Fr. Mitch Pacwa: A Life-long Catholic - The Journey Home (12-3-2007)

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program and this is our open line first Monday episode the first Monday of December and normally on this program I would have a former guest from the journey home a convert or revert to the church who have already given you their story but now they're here to answer more questions well my scheduled guests for this evening father Robert dr. Robert Stackpole as sometimes happen got caught up in the snow coming out of Chicago so he couldn't make it so what was I gonna do another solo program and so we looked around and we had to dig deep and found somebody who was willing to come on the journey home program someone who I suppose a few of you watch EWTN are familiar with in fact if you watched eat up to him next two nights you'll see him again father Mitch Pacwa good to see you it's good to have you back on the program father thanks it's always great to have you here because especially because of our topic tonight besides your phone calls we're going to take some time to discuss a little bit of this wonderful new encyclical by pope benedict xvi on hope and we'll look at that in a moment but i want to remind you that your phone calls and emails are an essential part of this program for father Mitch Pacwa tonight and like give us a call 1-800 two two one nine four six Oh outside North America two oh five two seven one two nine eight oh you can send us an email at journey home at ewtn.com now father welcome back to the journey home good to be back is this your second or third time I pray you've been a couple times at least a couple Roundtable you did the roundtable on the New Age and also did one on Islam with Daniel Ali exactly right exactly right so I mean those are some of the questions you might want to ask father Pacwa but we are going to look at again this encyclical on hope we'll get to it in a moment but it's tradition father that I always ask my guests to begin that open line program to give us a little snippet of your spiritual journey because it's one part of my spiritual journey is certainly related to today's feast day today's the feast and for judgments of a big feast of Saint Francis he was a Basque who met st. ignatius loyola at the University of Paris where st. Francis was big track star and here's this other Basque who was actually on the other side politically Xavier and his family supported the French you know interests in Navarre and Loyola supported the Spanish interests and so they would have had a little bit of that perhaps going on but they eventually st. Ignatius who kept saying to Francis Xavier you know what good is it gonna do you to gain the whole world and lose your immortal soul because he was looking to become a professor or get a nice living maybe be a bishop someday and instead he played billiards with Saint Ignatius and lost and as a result of that he had to serve Ignatius for 30 days which meant Ignatius had him give make the 30 day Spiritual Exercises now where do we go there but what time time period were they this is their 15 20s late 15 20 so guess it was also student there just ain't no only Calvin this would be late 15 20 that's amazing to think there there that's possibly at the same time studying at the Saint Barbara College no this was all fine and they went off to they try to go to the Holy Land didn't work they offer themselves to the Pope and the Pope asked for one of them to one of the Jesuits to go to India what they help with the King of Portugal the man assigned got very sick couldn't leave so Xavier was sent in his place and he became a missionary who has probably baptised more people than anybody in the history of the church just hundreds of thousands of people baptized by him now with that affected me is that same friend saved not only went to India and Sri Lanka the malukas straits but also to japan and died on his way to go to china when I was in fourth grade we had a Catholic geography book very Catholic history books Catholic job books and as we studied east country learned a little bit about the faith there there's a little sidebar in the book about how in jet in ship that study into Japan that the Jesuits had gone there made many converts but were martyred and prevented from coming back but the Jesuits had baptized many Japanese and told them to wait for the priest that priest would come back and add they said ask three questions are you married do you honor the Blessed Virgin Mary and are yous under the Pope when a Franciscan came with the French consulate in the late nineteenth century Japanese Catholics came on asking those two questions of him which struck him as very odd and the mostly Buddhist and Shinto culture but here there were quite a few thousand Catholics in Japan they came out of the woodwork and they still are there so it was really impressive to me when I was a junior in high school I was at a high school seminaries I'm I'm a wife for I've been someone ever since I was fourteen and when I was a sophomore in high school get a job I was earning money to help pay for my tuition and to make a better rate of income than I would get from a bank account I invested in the stock market and I loved the stock market I won the second prize in the school science fair for explaining the stock market I got other guys investing I just really enjoyed it the last 15 16 years old and at that point though I was 16 I said you know as a snot-nosed little kid I love this already what am I gonna do when I'm older am I gonna be so focused on making money that I forget about my priestly duties and that's when I began to consider religious life and it was one Christmas when I said junior high school said I'm not gonna be an awesome priest I just knew it was