OPEN LINE FRIDAY - September 17, 2021- Guest: Ralph Martin

yen this is open line in north america call toll-free 1-833-288-ewtn that's 1-833-288-3986 [Music] outside north america call 1-205-271-2985 [Music] you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 or send an email to openline at ewtn.com a tremendous friday to each and every one of you thanks so much for tuning in to ewtn's open line very special edition of open line friday today we've given colin donovan the day off he is in his palatial estate with his feet up uh hopefully enjoying a little uh well-deserved r r and as we were yesterday we're coming to you live from the goddess summit west in scottsdale arizona and we've got a very unique opportunity we're going to take today we're going to talk with dr ralph martin uh who uh should be a stranger to not very many of our listeners or viewers um he is the host of choices we face on ewtn for what 94 years you've been doing that show now well we're going on 94 but i think we're at 35. 35 on your way to 94. there you go very good so we're gonna we're going to get into some of the topics of the day with ralph martin if you'd like to be part of the program ralph has agreed to take some phone calls as we go along the way the number is 833-288 e-wtn that's 833-288-3986 it's a free phone call anywhere in north america if you're outside of the united states and canada we'd still love to hear from you your number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five so if you have seen ralph martin in denmark i want to call her from i want to call her from denmark who has seen ralph in denmark is ralph i think you've spent as much time outside of the north america as you have inside of north america quite a lot yeah yeah um you can also send us an email open line at ewtn.com or you can text your question text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name and your question message and data rates may apply i'm jack williams michael mccall producing the program your call screener is matt gubinski and our social media maven is mr jeff berson so if you're watching us on youtube or facebook live you can type a question into the chat window and we may get to it by the end of the program and our guest today as i said is uh dr ralph martin he is the president and founder of renewal ministries yes yeah uh he is a host as i said the choices we face on ewtn he has a doctorate in theology and is the director of graduate graduate theology programs in the new evangelization at sacred heart major seminary in the archdiocese of detroit and rao first of all thanks for being so gracious as to joining us here today well jack it's good to meet you this is our first time really getting ready to know each other and i i loved john that and now i'm gonna love you so there you go it's a great great encounter yeah well i'm glad to hear it so um just for for those of our listeners who maybe are not quite as familiar with you as some of our tv viewers or some of our other folks give us a little reader's digest version of how you became ralph martin and how in the the community i'm you know the in ann arbor and and and what that has grown into yeah well honestly the grace of god you know god created me i'm so grateful and i was born into a catholic family in in new york city in the bronx and grew up in northern new jersey and my parents put a tremendous stress on the importance of our faith the importance of education so i went to catholic schools and in teaneck new jersey and then bergen catholic high school in oredell and went out to notre dame for university and unfortunately along the way the world of flesh and the devil began to really kind of rear their ugly head in my life and i began to drift away from the lord and it wasn't until really i was a senior at notre dame that a friend insisted that i make a cursillo which is a weekend renewal out of spain that a lot of catholics have experienced and on the cursillo weekend uh i i just came to the point where i said you know i think this jesus that they're talking about is here and uh that really caused me hope but also consternation like if jesus is really alive if he's really been raised from the dead uh wow i've got to make an important decision i i wasn't expecting my search for truth to come to an end so quickly and so suddenly i was looking forward to many enjoyable years of searching for the truth on my own terms and but if jesus is really the lord there's only one sensible thing to do which is like right now turn your life over to him and so finally on the last day of the cursillo sunday morning i swallowed my pride and god had mercy on me i went to confession i got reconciled with the lord in the church and at the end of the day that day i just felt like the love of god was pouring into my hearts and at the end of the cursillo they let you kind of say a few words about what it meant to you and i remember what i said i want to spend the rest of my life knowing and loving jesus and i want to help other people know and love him so that's that's basically how it got started i went off to graduate school at princeton the next year but you know in philosophy and then i spent a summer at an upstate monastery trying to open my future to the lord and the lord kept telling us a friend of mine to sell what you have and go follow him so so so fortunately we didn't have much you're one of those radicals yeah i guess you know but but you know what jesus was a radical and honestly he's calling each of us to make a radical decision for him he really is i mean most people don't realize this but he's he's saying i got to be first in your life he's really saying that you know he's saying if if it's a choice between you and anything else a choice between you and money a choice between you and your job a choice between jesus and even close friends and family he says i haven't come to bring peace but to bring a sword i want to separate you from everything that's keeping you from me because the thing that you really need in your life is me and if anything's keeping me from that you got to choose me over that and and so i kind of knew that because it's logical if jesus is the lord i mean who are we kidding i mean you know really so i turned my life to him uh ended up working for the cursillo movement for a while ended up doing campus ministry at michigan state university got fired there when the catholic charismatic renewal broke out got got hired at st mary's student parish in ann arbor at the university of michigan got