradiction you do not lose your peace but pray for those who have made you suffer and wish them well diaries 16 28 wow and then the last slide is the bible jesus says in matthew chapter 5 you shall love your neighbor you have heard it said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but i say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your heavenly father for he makes his son s-u-n rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust for if you love those who love you what recompense will you have do not tax collectors and pagans do the same so be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect father i can't do that it's not natural you're exactly right it's supernatural god bless you thank you all so much for going back to seminary with us you got a lot to learn today so i'm not going to have dale run an ad at the end on any book or anything like that we're just going to stop the video but i do want to give you an opportunity if you wish to get a few things we do have my dvd where i do my talks on shopmercy.org you could see it's called explaining the faith i don't know if dale has that up so please visit shopmercy.org or call us at 800 for marion m-a-r-i-a-n next is my book called understanding divine mercy i talk a lot about this in that book you can get that for any donation just visit divinemercy.org udm for understanding divine mercy any donation a dollar it's all i got father take it give it whatever don't even have it i'll send it to you anyway join our association of miriam helpers you can see our next slide micprayers.org sharing these graces there's no cost it takes 10 seconds please do it and with that i'm going to finish now and say god bless you all thank you and let's pray for each other to live in peace and harmony amen alleluia and may almighty god bless you the father the son and the holy spirit amen you

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Keywords: Divine Mercy, Mercy, Jesus, Christ, Marian, priest, grace, pray, prays, praying, chris alar, alar, fr. Chris, fr. alar, Catholic, Church, God, fr. chris alar, blessed virgin, Mary, Immaculate Heart, crusades, crusaders, holy war, jihad, holy land, muslims, Islam, jerusalem, slavery, orthodox, koran, Qu'ran, Quran, Muhammad, Muhammed, mosque, vienna, lepanto, September 11, 9/11, terrorists, mecca, isaac, ishmael, allah, zeitoun, holy name of mary, our lady of victory, fatima, john paul II

Id: reWb96LtwHA

Length: 88min 9sec (5289 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021