I was too weak a person to be able to deal with that some of the new year called the priesthood is called the priesthood but I assumed the diocese but I felt too weak to deal with that temptation to avarice and so no myself already as I could see it coming so in the few days later I'm gonna be a judgement now I'd never seen a Jesuit in my life never read any books off to society but just that little sidebar and the geography book was the one contact I had and so that I think was part of the way that I got into the Society of Jesus decision that I have loved ever since I was privileged to enter back in 1968 you know that's an interesting witness to the need for good Catholic textbooks that have sidebars that make sense yeah I mean I've seen some contemporary books that have weird sidebar yeah yeah and were they going to take a kid but that was a little sidebar it was it was a sign of you know that these men who gave their lives whether through exhaustion likes Francis Xavier or through martyrdom like Paul Mikey these these people died in hope that the church would be established in Japan and their hope was well-founded because it was founded on Christ and that's something that we still see we want to pray and that I thought that would be also be a good introduction to coming into their good critical space all need space on the encyclical letter of space ah we the supreme pontiff Benedict the 16th just released this last weekend and I'm pretty sure that Raymond already had a program discussing it and so our goal tonight is not going to summarize this encyclical but we strongly encourage you to go to ewtn.com you can download the entire encyclical you can read it in less than two hours and it's very readable I mean the download is free there you go printing it costs you money but the downloading of it is free from us it's our gift or you can read it online but the point is sometimes we think of encyclicals as something way out there you know too difficult for the average person to read this is a wonderful presentation of the Catholic understanding of Hope but in this the copy I have is about 75 pages long he talks about purgatory talks about offering it up he talks about mayor he talks about atheism he talks about the the loss of the true understanding of hope so rather than though go through a summary of this it's a few questions father to help Prime our callers tonight and some ideas if you would what is hope in the scriptures we see it mentioned in the triumvirate Faith Hope and love over and over again especially almost all of Paul's letter theological virtues but what do we mean by hope yeah it's it is theological virtues which means that it's a virtue that comes to us by God's grace some virtues are like prudence and temperance have a lot to do with our own human nature and that there's something that we cooperate with grace but these three virtues of faith hope and charity come to us by God's grace that's very important and just add the title can I at least spend a little the title it's a quotation from Romans chapter 8 verse 24 space Salviati sumos which means by by hope we are saved we have been saved and so this is something that the direct quote out of the Greek of 824 in Romans now a hope is having an assurance it's it's something that is you know you know that this is going to be true but it's a it's a focus not like faith on what God has done or is doing but hope has an orientation toward the future we have a hope and what God will do we have different kinds of hope but in terms of the theological virtue of hope our hope is going to be for eternal life and having that conviction that assurance that this is going to be the case that we can trust that God is going to be fulfilling what he says and that's why hope is also you know very much connected with other versions it needs to inform things like fortitude you know this is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit why do you stand tough in tough times because you have hope that something good is going to come out of this God's good it's gonna come out of him and that's the issue with hope let's say that a youngster has been bothered by a bully over and over again at school and so on his way to school he's just hoping that that bully doesn't show up around the corner is that the kind of hope we're talking about no matter of fact I think a better example of hope would be that that kid that's getting bullied starts lifting weights in hopes that he can stand up to the bully that would be a little bit more because you have the not just the hope of avoiding something bad you know that would be an odd way to speak for instance a Christian hope I hope that I don't go to hell well yeah but that's not really open much just like hoping that I don't run into the bully I want something else it's not that I'm trying to I don't hope in the sense of avoidance but I'm going towards a goal and that that goal is is is drawing me and just like that the the skinny kid that lifts weights enough to be able to stand up when he needs to stand up to the bullies so also do we have hope that we're going to be able to stand up to evil and more importantly we'll be able to go to heaven no Pope Benedict deals with that in this wonderful encyclical in fact after talking about the close relationship between faith and hope even at times interchangeable he then discusses one of the most important scriptures that relates faith and hope and what I found fascinating about his description was something I hadn't seen before but it just shows you the importance of accurate translations because if an if it's not translated correctly it can in fact lead to a complete misunderstanding and he describes that in paragraph 7 he says we must return once more to the New Testament in the 11th