fired from there when 300 students were overwhelming the student center and they thought that too many students were coming and they were getting too excited about jesus and that's how the word of god community started in in in ann arbor and you know and so it had nothing to do with the devotion to beauchamp buckler no nothing at all in fact my wife went to michigan state and i went to notre dame so even though we live in the sea of u of m idolatry uh we don't participate in ourselves but you know people live in a sea of notre dame idolatry and michigan state idolatry too so unfortunately sports has become an idol today it really has there's no doubt about that yeah really has so then ended up moving to belgium for four years uh cardinal soon's one of the vatican one of the leaders of vatican ii invited us to move to belgium and start a charismatic community there we began the international center for the catholic charismatic renewal and he asked me to start traveling around with him to get a feel for the universal church we did that for four years came back and uh the charismatic communities ran into difficulties there were unbalances there and so we went through a reform movement that was very painful and uh out of that came renewal ministries uh moved back from belgium and uh my community said we're ecumenical you want to do catholic ministry so god bless you and uh you know raise money yourself so that's how renewal ministries began and so now we're working about 34 different countries we're doing the the television program a couple radio programs a youtube channel just exploded on us during covet you know we had 7 subscribers to our youtube channel at the beginning of cover then uh myself and peter herbeck began doing weekly videos and now we are over because you are a technophile right yeah like we were saying here you were sharing with the legates this morning that uh this is the last thing you thought would have happened yeah yeah and so we're doing these videos now we have over 52 000 subscribers and it's growing every week and so we just feel like the lord's calling us to proclaim him that's basically what i said at the end of the cursillo is where it's still out i want to know and love jesus to help other people don't love him that's a beautiful story again we're talking to ralph martin today the president of renewal ministries we would love for you to be part of the conversation if you'd like to the number is 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you're outside the united states and canada we'd still love to hear from you that number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and we'll even put you straight to the front of the line if you are outside of north america and that's one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five you can send us an email openline ewtn.com and you can always text your question text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name and your question message and data rates may apply so ralph has kind of filled us in on how uh his journey back to our lord from his uh catholic upbringing and and this is comforting to most people because uh you know you can find jesus at notre dame contrary to to what some people will tell you well it's a mixed bag just like every place is and there's a lot of good people there and a lot of people find jesus there there's also some some not so good things there yeah and and you know i think the truth of the matter is is that jesus is right in front of us all the time he is and uh we have a role to play in where we find him huh right if you hear his word today harden not your heart ralph martin joining us here on ewtn's open line friday 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 it's open line friday with dr ralph martin [Music] this is conversations with consequences where we delve deeper into issues affecting our church our country and our core the family as catholics we need to be informed aware and able to talk through some of the tough topics that we're facing in our culture and in our world conversations with consequences gives us the tools to do so it's not enough to pray we have to be a light for the world conversations with consequences tomorrow at 5 pm eastern on ewtn radio [Music] christ is the answer with father john ricardo here's the new challenge at least one hour a week in front of the blessed sacrament with the goal of an hour a day in front of the blessed sacrament i had a guy come up to me and says father you know i'm doing a lot of things i'm i'm in a men's fellowship i pray with my wife every day i go to mass every sunday and and usually a couple times during the week i read scripture he goes i want more i said do you pray in front of the blessed sacrament he said outside of mass no i said i think that's the more see all these saints these are the ones who surround us these are the ones who ran before us these are the ones who fought well who kept the faith they would tell you as would every single saint in heaven right now you cannot run this race if you don't spend time with the master whatever else we're doing it's second third and fourth first things need to be first the first thing is to be with the master and the master is jesus this is open live on the ewtn global catholic radio network if you have a question call 1-833-288-ewtn that's 1-833-288-3986 outside north america call 1205-271-2985 or send us an email to openline ewtn.com you know everything we do here is because of the obedience of a cloistered nun from canton ohio who had little more than hutzpah but her hutzpah and her her faith and her relationship with our lord has led to all of this and you can celebrate mother angelica's remarkable life her words and her works just visit ewtn.com mother angelica today again we're visiting with dr ralph martin today here at the legatus summit west in scottsdale arizona if you'd like to be part of the program the number is 833 288 ewtn that's [Music] 833-288-3986 we were talking during the break that in our journey with christ we are going to uh continually it's a continual process of conversion right right it's a continuous requirement to give fiat to what our lord wants to do in our lives and so we're always going to have milestones as we go along and and i think it would be fair to say that uh you know our lord entrusted something to you uh back in the day that you put into the form of a book called crisis of truth yeah that originally came out and was i guess uh updated a couple decades after it was