How Can Catholics Share Their Faith? - Part 1 | Chris Stefanick Show

brothers and sisters I love you so much and the lord loves you too and he loves you so much that he doesn't just want to redeem you and bring you close to himself he wants to share with you the joy that he feels of going out and reaching out and grabbing lost sheep and bringing them home so we're going to talk about how to do that how to share your faith as a Catholic Christian how to share the gospel how to share the best news that mankind has ever or will ever receive with a world that wants it less and less and before you tune out if you're not like an Uber devout Catholic thinking you know I guess I'm just kind of just getting into this thing and I'm not a professional I'm not a church worker so you're talking about how to share my faith so this episode's not for me no no this is Christianity 101 guys sharing your faith is a part of following Jesus this is a part of how we're all supposed to live this out so wherever you're at in your faith walk this one's for you thanks for being with me so how do we share we share Faith with a world that seems to want it less and less a lot of people think that the world we find ourselves in today is very much like the world that the first apostles found themselves in you know they were coming to a world that hadn't yet heard about Jesus and they were bringing something new to this world and trying to convince people to follow Jesus Christ you know in some ways the world today is like that because we're finding ourselves having to convince people to follow Jesus but in many ways the world we find ourselves in today is unlike any other time in human history you see the apostles found themselves in a world where they had to convince people to shift from one God to the real God right to shift from Zeus to Jesus and I gotta say that's kind of an easy sale because Zeus was a jerk he was like me at my worst day only I could throw lightning bolts at my kids when I come home Angry and tired from work that's Zeus convincing people hey stop worshiping that guy start worshiping this God who is love and who loved you so much that he died for you kind of an easy sales pitch in many ways and then as the church expanded and we found ourselves in the most remote regions of the world and you shift different gods for the true God you know people as maybe they're trying to find Divinity in some way and they're reaching and they're grasping they're making things up that that Express uh express our desire for God or what they might have stumbled upon knowing about him so there's some truths in their faith but they had to convince people from you know don't worship this this Idol of a frog in the jungle worship the true God of love there's something easy about that pitch for the first time in history today we find ourselves having to convince people to worship anything at all people are becoming not only not religious but frankly as they fall away from Faith as much as they are today people are becoming less human not just less spiritual less human in a very natural sense the catechism of the Catholic Church talks about how worship public worship coming together for praise and worship coming together for Liturgy for Mass doesn't only fulfill Divine Law that is the stuff of the Bible it fulfills natural law that that is the stuff on your heart written in your very soul uh Thomas Aquinas talked about how religiosity that is giving external expression to Faith through religion religiosity is a virtue under the subset of Justice and Justice is giving to someone what is due to them and Justice is something that while we refine it we learn about it we're all kind of born with a sense of justice of up and down of right and wrong of fair and not fair little kids at the age of two and three say that's not fair you just took my toy or our religious practice comes from that human natural gut sense place within us of fairness so throughout history you'll find people who have found themselves experiencing existence here I am in this planet I I don't quite know how all this came to be but I do know that I'm a recipient of my own existence I'm a recipient of experience called life and shouldn't I look for the source of all this and then offer something back there's a sense of justice and fairness in that offering of something back to the source of all and you'll find throughout history people in every culture worshiping in some way they're worshiping this this source of all to the best of their ability as they knew him but very similar in different cultures throughout history this kind of blows my mind my travels have brought me all around the world dude you go to to Rome and you'll find temples and you'll find altars in those temples and you go to the other side of the planet you go to Hawaii you find Haiti hours that's a temple and in the center of the temple in ahu an altar not only have people been worshiping God throughout history but in the same way in a religious way that gives external expression where they're offering back to the source of everything because why because that's fair it's fair and when people say you know can't I be a good person and not be religious you know my answer is no look in that part of your personal you might be good in other ways but in so far as you've received everything from some Source outside of yourself and it's