chapter of the letter of Hebrews verse 1 we find a kind of definition of faith which closely links this virtue with hope ever since the Reformation there has been a dispute among exegetes over the central word of this phrase now what I'm going to do is I'm going to read as he did in his encyclical the English translation of the verse Hebrews 11:1 but I'm not going to translate two key greek words the translation of which make all the difference in our understanding of hope the verse is faith is the Hoople stasis of things hoped for the Ln costs unless your father's reign the alene costs of things not seen these two great words faith is the Hoopoe stasis of things hoped for the proof of things excuse me the elect Lang cause of things not seen now I'm gonna read first a translation of this verse from the good old King Jimmy Bible 1611 which is identical to in this verse to the translation of the verse in the douay-rheims Hebrews although the Catholic translate is the Catholic translation this was done the Catholic translation that was done just a couple years before the King James Bible came out so in this case the the verses are identical and this translation is this now listen carefully now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen now I'm going to read the same verse from the RSV version provide standard Revised Standard Version which is a long since revised version of the King James Version as well as this is the Catholic edition now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen now in the service it may not sound like there's a lot of difference but there is and that's a prophetic points out in terms of this the that faith is the substance of things it's talking about an objective reality and how does the RSV put that again the assurance assurance here's the difference what's it doing a substance and an assurance this substance is something an objective in reality and we talk about Christian hope and what's saying what the author of Hebrews is saying here is that our faith is the substance of things we hope for and that we don't hope for pie-in-the-sky that's one of the things that a lot of people criticize Christianity for all you do is talk about pie-in-the-sky and the great by and by I looked through my Bible I don't see pie mentioned even once I don't know what they're talking about and yet alone pie in the sky what good is it gonna do up there angels don't eat pie as far as I know if getting my Bible doesn't say they do instead there is another kind of substance of things that I hope for the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins he truly rose body bodily from the dead and truly ascended into heaven and he's the anchor of hope mattified we usually symbolize hope with an anchor where does that come from here in the letter to the Hebrews that he's the anchor of our hope he is the substances reality of his resurrected presence in heaven that is the hope that I want to attain to be with God forever and to have the resurrection of my own body but this is substance whereas assurance is something different we use the word assurance we're talking about our personal attitude towards the thing rather than the thing itself so if we're not careful we focus on our assurance then we start having faith in our faith or hope in our own faith rather than hope in that what God himself has done to bring us Redemption and that's a very important distinction one becomes very individualistic and focused on me whereas the other is focused on what God has done the reality and the Catholic translation that you've seen the douay-rheims English and the King James by the way bar that if you take a look at CS Lewis's wonderful book English literature in the 16th century excluding drama he has a chapter on the Bible translations that's excellent excellent trans chapter and he talks about how freely they borrowed from the Douay Rheims in this case they did word-for-word yeah and it's something that is a very important part of the difference of attitude in the modern world because one of the points that Pope John Pope Benedict brings in is that the modern world has become very individualistic it's an idea that he traces back to Francis Bacon an English scientist and philosopher and this idea that faith belongs in the private realm because publicly we're working on science science will give us a paradise here on earth it will make everything fantastic and so communally as a society will develop science unpack all the secrets of nature and make this a paradise where as your religious faith is part of the private world and we see that idea come very common in our culture well in terms of this focus on assurance that's my private life it's this reality that's just for me maybe even shouldn't talk about it because it is private whereas together we'll work on other things this translation that Pope Benedict wants and is traditional is no it's not a private matter of my subjective personal reaction to faith it is the objective reality this is what God has accomplished and I'm gonna believe that and for helping it that word Hoopoe stasis which in the Greek was translated as substantial in the Latin actually has a closer meaning to the reality yes the reality is not just a you know a thought it's a reality read what we talk about Christ's nature as the hypostatic union know that in him in this truly substantially divinity and humanity a human nature and the divine nature are united in this hypostatic union without mixing the two but it still is a reality of who he is the same word hypostatic it comes from this word apostasy Pope Benedict quotes Thomas Aquinas let me read that then you comment on that st. Thomas Aquinas using the terminology of the philosophical tradition to which he belonged explains it as follows