originally written um talk a little bit about how that came about and and what it's meant for you in renewal ministries yeah well when i was traveling around europe with cardinal sunans and meeting various theologians and bishops and reading a lot of stuff about what was being published in the united states by catholic magazines and newspapers and things i began to get really concerned that there was a lot of a lot of flaky stuff going on a lot of false teaching a lot of undermining of the the catholic faith and uh i i got invited to do a conference back in minneapolis-st paul in 1980 a few months before we moved back from belgium and i i just felt like i wanted to talk about what i termed a crisis of truth i ended up writing a book a couple years later in 1982 with the subtitle the attack on faith morality and mission in the catholic church and so i i felt almost like this was a commission that the lord gave me and after i delivered these five talks in minneapolis saint paul i felt like lord i think i've done what you've asked me to do maybe my mission's complete it wasn't but i felt it had that kind of feeling like i had really done something that he asked me to do and i think the book helped and the talks the book all kinds of things happening with it uh people put it on video and took it around and gave live weekends in all over the country father mike scanlon became very involved with me after he he heard the talks and he said ralph i want to stand with you uh you're going to get attacked for this you don't have any credentials you know i'm a graduate of harvard law school i'm a director of a seminary and president of university i want to stand next to you and tell people to pay attention to what you're saying i can't tell you how moved i was by that i just felt like wow god you love me more than i deserve you know you're giving me more help than i deserve and it was so encouraging to travel around the country and around the world australian first place with father mike taking time out of his incredible responsibilities to to support this message that faith morality and mission are really being undermined and we've got to get clear about what god reveals to us about these things and not fall into this deception you know so um that was really important a lot of people told me that that book helped save their faith helped save their vocation monsignor pope you know who's a really prominent writer right now and speaker he he says he read that book when he was a seminarian it saved his vocation and saved his faith you know and just a lot of people have told me that so i'm just really grateful that the lord gave me that commission and as imperfectly as i carried it out it was enough to help people yeah and and you know luckily for us it it saved the world from any further corruption or problems ever again right oh yeah yeah yeah sure but you know there's an interesting side story mother angelica heard those tapes and she invited me to come down to do 10 programs with her on a crisis of truth then she invited me to start doing a weekly program so that's that's where my connection with ewtn came from mother angelica heard those talks and said yes there's a crisis of truth i want to do some programs with you and could you do a regular weekly program for me and so 35 years later here we are but that's how it happened yeah that's beautiful so we um you know we we kind of fast forward a little bit and and um you know the the the culture has become what it has become um you know i think it's scriptural we can see from sacred scripture and from the history of the church you know we have had numerous ecumenical councils and that's not by accident you don't call an ecumenical council when the seas are calm right you know when things need to be addressed and we've reached sort of a critical mass moment where you felt like perhaps um a supplement would that be fair to say to a crisis in truth might be in order for our day and time well i'd say it's it's virtually a whole new book really okay i use some of the same chapter headings but all the examples are from now and i just feel like the lord's given me deeper insight and i see more what's going on so when coveted hit uh all our travel got canceled so one of the things i could do was put more time into our youtube channel but another thing i felt like the lord wanted to do is he said it's time to address the crisis today it's 40 years later from the first book and there's a lot of stuff that's different that's new that's even more alarming than happened then i honestly did think that under john paul ii and benedict xvi a lot of the things that i addressed in that first book had been dealt with you know but then i had this incredible experience in 2014 i think just after pope francis got elected i was asked to give a academic talk at georgetown university commemorating the 50th anniversary of vatican ii and i went there and i was really surprised it's like people are saying happy days are here again you know the spirit of vatican 2 is back and they had people like charlie curran who's a public dissenter he got humane vitae the main speaker they had roger height who's another dissenter all these people have been corrected under john paul ii of benedict 16. now they're kind of back being honored cardinal casper was the keynote speaker who was really pushing for that footnote in the morris like tca that maybe opens the door to marriage and remarriage and divorce without receiving an annulment receiving communion so i'm saying what is going on apparently they knew something more about what the new administration under pope francis was going to be moving towards then than any of us expected you know so i said wow something's really going on and then as the last six or seven years have unfolded not only the confusion in the church not only some of the same things are back again within the church but the culture now has become incredibly totalitarian unified hostile to christ in the church it's getting worse every day people are being de-platformed just yesterday lila rose got thrown off google or somewhere uh in her her ministry uh you know ryan anderson had his book removed from amazon like people are really being eliminated free speech is over and people are closing in trying to suffocate the voice of christ in the church and unfortunately we have this incredible thing happening in our culture but unfortunately the church is divided and confused at the same time that it needs to have most clearer sounds so i just felt