not even occurring to you to lift your eyes above the presence that you've just unwrapped at the base of the tree and say where's where's Santa right or my mom and dad where did all this come from I I want to know I'm grateful to that Source I want to say thanks insofar as you've unwrapped the gift of existence and has not even occurred to you to look Beyond yourself to what the source of all this is and In fairness Injustice say thank you I I owe it to that source to to find out who that is and to return Thanks and maybe obey and conform my life to that Source if that's not occurring to you to do that then in that aspect he might be good in other ways but in that aspect of your personality you are a profound moral failure failure but a growing number of people I think because we live in a world that's so dang distracted it's not because they've thought their way through all this it's because when the fundamental questions about the meaning of life what on Earth am I here for what's the source of all this what happens when I die when those start to arise in our souls that make us uncomfortable so we just start scrolling on our phones and we stop asking the questions so for the first time in history we're losing this sense that's not only spiritual but profoundly human that we should worship anything at all so in that regard the world we find ourselves in today is very different from the world the first apostles found themselves in you know what else we're losing we're losing a sense of obligation to our ancestors into the past we have this presumption that anything old is stupid and what's modern and Cutting Edge is smart even though we find ourselves becoming less and less happy maybe they were on to something right but we're so quick to throw all this stuff away if it looks like something that Grandma did I recently was blessed to be a in Costa Rica I found myself in a Blue Zone one of the few places on Earth where people live an unnatural number of people live to be over a hundred and it's cool when you're there you see the Rhythm of Life with the people and they're working and they're going to Catholic mass in Costa Rica but the tourists who go they're looking for the secret sauce Well it can't possibly look like what came from my grandma they're all shopping at the Whole Food stores in the nicoya province of Costa Rica and doing yoga on the beach guys I can guarantee you that Juan after working in his mango Fields is not coming and doing yoga on the beach but we're just presuming that this stuff well we could dismiss that because it's too old-fashioned there's no way that's got something for me today and I have no obligation just because Grandma did that to honor it yeah you do actually you know I I've I've worked with teens who are going through confirmation and I've been asked the question many times Chris do I really should I really get confirmed just for my parents you know my answer to that question is yes unless you want to tell me with all the worldly wisdom you've acquired by the age of 15 that you're about to throw away what was handed on for 1600 years since St Patrick land on the shores of Ireland and converted your ancestors how about we have this conversation in 10 years for now do it to honor the people who've handed on to you and who have risked their lives have paid with their blood to give this to you but we're forgetting all this the apostles didn't find themselves in a world like that this is unique this is new in history G.K Chesterton said that men today have lost their way but this is not surprising for men have always lost their way the difference is that now they've lost their address you know and not only are people becoming indifferent to religion and to your faith as a Christian you can sense a growing hostility to Christian faith you know and you see this when you look in the Bible the the people who worshiped themselves and made their own rules and made their own reality didn't Live and Let Live Pharaoh didn't co-exist Pharaoh did not have a bumper sticker on his Chariot coexist with the people of God he couldn't stand them see in his mind and his worldview he was the rule maker he wielded all power and authority in his own life and in his kingdom so anyone who would bow to a higher source convicted him pricked his conscience challenged his own sense of justice he knew something was wrong something was wrong with how he was living but he wasn't looking to bend the need of something above himself he knew that and the presence of the Jewish people bothered him guys you bother people it's not just a thing you do on Sunday morning it's the way that you relate to reality that you bow to something above yourself that you worship publicly that you that you have a a relationship with reality especially when it comes today to gender issues reproduction when it comes to abortion to to marriage all that stuff that you receive that that your attitude toward those things is it hateful and bigoted and and curmudgeonly and old-fashioned but your attitude toward those things is that you know I didn't create this reality because I'm not God there's a difference between you and God by the way God never thinks he's you but that you receive these things from a higher source and conform your life to the will of that higher source written in the Bible written in human nature the fact that you're doing that you