faith is a habitus that is a stable disposition of the spirit to which eternal life takes root in us and reason has led to consent to what it does not see right it's a reality example eternal life being present within us it's not just a change of mind right and it's you know in fact let me say with it Luther after that as the alternative oh I just gonna go there exactly okay let me read that and then you comment on that too Luther who was not particularly fond of the letter to the Hebrews right I mean no not particularly fond if it weren't for Philipp Melanchthon he would have taken it out of the New Testament so lucid did not want to keep it in the New Testament he didn't like the Hebrews James revelation 2nd John 3rd John 2nd Peter he wanted those out and he also was up to define of the concept of quote substance in the context of his view of faith it meant nothing for this reason he understood the term hypostasis substance not in the objective sense of a reality present within us but in the subjective sense as an expression of an interior attitude and so naturally also had to understand the term argument to him which was the word for proof as a disposition of the subject so in other words instead of proof you get this Society of assurance right I mean what facets just make sure folks understand that the RSV here is using the word surance right whereas the the work you're a lengthen Alan cross unless in the artist in the yeah the scarring here it was the evidence right here it is conviction conviction that's that a La Crosse has this can have that sense of being convicted it can you know bear that translation but here it's something something else it's proof its convicted in court and it's proof in court and a sense of improvement so here we have proof for Christian what's the proof Jesus Christ was crucified and his disciples testified that they saw him ate with them touched him spoke with him after the resurrection that this is something that is for them proof that it's true so again it's an objective reality rather than a more subjective use the example I gave earlier of a of a kid worried about whether you're running to the bully it's not merely having an assurance that that bully won't show up or a conviction so it's having a substantial proof of reality right your uncle Luigi from the Mafia took care of it so I mean that's the difference acog the solution well we also have I know viewers and I came from this that believe I didn't use the word hope that much when I was a Protestant Christian I talked about about faith and love I didn't use hope as much as I used eternal security now what's the difference between this proof this substance and what our Protestant brothers sisters think of as eternal security for the future yeah here's I think to understand some of this difference what Catholics and Protestants are dealing with the two worldviews and two views of the human person in particular one of the things that is almost right but it is relevant to this discussion you know Martin Luther taught are you justified by faith alone by grace alone right and what that means is that your human free will is so thoroughly bad the matter of fact in the mouth of John Calvin when pushed by Jesuits in fact to the argument oh he can't came up with the idea and so did actually people after him of total depravity of the free will it is totally depraved incapable of anything good at all Luther was moving in that direction but didn't put it quite as strongly but Calvin made it clear that means that you cannot make a decision for Christ John Calvin would never accept somebody like Billy Graham as a save as a Christian who taught orthodoxy Billy Graham is too Catholic for Calvin Billy Graham teaches that you have to make a decision for Christ he's been teaching that at that you know revivals for decades and decades and that whole message of making this is for Christ that's what you can't do because you will can't do anything grace comes in alone without your free will that's the alone part without you if you will and grace makes you accept the gift of faith and then it's by that faith alone that you're saved that came to you by grace now Catholics believe that grace comes to us by faith absolutely get is a theological version we've always taught that but it's not faith alone it's part of a relationship with you and God and your will is fallen but not totally depraved and so you can say yes now if the will is totally depraved then it can't really be undone all it can all that can happen is it can be covered over and that's a common image that's used that grace covers you like snow covering the dung heap I lived in Bavaria for a while and I understood that image so well because these Bavarian farmers would have a stone box outside their barn and it would be filled with cow dung and and Luther mentioned to hell that would be a sign pride but it's also a good image of what were the material things were proud of our riches are like dung but it meant that you had a lot of cows and big fields to fertilize but snow could covered over and I lived there in May and it was still snowing every day and so it covered over and then it would melt later in the afternoon and then it was just a pile that was wet and smelly instead of just cold and smelly so it was you know that added made it worse but underneath it was still dung under the snow that's what Luther is trying to say you're still corrupted or as callous a depraved but the grace covers you over the catholic mentality is that this who post a sees this reality the substance of that we have our hope in and this no proof that we have actually changes us there is an internal change so that it's as if God plants roses in the cow dung and roses are able to transform the fertilizing dung into sweet-smelling