it's time it's time to say this again so i wrote the book so you wrote the book a christ a church in crisis and i think quite frankly that the subtitle may be as or more important and that's pathways forward right yeah the first six chapters of the book detail the crisis i think it's very important to know what we're dealing with if we don't know what the difficulties are we're not going to really have a radical enough solution the second chap part of the book seven chapters talk about different pathways forward about how we can deal with this both individually and also as a as a church with with what's happening and you can order a cop a copy of the church in crisis it's available at ewtn's religious catalog just call 800-447-3986 that's 800-447-3986 a church in crisis by ralph martin can we go to the phones sure take a question or two here sure brenda is in westwego louisiana she is listening on siriusxm channel 130. uh brenda thanks for holding you're on with dr ralph martin hi thank you um i hope my radio's not coming through because i'm talking through the radio you're very good go right ahead okay good um okay so this is my question i am a convert and i had a cradle catholic ask you what was the purpose of purgatory i told them i thought that it was if you had um even if you went to confession if you had tenants that you had not done then that's what it was for i don't know yes uh it's a beautiful doctrine of the catholic church and what it means is that if by the time we die we die in friendship with the lord we die in the state of grace but there's still elements of purification that need to happen in our life because of wounds of sin and other things like that if there's still purification needs to happen the lord will do it and so if we end up in purgatory we should totally celebrate because it means we're saved it means we're in it means that the lord's going to do the remaining work that's needed to prepare us to see him face to face so it's it's really a wonderful wonderful thing uh sean is in smyrna georgia she is watching on youtube today um shawn you are on with dr ralph martin hi dr martin i have a question so i do take paul street evangelization we go to a lot of college campuses and a lot of times when we talk to students we first start off with the rosary because it draws and we get on stage here's a free rosary and then we go into conversations and sometimes the rosary especially in the south isn't the best to start off with i was wondering if if you could give me maybe a quick elevator speech on something that will entice students in general yes well you know i've actually heard the founder of saint paul's street evangelization steve say that the only thing that he's found that really breaks through to talking to people on the street is when he asks them the question if you die today where do you think you would end up heaven or hell and he thinks that that really gets them focused on wow you know there's really eternal consequences that are at stake here and maybe i'm not in such a great place here to kind of uh meet the lord yet so steve has told me that himself that he feels like getting to the right heart about what would happen to you if you died today and and ended up standing before god what do you what do you think where do you think you'd be going you know type of thing i'm just repeating what what the found what your founder said you know yeah so it's it's uh we're all looking for the magic bullet and i think sometimes the trap we fall into is that we feel like we have this responsibility to convert someone and that's not really what our mission is is it and there's so many different ways in which the lord reaches people who knows handing somebody a rose or an immaculate medal could could you know miraculous medal could very well be a doorway that opens them up taking this other approach that steve was talking to me about that could be praying for people without seeing any immediate results like saint paul said some plant some water and some see the harvest so keep putting those plant those seeds out there keep watering what you find already growing and we'll see what about the harvest talking to dr ralph martin today about his book a church in crisis if you'd like to be part of the program the number is eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six that's eight three three two eight eight e ewtn you can always send us an email openline ewtn.com that's openline at ewtn.com uh you can always send us an email the email address is openline at ewtn.com that's openline ewtn.com or you can text your question text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name in your question message and data rates may apply we're at the legatus summit west in scottsdale arizona visiting with dr ralph martin on ewtn's open line friday [Music] so [Music] [Music] it means the same live truth live catholic ewtn this is a messy family minute with mike and alicia hernan this year pope francis has proclaimed a year of the family in which he invites us to reflect on the meaning of family life although we can spend a lot of time speaking about the troubles family's face pope francis began his reflection by emphasizing joy the first sentence in amoris letizia states the joy of love experienced by families is also the joy of the church the holy father is saying that the church is energized and inspired by the human love displayed in family life god who is the author of life who himself is family wants us to share in this joy now we understand that this can be difficult in the midst of a hectic messiness that often characterizes life with children but this year we believe the church wants us to reconnect with the fundamental joy that should be at the heart of the life in the home we need to acknowledge the goodness of what god has done for us for more encouragement and inspiration to see the joy in your family visit us at messyfamilyminute.org st hildegard of bingham was a mystic an abbess a botanist a saint and a doctor of the church matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church hildegard had her first visions at the age of three which she called the shade of the living light she later wrote about them in works declared by saint bernard of clairvaux to be from god pope benedict xvi agreed when he named her only one of four doctors of the church who are women in 2012. for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com coming up monday onward life the life you were meant to live we'll look at how the