notice how no one is okay with just coexisting with you when they disagree with how the church sees those things they prefer to cancel you they prefer to cancel you from social media they prefer to mess with your career you're I've met college students who are afraid to tell their professors what they believe college students who are in sororities who are cool kids or fraternities who are afraid to tell their sorority and fraternity mates that they're Catholics there's new social norms that say you're bowing to something higher you don't wield your own reality when it comes to every issue connected with gender or marriage or procreation that bothers me it convicts me so they pull a pharaoh on us and want to cancel us ah and you know a lot of people who can't stand us want to blame us for their hatred isn't that funny I think of the Communists when the Communists would execute someone they would often send that person's family a bill for the bullet ouch well I I killed you and you know what it's your fault you were that annoying you didn't go along with the Zeitgeist the spirit of the age you came in the way of everybody's happiness and progress you have to go it's your fault that you're hated and you know a lot of people would say you Christians just aren't inclusive and welcoming enough and by that they mean you speak truths that we don't agree with now guys there's even people within the church within the hierarchy who would tell you that if you're clear and how you articulate the truth that is inherently unwelcoming guys that's not the welcome that Jesus calls us to the welcome of the Gospel is an invitation to the entire world and acceptance of where people are at an accompaniment of them in the words of Pope Francis a love of people but that love also demands that we speak truth so it's just constant balance between this truth and this acceptance and love which puts us in a very uncomfortable situation doesn't it hmm thank you Jesus but the world would we hate you because you're just not welcoming enough and yeah you everyone can work on how welcoming and loving we are that's true but I got to say this I got to call this out right now sometimes people blame you for their hatred of you and reject you not because you're not welcoming enough but because frankly they hate the truth John 3 16. we all know that verse God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever should believe in him would not perish but have eternal life a lot of people don't know the verses the verse is right after that where Jesus says that those who don't accept the son will find themselves condemned now he wasn't saying those who seek God to the best of their ability as they know him but just happen to don't happen to know that Jesus or be convinced that Jesus is the Lord he can still save that he would still be their only salvation he's the only salvation but he can still find ways to save people outside of the Norms that he set up however some people reject the light because they love their sin and he talks about this people right after John 3 16 and John 19. this is the verdict light has come into the world but people loved Darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed but whoever lives by the truth comes into the light hmm some people just hate you and guess what guys that's not all your fault they might hate you just because they hate God because they don't want to live a certain way because you remind them that they should bow to something bigger than themselves and this often expresses itself today through Modern deconstructionist movement that would label label everything that has to do with Western Civilization all the beauty of Western Civilization all the goodness in it and your Catholic faith is nothing but evil harmful a colonialist harmful presence throughout history that has we just have to get rid of it and I gotta tell you I've hear the story this narrative more and more frequently of parents who send their kids off to college or kid comes back hating Catholicism not Live and Let Live but seeing the faith they were raised with as nothing but harmful they overlooked the fact that we started the hospital system the university system the the largest social service provider on Earth let's Overlook all that they reduce it to nothing but the most harmful elements of the church's history and of Western Civilization uh some people call that movement woke I like calling it something clearer and cleaner I think because some people think well whoa doesn't have to do with with like good issues and Justice all right I don't want to confuse here let's call it nothing but ism nothing but ism in the nothing but ist worldview everything The Arc of human history our purpose the struggle of existence the church's history all of it can be reduced to nothing but a relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor that's it there's the narrow lens for how they see everything and if they're spiritually awake then they'll see it literally everywhere and if you're spiritually asleep then you don't see it you just you just don't get it because you're not woked up look don't get me wrong guys the battle for justice is real oppressed and oppressor is a real part of History Injustice is real racism is real systemic Injustice and systemic racism those things are all real but enough and the evils of colonialism and the trauma it