roses and this is the difference that there's a substantive transformation of our personality we become we put on Christ to be sure that's an image that's used in galatians chapter 3 but we also be grow up in him in ephesians as for especially we see how we become no more transformed by Christ and it's that transformation that the things we hope for has going on for us that's what's key as a different worldview and we again we believe that we have free will not just to choose which some we're going to choose we can we have free will to choose sin or we can also say yes to God's grace his God's God's grace is more powerful and we are absolutely dependent on His grace for salvation for this faith for this hope but it's also going to be a grace that doesn't just cover us over and what Luther and Calvin both speak of as a certain type of legal fiction it's rather a complete change our personalities small right thank you Father excellent again strongly recommend this encyclical because even those that and I came from the ilk of the once saved always saved eternal security and I presume the Catholics I was presuming Catholics thought the way Luther understood hope I was presuming that Catholics hope in the future was just an assurance right you know you know a conviction that that their works would save them somehow but in reality the eternal security folk in many ways reacting against Luther's mistranslation of those words like without a full understanding of what they actually meant but there's something else there too and this is part of that worldview difference to have eternal security even though I don't think most Protestants in this country are strict Calvinist or Lutheran's they're not they you know and I've talked about this to a lot of us and said what are you talking about it's only there's strict Calvinists who really hold on to this people at John Ankerberg whom I debated you know with Walter Martin and his show and another guy debated gee he's white they would be strict Calvinist but most and James why even told me you know he's part of the 10% of the Baptist's that are saved because most of them believe you can make a decision for Christ and so you know this is something that is a different worldview because if even though they don't accept the whole of Calvin they still have the echoes of his idea if you are saved because God's grace overwhelms your will and you had nothing to do that it's just simply God's choice then you can't lose it God is making you take this alright I got you you got this grace is loaded staying back you know I gotta take it no you have no choice and therefore you would have eternal assurance given that idea but once you say you make a decision and that you can't make that decision and that your free will is capable of saying yes to God it also implies your cables saying no the Calvinists can't accept that you can say no that's why they don't believe in original and mortal sin neither you know once you all sin is the same and once you accept the grace you can't be unsaved and I found it I look back on my own Calvinist views that in many ways it wasn't so much based on scripture alone that they believed this it won't seem so much theology it's an it's their own philosophy yep yep it's a philosophical understanding of the sovereignty of God and what that therefore means in all its permutations can define a philosophy of what it means to be human this is dealing with what we call anthropology that is the structure of the human person and if your will is totally depraved these these things follow very logically and that's what it is is a good philosophy logic but it's not based on my Bible all right thank you Father let's take any broom let's take it back a little break and we're back just a moment some of your questions for father Pacwa welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight on this open line first Monday his father Mitch Pacwa well a well-known member of EWTN s broadcasting lineup of of faithful Catholics and you know we've got a number of questions number but I want to also mention very quickly because we got a kid other questions because I want to make sure that we mentioned the relationship between hope eternal security all these things and confession yeah I mean Kathy believe in confection and really there's a certain sense in which it's that hope that can feed confession absolutely no there's a hope that is not a blinding of oneself to one's self everybody who has ever lived with me knows that I need to go to confession and this is part of what's the case of most people you know that when you the more you get to know people know I realize that you also need confession and that's because we fall short of living up to that hope that hope is not just waiting for the end and then we we die and it's all over because we have that hope now we must live in a way to prepare ourselves for when we sin we all still have hope though even when we commit mortal sin sometimes people say oh we can't mortal sin then you're lost that's the sin against the Holy Ghost you can never be forget no it's not it's this the only sin against the Holy Ghost is to say I'm so bad God can't forgive me we don't have that despair we believe we have hope that the cross of Jesus Christ is more powerful than any sin I can commit and so I can come to him and I have hope that he'll forgive me and you know that's one of the things that's key so we yeah we failed and we can lose our salvation we can commit mortal sin and stay there or we can repent and go to confession and you know get reconciled to God I wrote about that in my book going peace well with Sean Brown you know on confession and that's something we also have to keep in mind just because we don't believe in eternal assurance or security