theology of the body can help you live a more abundant life that's monday on more to life 10 am eastern 9 central on ewtn radio now back to open line [Music] this is open line on the ewtn global catholic radio network 833 288 e wtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 it's ewtn's open line friday live from the legatus summit in scottsdale arizona dr ralph martin from renewal ministries and from the choices we face on ewtn television gracious enough to spend some time with us today talking about his book a church in crisis so you're sure there's a crisis unfortunately yes and i think anybody who reads the book will get a tremendous insight to what the nature of the crisis is and all the all the fronts it's coming to us on you know i must say jack that ewtn has been so supportive of this book you know mitch pacquiao had me on his program to discuss it doug keck has and duck was doug was thinking that and he's what ceo what is he president yeah uh president and chief operating officer yeah yeah he said this book is so important let's do five half hour programs on it so we did five half hour programs on it he ran every day during one week and so there's a video version of this available through the religious catalog also you know you know dvds beautiful beautiful um you know as we talked a little bit during the break you know my uh my wife johnette likes to say that we are the saints of the latter days not the latter day saints but the saints of the latter days and she says that that you know we are in the latter days but we are not in the last days uh what's your perspective on on where we stand here well i say it's a little hard to say where we're at because only the lord knows you know and there's some real clues though that the lord gives us through sacred scripture and 2nd thessalonians chapter 2 paul says you know don't don't be thrown away by rumors and prophecies that seem to say the lord's already coming and you missed it no you haven't missed it because two things need to happen before the lord returns there's some other things mentioned in the gospels but these two things are very clear and they're very relevant today he says the lord will not return until this great apostasy happens now an apostasy isn't something i don't like the way you look at me when you said this i have total confidence in you persevering through whatever persecution comes because you're not counting on your own strength you're depending on the strength of the lord all right yes okay so an apostasy isn't something that pagans do it's something that christians do so what it is is turning away from faith on the part of those who once had it unfortunately we are going through a very great apostasy right now there's no question about it whether it's the final apostasy or not whether it's the the apostasy that's being spoken about in second thesis in the second thessalonians chapter two easy for you to say i i don't know we'll see we'll only know if the lord returns at the end of it you know but right now we're seeing whole nations turn away from christ you know like one of the saddest things i've seen in the last couple of years is when ireland you know legalized abortion and all the other things that come with that tens of thousands of irish people flooded into the streets of dublin celebrating that they had finally joined the modern world what they did was throw away their catholic birthright in order to be like the other nations around them and this is something that the lord was not happy about when his own people did this in the new testament old testament when they very esau-esque isn't it yes so you're selling their birthright for a mess of porridge you know and you know they're so happy now that they could be on the right side of history with all the other cool people well if you're on the right side of history today you're you're going over the cliff you know and so we are seeing a great apostasy the second thing though is also very interesting paul says the lord will not return until a certain restrainer that has been placed on the manifestation of evil is taken away he says then we're going to see the lawless one appear and unrestrained lawlessness and then when it just seems like things couldn't get any worse the lord's going to appear he's going to come and god in glory he's going to judge the living and the dead he's going to destroy the work of evil and he's going to judge us all but then it goes on to say well and let's just say that certainly all kinds of restraints on evil have been taken away over the last number of years no question about it like this i don't know if there's anything left holding evil back now because our nation and other nations have departed from any rootedness in something outside our subjective feelings you know we no longer believe in god we no longer believe in the law of god we no longer believe in the ten commandments and so there's no foundation anymore for saying what's right and what's wrong so what's right marine what's right and what's wrong is a matter now of power and oppression you know the person who has the gun is going to tell us what's right and wrong not anything that has anything to do with objective right and wrong so all kinds of restraints have been taken away from from letting letting evil go now and then it goes on to say those who will perish during this time are those who have refused to open their hearts to the truth in order to be saved so that's why this is certainly a crisis of faith but it's also a crisis of truth once again and who's going to be lost during these terrible times which we're in whether these are the final times i don't know or not but they could be whoever's going to be lost when the restraint on evil is taken off and the great apostasy is going on are those who refuse to open their hearts through truth in order to be saved and then there's another shocking final statement paul says as a result of this as a result of saying no to the light of christ and saying saying no to the to the truth hardening your heart against the word of god a deeper delusion is going to come upon people so that they may be justly condemned so this is this is scary i mean you're you're messing with your eternal salvation if if you're hardening your heart against the truth of christ you're messing with being eternally separated from god if you're not humbly letting god speak to you and give his grace to you and save you that's the bad news we're going to get to the good news first i want to go to rama who