did to the world is real however a nothing but worldview when it comes to those things is so off that it's delusional and the conclusion people run into when they see nothing but fat is a total antagonism toward all Faith because they see it as nothing but harmful nothing butism will tell us that American history is not a history with racism or racism currently in it but that America is nothing but a racist system that the family is nothing but a system to oppress LGBT people that men or people who identify as that that men are nothing but a sex that oppresses women there was a Tolkien Society seminar that papers to be presented include Gondor in transition a brief introduction to the transgender realities in The Lord of the Rings pardoning sorrow man the queer in tolkien's Lord of the Rings or the invisible other tolkien's dwarf women and The Feminine lack there's like a religious dogmatic fervor that people bring to how they perceive reality there was a piece written in a London paper recently entitled roads designed by men are killing women okay how does this impact faith and your ability to see it when people are poisoned not only by indifference but let's let's bring it Deeper by an antagonism toward Christian faith because they reduce it to nothing but the Catholic history nothing but a patriarchal colonialist power that hates gays that's literally how there many college students would sum up the entirety of Christian faith which is why people during protests recently were tearing down statues of Saint Junipero Sarah Saint juniperocera who the Native Americans were weeping when he died who walked from California to Mexico City to fight for their rights when they when the Colonials Powers were oppressing them and taking advantage of them let's disregard all that he's nothing but a colonialist that's it man when people see the church that way despite all the good and they can only see that one element the doors shut to the conversation even beginning I'm friends with father Mike Schmitz who if it weren't for that guy I would be the world's most handsome Catholic evangelist Schmitz anyway sorry I think someone just fell out of their chair in the sound booth uh he's been a college Ministry for 17 years God bless the guy I mean and a lot of people know him as a you know world-class podcaster but before that and during that and still today that the main the way he sees himself is he's a campus ministry priest trying to convert college students uh God bless him and I asked him how have things change over the course of 17 years with these movements in society and how people are re uh branding Catholicism and he said oh when I started this I I could approach someone who wasn't been into the faith and we could start a conversation it's like today they won't even let you begin the conversation because they've reduced Catholic history to nothing but that worst element so they could see him coming handsome priests with beautiful things to say and it might as well be a guy in a Nazi outfit coming to them saying hey I have a coherent uh case to make to you for why you should listen to my worldview dude if you're wearing a Nazi outfit if you're part of a of a bigoted hate group uh I don't care if you you can you claim to have a coherent case to make to me about your relationship to Jewish people I don't want to talk to you I wanted to begin the conversation this is literally how people are coming to see Catholicism Pope Benedict XVI he said 100 years ago everyone would have thought it absurd to speak of homosexual marriage today whoever by the way 100 years ago in 2008 Obama said that he opposed same-sex marriage this is 08. okay in 2015 no one was even thinking about the transgender movement becoming mainstream as as something that if you don't agree with it we're going to blame you for killing people who are gender dysphoric by their own suicide and start tolerating as Teen Vogue said we have to we have to stop policing trans rage while this is happening quickly as if our only motive is hate okay I I know plenty of Christians who love in fact I've met very few who would carry those signs God hates gays no God hates your sign I I've been a Catholic for I'm 47. I have not met these people that everyone accused of being mean and bigoted and hateful these were mainstream views throughout history and love motivated parents and pastors to say hey kids there's guidelines that you should conform to because it's good for you overnight this has changed today whoever opposes it opposes these views especially around around these issues is socially excommunicated the same applies to abortion production of human beings in the laboratory modern society is in the process of forming an anti-christian Creed and resisting it is punishable by social excommunication the fear of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is too natural it takes the prayers of a whole diocese and Universal Church to resist it okay what do we do what do we do Chris you've just spent 20 minutes telling me about the water that I'm drowning in [Laughter] for 20 minutes anything beyond that we start getting really depressing what do we do a couple options from here all right number one the get really angry option I figured I would just call it out because a lot of us default to that and I get it I get it anger is an emotion given to you by God to set something right