it doesn't mean we don't have security we have instead of this absolute assurance we have a moral certitude that we ran among the saved you know just have to be aware that I can say no there's one word that does not exist in Catholic vocabulary and that's the word hopeless yeah yeah that's you know despair is a very serious and very serious but because of grace we can turn we can turn and I also just want to mention how important I think this encyclical is for today just before we get to our other calls now why is he writing about this because we live in the world he says constantly hope is not hope unless it's hope in God hope and materially plays with the goober quanta they hope in the material ownership as opposed to your policies you know that that's a different you plays with those big words nicely oh but the thing that we have to have is hoping God I look at so many parts of our society where people don't believe in God their own faith and they therefore don't have hope atheists are hopeless you look at Western Europe you look at Israel where this refers 85% of the people are atheists 85% of Israelis are atheists well people are aware that no one else is true bottom there birth rate is extraordinarily low it's less than one child per family among the believers that 15% they have a lot of children but that's significant because people atheists have nothing to hope for all they live for is now children are not about right now children are about the future when you have a child you have hope our culture not only Israeli but Western Europe in our culture in America Australia other parts of the West what do they do because they're hopeless they look to death as their friend the opposite of God God treats death as his enemy so we'll solve our problems by killing unborn children killing people who are sick killing the agent death becomes their friend because they're hopeless this is where the virtue of hope is extremely important and he's calling us to call a whole modern world back to the hope that is in Christ that the hope that comes in God and what's amazing he did all that in about 75 pages huh I mean it's it really is it's a wonderful cyclical reading listen to our Holy Father and his explanation is okay a couple emails this comes from a long way John from Australia hey John thanks for watching the program good idea John dear Marcus and father Mitch is there hope for eternal life for those who don't know Jesus or have no interest in the Catholic Christian faith okay couple things depends on why they don't have any interest in Jesus or the church and if it's because they are indifferent they don't care they're focused on the who part hanta that is the material wealth of the right now then they don't have hope they all they've got is what they see in front of them but I love this passage in Matthew chapter 25 verse 31 that when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him and he will sit upon a throne of his glory and before him will be gathered all of the nation's Ponta to ethany now this translates what we usually call the Gentiles the nations the and these are the people who when you go on to see the perilous Jesus says when I was hungry thirsty naked so on you took care of me what did we see you that way we did Calliste my brother he did it to me and then the ones who don't help him said we never sorry like that said when you didn't do it at least my brother didn't do it to me and those who did it to the least of the Brethren get to go to heaven those who didn't get to go to hell and that's bad but these are folks who don't know Jesus they're among the Gentiles outside the faith and what due to the most vulnerable people in their site in their lives that is what Christ counts as being done to them because they don't know him if they don't know Jesus in some places that's our fault not theirs because we haven't evangelize them well they're responding to that to that little spark of that God has put within their hearts in fact that's why Isaac jokes John Debray both the good Jesuits came to Mary today's exam they you know they went to these people had never heard of Jesus right they never heard of Jesus well why not leave them alone I mean they don't know about Jesus oh they're not gonna reject Jesus I mean I've heard that argument from non Catholic sources right you know why go you know or if God wants to save them in his sovereignty he will and the reason that I we go and we sent out this message on TV and all sorts other ways that we tried to teach the gospel is because God has put us under obligation and responsibility but as so often it's called the Great Commission to go forth to all nations teaching them what I taught you and baptize them in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit this is the Messiah's commandment so we do it alright another email from Nancy from Florida father mentioned Marcus I would like to know how hope comes to play in our praying for many years for our loved ones to return to the faith what about those who have prayed for years and a hopeful and expectant way believing that God answers the prayers of a righteous man yet dies before seeing this answer to prayer first of all when you're praying for something don't pray that you can see it pray that it gets done that's more important than you've seen the fact of praying for somebody who is away from the church and this is going to be something whether you see it or not it doesn't matter that's irrelevant what's relevant is their salvation and that you have hope that God will save that person and that there's nothing more important than that I've you know my father was not one who lived his Catholic faith very well and you know did went to church maybe Easter and Christmas usually but not always and rarely any