is in the great state of new jersey listening on sirius xm channel 130 rama you were on with uh dr ralph martin uh hello dr martin uh i don't think there's an answer to my question but i'm a recent convert from hinduism i have three boys two of them are pretty well physically and mentally but the third one i really think needs to find christ and i don't know how to get him other than being a good example and seeing what the difference it has been is there an answer you can give me well there's just lots of ways in which god can reach somebody like your son if he's currently a hindu there's a lot of people who become christians who are hindus have written books that really really explain why christ is the fulfillment of what people were looking for in hinduism so you might want to look into you know some of those books uh you might when the prop time comes uh share your own story with him i'm sure you've already done that and then certainly pray and fast for him you know mary at fatima said so many souls are going to hell because so few people are offering prayer and sacrifice for them so don't underestimate the power of prayer and the power of fasting the power of sacrifice for god's grace to work with somebody's soul you know and god bless you you've done a great thing rama by calling today because you'll have a lot of our listeners that will keep you in their prayers as well so you've done a great job to this point of uh laying out the crisis that is before us and uh now let's give a little bit of hope and maybe talk about some of those pathways forward yeah well what we really need to do is recover our confidence in the truth of the faith you know i was at the center on world evangelization in 2012 called by pope benedict and the opening talk by one of the cardinals says what we primarily have to do is recover our confidence in the truth of our faith we need to remember that this is true this is real this is the truth that the whole world needs this is the only path to happiness that's available for the human race we cover our confidence in the truth our faith and that means recovering our confidence in sacred scripture a lot of catholics have gotten a very wishy-washy approach to scripture like well it's interesting stories or it's food for thought but we don't really know how to take it you know is it should we take it literally or not or you know i i don't know enough hebrew and greek to figure out what it means type of thing and so uh we need to know what vatican ii actually told us catholics about how we should approach sacred scripture in section 11 of the constitution on sacred revelation the council of fathers say everything asserted by the sacred authors should be considered to be asserted by the holy spirit and to teach firmly faithfully and without error those truths which god was to consign to the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation so hey there's so many clear assertions in sacred scripture including how we can be saved including how we can defeat the antichrist including how we can experience the fulfillment of our deepest desires and it's in the gospel do you have time for me to say a little thing absolutely okay i mean john chapter 3 verse 16 everybody knows it you know we take it for granted but that's the key to happiness god so loved the world this is all about love we wouldn't be alive today if god didn't love us we wouldn't be alive at all but the only reason why god created us and the only reason why we're alive today is to become one with him he wants us to be his friends which is totally amazing totally mind-blowing mind-blowing what could a holy god who's infinitely good and infinitely powerful and infinitely truthfully what what could he have to do with those flesh and blood creatures well that's the amazing thing god so loved the world that he gave his only son so god somehow became flesh and blood so that we could understand him so we could relate to him so he could know what he really is like you know and so this most amazing thing is the word became flesh god gave his only son so that whoever believes in him whoever opens their heart to him whoever surrenders to him may not perish so here's the same word that we just found in second thessalonians chapter 2. the only way we're not going to perish is if we accept the gift that god is giving us in jesus those who believe in him will not perish but have eternal life now we we know all these words but the gift of eternal life is like mind-blowing again like like actually to live forever with no more sorrow no more tears risen bodies no more illnesses you know no more need to diet no more need to exercise but just glorious and radiant like the body of the risen jesus like that's what we're being offered and we're being offered that in relationship to each other you know catherine and sienna ask god the father to show her something about heaven and god the father says those who were in the lord here on earth those who are in godly relationships here on earth are going to be even closer relationships in heaven that love is not going to get less in heaven between friends between husbands and wives who are following christ together but it's going to get better and deeper because all those ways in which we miss each other all those impediments to full communion are going to be taken away and there's going to be unending perfect love so hey do whatever you need to do to get eternal life but but but we're catholic ralph so that's going to happen automatically right no and that's one of the big deceptions one of the big lies of of satan in fact lumen gentium 14 the constitution of the church section 14 says as catholics being a catholic is a gift it didn't come to us by any merit it's a gift of god and if we don't correspond to our faith in word deed and action not only will we not be saved but we will be the more severely judged so us kathy's got to wake up we can't say it's not enough to be a catholic to be saved i hope that's not too shocking for people here but it's absolutely true it's not enough to be baptized to save it's not enough to go to church on sunday to be saved jesus says not everybody who says lord lord to me will enter the kingdom of god but only those who do the will of my father in heaven and this dozens of parables and sayings of jesus like that he says you got to pay attention you got to act on the word you got to act on your faith if you're not acting on your faith your faith isn't real it's an illusion you know uh conferences like this