when it's wrong but when your anger doesn't help said something right it becomes a destructive fire and I've seen so many Christians just straight up become angry and obsess about it and get lost in the constant news cycle going on in the world guys the early Christians knew what was going on in their world they knew about Nero they knew about the fact that he took Christians and impaled them and covered them in Tara and let them on fire to warmer's Palace they knew all the problems in Rome they knew about the orgies they knew about all the moral of Decay and they didn't get together at church and complain about President Nero all the time they had something bigger to think about and better they knew that 2000 years from now Chris stefanic is going to be informed talking about Jesus I don't even know what formed is but I just sense that's going to happen and they were right Nero's gone Rome is gone here we are the get really angry option really it portrays a lack of faith be aware of what's going on in the world but Saints aren't Saints because they filled their hearts with what they hate with what they love be aware of what's going on in the world then move on option two the blend in option every mainstream products and shirts that have tried the blend in option you know you know what's it happened all their members have left they've collapsed when there's this Catholics in every level within the church hierarchy right now who are thinking maybe we should just blend in I mean come down from that cross and we'll believe in you you don't have to have those teachings that divide us from you that whole thing about like your Divinity you don't come on can we just get along Catholics come on down come down from the cross then maybe we could believe with you the thing is they won't actually believe with you because there'll be nothing that you believe it's different work how about this the Benedict option there's actually a book written about this and it makes a lot of sense as western civilization was crumbling in the sixth Century Saint Benedict didn't shun the world but he went off and said I'm going to live a monastic experience he's the founder of Western monasticism and he spent his time in prayer not rejecting the world people would be well convinced if they came to the monasteries but they said we're just going to do our thing and they preserve the classics which is why if you've read anything from the Greeks and the Romans it's because as Barbarian hordes destroyed what what had been the Roman Empire they were hiding those things in monasteries and transcribing them you're welcome second of the universities and and as as the the flood waters of all the Barbarian hordes receded here we had these lights of Faith these islands not only of Christianity but of Western Civilization kept alive there's a lot of Mary to that but I want to propose a different option the apostolic option let's engage the world with the insane joy that the apostles had even if it might cost you your head bringing the best news ever to a world that wants to reject us and even when they're rejecting us continuing to bring the best news ever by how we live and how we talk and and by by choosing to share it as if we have the best news Mankind's ever received because guess what we do I think of the Apostles hiding in the upper room for fear of the people who just killed Jesus and Jesus appeared to them or resurrected Lord appeared to them and he did not say go ahead preach the gospel it's going to work out okay I could almost hear them say Lord what if they kill us and him saying if they kill you oh they're totally gonna kill you the very thing that they feared actually happened he did better than giving false promises he breathed on them receive the Holy Spirit who sends you forgive or forgiven them he sent them out with such a joy in this good news of the Gospel that was bigger than all the trials they'd face in the world that this is the only faith that at its founding the world's first response was are they drunk dude it's 9am they drinking Bloody Mary's already who's even serving that at 9am of Jerusalem the apostolic option man ah Lord help us to have that joy of the first apostles in the face of a world that can't stand us in the next episode this time this one we just spilled out what's going wrong a couple of the options in the next episode I want to talk about how to live out that Apostolic option in simple tangible ways in your life every day we'll see you there man wasn't that great listen if you don't want to be happy be sure not to subscribe but if you want a more joyful life the kind of life that God created you for the kind of Life Jesus Promised when he said I came to give you life to the full then make sure you hit subscribe and share this 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Channel: Augustine Institute | The Catholic Faith Explained

Views: 6,164

Keywords: eucharist, Catholic eucharist, transubstantiation, catholic sacrament, 7 sacraments, augustine institute, formed catholic, ignatius press, lighthouse catholic media, lighthouse talks, Dr. Tim Gray, Dr. Brant Pitre, Chris Stefanick, holy communion, catholic church, Catholic Faith, the augustine institute, catholic theology, catholic graduate school, christian theology

Id: p_qF-V7Ojy8

Length: 27min 0sec (1620 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023