other time and a lot of other problems we don't need to go into but the thing that I talked about some of that in my book Father forgive me if I'm frustrated because I was dealing with frustration especially after my dad left my mother and divorced and all that that was difficult but on his deathbed he who written me out of his will because I became a judgment on his deathbed he asked me to hear his confession you don't know when something is going to come to play I've been praying for my dad for a long time since I was in third grade just took a while that's all let me read you something from pope benedict's towards the end of his encyclical it is never too late to touch the heart of another nor is it ever in vain in this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope our hope is always essentially also hope for others only thus is it truly hope for me too as Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking how can I save myself we should also ask what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them to the Star of Hope may rise then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well and he has a whole chapter on hope and prayer too so that's important yeah again we're encouraging to read this wonderful encyclical Maria from Minnesota hello what's your question for us tonight yes I was I taught there for 95 to 2001 or which translation do you feel is the better of the two or other translations and also there's time to comment on evylyn WOD excellent biography of Edmund Edmund Campion wonderful awesome ok I will see marina thank you very much I was gonna say old fathers here he just makes his own translation he's got the Greek in the Hebrew in front of him translates as he goes which you know which we all had that that wonderful ability but sign up for the courses yeah then I'll learn didn't he in the seminary but have long since forgotten how to do the the one of the things that III think in terms of translation when you go from one language to another you're always dealing with a spectrum of values translation values on one end of the spectrum is being literal and the other end of the spectrum is being literary having good style that is comprehensible to the person reading the translation and that's the spectrum and you have to look on terms of those values where a translation is so for instance something like the good news Bible which is ordinate towards a fourth grade education a read for three weeding level okay now for the education fourth grade reading level newspaper stop and it was good for missionaries going into new land exactly exactly and they translated in a way that would be stylistically high less on literal the Jerusalem Bible which is also more literary but not simple it's it's a beautiful translation extremely poetic translation I know I really appreciate it but it's also one which you know is highly literary sometimes it would my I would my students would read it in class say stop that's not what it says you know I just go crazy because there's two stylistic at times but it was beautifully done whereas some translations are so literal that they're wooden and you don't understand them either the one that I look to is the relatively best balance is the RSV that has for me the best balance you know it's not it's it's not perfect by any means you know this sometimes especially with the new RSV the NRSV you know sometimes there are ideological issues that come into play sometime you know that they're trying to push agenda but overall it's the best balance and that's one of the reasons why the literary style and pretty literal that's one of the reasons why the RSV seee Catholic editions it keeps coming back right back even though there's an N RSV because it's so well appreciated Protestant and Catholic light and as Catholics as you said since the King James which was really in many ways the beginning of the RSV in itself is based in many ways on the dewy reign right then Catholics can feel quite confident in the RSV C II as a fine translation all right thank you for let's go to their next email this comes from Bill from Wisconsin dear Marcus and father the Protestant understanding since Luther has been that we are quote justified by faith unquote the notion based upon the book of Romans isn't this the Catholic view as well with the relevant distinction being between justification on the one hand and salvation on the other indeed my Dewey Bible has a footnote on this very point in Romans can you comment on this bill from Wisconsin I'd like to add a correction though to his email because he says the Protestant Reformation understanding since Luther has been that we are quote justified by faith unquote and that's not a complete that's the problem it's justified by faith alone by grace alone and it's Catholics I've when I've debated various folks on TV radio and stuff I I say we Catholics do believe in justification by faith it's adding the word alone that's the problem as a matter of fact there is one text in the New Testament which mentions being justified by faith alone the only test unless the only text that actually mentions that and it's important because even if the Bible says something only once you have to take it very seriously because it is so so important and so I look at that and what would it what it says here is that you are not justified by faith alone that's why Luther didn't like James Wright that and that's where that's from this to know the letter of st. James chapter truth and you know it's so that verse 24 says see that from works a man is justified and not by faith alone so that's why the Catholics don't mind mind we we have to profess were justified by faith but not by faith alone when the Bible says you're not justified by faith alone I believe my Bible more