and and people who avail themselves of this sort of a message oftentimes in our culture especially in america will become very discouraged when they go back to their parish because it doesn't bear any resemblance to what's being preached or or talked about and and you look at the i mean i mean how long have we talked about the dwindling numbers of catholics that are attending mass listen if there's no hell why would i go to mass right yes yeah yeah if this isn't all real if there's no consequences why bother you know the fact is as you know that everybody doesn't get a trophy at the end despite our culture saying there's no difference between people there's no difference but there is a big difference there are those saint augustus said those who are now sons and daughters of god and those who are just simply sons and daughters of adam and there's two races right now and unless you become born again of water in the spirit unless you become born again uh through faith baptism in the holy spirit you will not enter the kingdom of god but it's not enough just to have that happen once we've got to live it we've got to be faithful jesus says he who perseveres to the end will be saved so we've got to every day get up and say yes to jesus um allison's watching us on youtube and she says what is your big challenge now in living your daily mission it's paying sufficient attention to god uh in my prayer time i can get distracted you know i can be tempted to do work first or do emails first and then it kind of becomes difficult to pray so my biggest challenge is putting the lord first in my day every single day because i know unless i put the lord first in my day there's a big danger that my prayer is going to get watered down or when nighttime comes they're going to be too tired i'm going to fall asleep and pray so my biggest challenge is paying attention to god because god deserves our attention he deserves our undivided attention so right now quite honestly that's that's my big challenge that's that's what i would confess in confession i haven't been sufficiently attentive to the lord in my prayer time i've allowed distraction to come in or whatever so so i just want to pay attention to the lord better and more you know whenever i run across people whose faith i admire because that's a gift from our lord right i always ask him the same question i don't do it on air on the radio but i always ask them the same question when i see fruit in their life that that i admire i always ask them what is your prayer life like yeah how would you answer that question well i think the most important decision i ever made in my life was surrendering to the lord on that cursillo i think the second most important decision i ever made was deciding to take some time each day for personal prayer and i've been doing that now for 50 some years and you know like saying saint teresa of avila said for 13 years she couldn't really pray without spiritual reading uh she said her mind was like wild horses but if you just persevere somehow the lord's able to work through us showing up for prayer even if we fall asleep even if there's distractions so uh i i just consider the only reason why i'm still today serving the lord today is because i decided to take some time each day for personal prayer i mean sometimes it's wonderful sometimes it's easy sometimes i'd like to stay longer than the time that i'm trying to set up i find very helpful this little magnificat you know as a as a resource of prayer you know i don't get any commission for it but i everywhere i go i tell people get magnificat you know use it to start your prayer time use it to get those little psalms and the readings of the mass if you can't go to mass you can go to mass meditate on the word that comes in the in the daily liturgy and those little lives of the saints those little meditations all those things really help focus our mind on the lord and help us to pray but don't just stop there put magnificut down and just be with the lord you know whether it's just being quiet you know like one of the psalms says be still and know that i'm god other psalms say make a joyful noise to the lord so you can make a joyful noise to the lord in your own home you could start walking around and clap and shout and say praise you jesus or you could be absolutely still and just be in awe of the lord's presence but perseverance in daily prayer is just really important you know there are things every once in a while and i'm sure you experienced this yourself there are simple very simple elementary truths of the faith that you don't doubt that you believe but sometimes you'll just hear them and for whatever reason it just strikes a chord right within you and along these same lines we had a beautiful mass to kick off this legatus event last evening the homily was delivered by um bishop wall from the diocese of gallup new mexico and he said something that was very he was talking about a priest when he first entered seminary that gave him two pieces of advice and the second piece of advice that he gave him was to remain close to the sacraments especially the eucharist and confession and then he said something that really spoke to me he said the eucharist and confession are a guaranteed encounter with the living god well that's true i mean like it's objectively the case when the priest recites the words this is my body this is my blood that the lord works an incredible miracle he himself becomes present in a mysterious way that we can't completely explain and when we come to approach the lord it's really the lord of receiving so it's almost too much for our minds to take in it's almost too much for us to even comprehend but the lord wants us to come to the table blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the lamb but we have to be properly disposed also you know and that's why this big debate going on about you know eucharistic coherence we shouldn't approach the table of the lord and have this intimate union with him if we're disobeying him in serious ways if we're committing mortal sin and so i don't see why it's so hard for the bishops to decide that somebody who's advocating the killing of babies really shouldn't be receiving communion i don't understand why it's so hard to say that but anyway that's really true and then confession makes you think about ways in which you're falling short of what you know the lord's asking you to do and it makes you kind of open your soul up to getting help in those areas and the the blessed words i