than I believe a theologian that's a late tradition of men from the 16th century who believe you justified by faith alone the Bible says otherwise and the thing that we also see is that you we are saved by faith by assuming by hope or we see in 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 21 baptism now saves you and that on John 6 unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot have eternal life you know well the Catholic Church is there to remind us of we cannot pick out one verse and build all of our theology on that one verse we must take the full word of god in this completeness and keep all of that and maintain it in balance that's what it means to be Catholic to believe everything that scripture says and keep the balance and faith is not merely an assurance or a conviction but it is a reality reality in a reality of a changed life so it's really a mental issue it's how we live on our life which you mentioned Ephesians a whole bunch of times the whole first parts about the reality of what has happened in our life as a result of baptism and faith the second part is how we've got to live that out that whole books about faith though the whole thing the reality as well as what we live it up alright let's go to our next caller Louise from Michigan hello Louise what's your question are you there hello Louise look she's not quite there yet maybe she'll come back maybe they'll get her with Lawson father this issue of hope and confession let's say we've got some people out there that are struggling with hope yeah maybe they've been Christians all their life they don't quite get it they don't quite taking it for granted as a matter of fact what I would say our culture this is a good season to talk about this that's the Christmas season and our culture has its hope in Hobart hanta not who posta sees in other words it has its hope in material goods the big hope is on the Friday after Thanksgiving will the stores actually go into the black and start making a profit and that make a big profit from that Friday after Thanksgiving until Christmas that's our hope and I I like to you know I may not own stock I'm not allowed to own stock anymore but I still like to watch little stock markets shot you know that the business programs I find that fascinating still I like to see what's going on and they're saying all of this gotta see it be a good season got all the toys and that's the hope and meanwhile you have these other groups out there who is saying keep Christ out of Christmas don't let Jesus be in it you know there's a few years ago in Denver they just lost this year but a few years ago they would not allow a float with the nativity scene at the Christmas parade that's the last thing you want there is Jesus showing up because that is our hope see what we're celebrating at this time is that God said he's gonna be born of a virgin born in Bethlehem he's gonna be the Prince of Peace and that means that we have hoped that he fulfilled that we hope for a second coming the world wants hope in big sales big sales the good news that the world presents is they know why do they have so much bad news and newspapers simple all the good news is in the advertisements the commercials big sale new product that's their hope this can't be ours so in a practical way let's say someone what could you this time of the season how can they regain hope if it's been elusive for them oh great you do Pope Benedict mentions in here you need to pray so in this season as a matter of fact how many times do people talk to me about having post-christmas depression so what you have to do and it's because they got the stuff and they're not happy with them you need to pray you need to come and read scripture listen to the Word of God listen to the prophecies of the daily Mass readings see how Christ fulfills them have hope in Jesus by getting to know him prayerfully listening to Scripture and trusting that he's going to communicate to you by His Holy Spirit that's gonna be the hope that's why I go to the Holy Land for Christmas so I can pray the whole time there and not just worry about presents plus I don't think give any presents alone not here father how about if you would let's end our program with a blessing yes let me bless you with this real like a st. Francis Xavier no mighty God bless you fill you with his hope may lead you to become great missionaries proclaiming this hope to our materialistic and atheistic world my mighty God bless you by the intercession of Saint Francis Xavier the Father the Son the Holy Spirit amen thank you very much father well now I want to take this time with a little bit that I have also to thank you for all the work you do on EWTN you know we've got we talked about this encyclical John Paul did some in cyclical x' that sat around holding down coffee tables that people don't read and your program has been helping the audience appreciate those and the words of john paul ii as well as you work on EWTN live you know so thank you so much for your work the pleasures staying with the house with you every week when i come down and you're just your friendship and your spiritual advice I always appreciate I know the audience appreciates that also well thank you very much thank you the thank you for joining us on the journey home this is a season of hope as father has said and the best way to begin this season is to take a little bit of examination of your hearts and open up to God in prayer asking him how you can be more faithful to following him and love god bless you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 27,629

Rating: 4.845304 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Mitch Pacwa (Author)

Id: IYBDqgkVSr4

Length: 56min 18sec (3378 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 06 2015