absolve you in the name of the father son of holy spirit and the joy and freedom that that gives us next stop for us is upstate new york kathy is in new york listening on sirius xm channel 130 kathy you are on with dr ralph martin hi dr martin thank you so much for taking my call i have been reading the fulfillment of all desire and i'm loving it i'm getting so much out of it because the writing of a lot of the doctors the churches archaic and hard for me um i was wondering are you going to write any more on any more of the doctors of the church i i might at some point i don't know i i don't consider myself like a professional writer i i just try to do what i feel like the lord's asking me to do that could help people and it's possible he could ask me to do some others down the road you know people have made various suggestions but i felt like what i needed to do right now is write this book a church in crisis pathways forward but i also feel like the lord wants me to keep letting people know that the fulfillment all desire is available and uh you know i did an ewtn video thing and that too and they have a dvd series on that but uh it does audible books and things like that so i i do want to tell people if they want to grow and if they want to grow in the lord our the wisdom of our catholic tradition is just so rich but it's hard to access sometimes so i felt like the lord's allowed me to explain it in a simple way but without watering it down and quite honestly you could stay with fulfillment desire for the rest of your life because there's different parts of it that are relevant at different times in our life and i've had people tell me you know the first six or seven chapters like was really with you but then when we got into other chapters about higher stages of union with the lord it lost me well we'll go back to it a couple years later and you'll be surprised what now speaks to you so i would just say even though there's only seven doctors of the church treated in that book it's enough to keep us busy and fed and motivated for a lifetime what are the most uh tangible concrete things that you think the rank and file catholic not just in the united states but across the planet quite frankly can do to hasten the coming of our lord well scripture tells us what we can do it says given the fact that there's going to be new heavens and new earth and this current thing is going to burn up with fire it says what kind of lives of holiness must you not live so one of the ways we can prepare for the lord's return is for his bride to be without spot or wrinkle you know jesus is returning for a church without spot or wrinkles that's that's that's a pretty big job isn't it you know it's going to take a lot for the lord to get us without spot or wrinkle but that's what he's committed to he he's committed to preparing a church that is really faithful to him that really loves him that really is following him and that's why i think even though we're seeing this decline out of it the lord's kind of really preparing a remnant and this has often been the case throughout the history of god's godzillion people pope benedict when he was a young priest said we're going to get smaller we're going to lose our political influence we're going to not no longer be able to inhabit our big buildings we're going to lose our our reputation and and we're going to become a little flock once again but out of that little flocks and to come such a such an intensity of catholic life and such a purity of catholic life that modern man lost in technology is going to find when they discover the church again a home and a love that they didn't think could exist you know so it's going to get worse before it gets better we're going to get smaller before revival comes or a new new springtime or whatever but uh it's okay we just need to take responsibility for ourself we can't solve the whole big problems ourselves but if we every day get up and say yes to the lord if we're eager to to grow in union with him and if we're willing to help others discover him because one of the signs that needs to accompany before the lord returns is the gospel needs to be preached to every creature so we need to do our part in sharing the faith you know leon bloy famously said that joy is the sure sign of the presence of god do you maintain your joy are you hopeful oh you know i'm not only joyful and hopeful but i'm excited you know i i it's obviously the lord is up to something really big you know i mean even though the nations are arraying themselves against christ in the church psalm 2 says yes the kings of the world are gathering against the lord and his anointed but the lord in his heaven laughs god is not worried about what's happening because it's not happening apart from his permission he is allowing evil to do its worst because he got a plan to either bring people to conversion or to judge their unrepentant wickedness he's also got a plan to purify the church through all this so i i'm absolutely hopeful because jesus is the lord you know like the real enemy of the human race is death sin and the devil and jesus has really conquered those things you know in john chapter 11 jesus says if you believe in me even though you die you will not die i mean i mean how much money would the billionaires of the world give to live forever and never never die i mean they're they're trying to do that right now with these weird experiments with uh okay yeah they're trying to do it with these weird experiments to prolong human life with hybrid between animals and humans and all that kind of stuff the only way of fulfilling the purpose of our life is to be in jesus and then he would be raised by him on the last day and will have the glory of the risen body so i'm excited about that i really am ralph thanks for being so gracious with your time appreciate it to get a copy of ralph's book a church in crisis pathways forward it's available at ewtn's religious catalog just give us a call at 800-447-3986 that's 800-447-3986 on behalf of our guest ralph martin our producer michael mccall call screener matt gubinsky and our social media maven mr jeff person i'm jack williams once again live from the legatus summit in scottsdale arizona until we get together next week god bless [Music] my wife and i are former protestants who are considering converting to the catholic church and we wanted to ask you about what the catholic view

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Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021