Scott Hahn's Advice to Converts. Must watch!

[Music] welcome to catholic feedback i'm your host keith nester on this podcast we connect the eternal truths of the catholic faith with everyday life send in your questions and comments to feedback at catholicfeedback.com this podcast is brought to you by down to earth ministry a ministry of stewardship a mission of faith and by the generous support of our patrons for more information please visit downtoearthministry.org that's down the number two earthministry.org let's get to it welcome to catholic feedback my name is keith nester and on this podcast we connect the eternal truths of the catholic faith to everyday life friends i know i say this all the time when i bring on guests that i'm so privileged and honored to have the guests and every guest i've ever had on this podcast has been incredible but today is like for me just personally it's a surreal moment because this gentleman that you're going to hear from today played a huge role in my conversion and as well as i'm sure millions of other people and it's a complete honor to welcome dr scott hahn to our podcast and we're going to have an incredible conversation so please everyone i know you're virtually clapping right now welcome dr scott hunt thank you so much for welcome for uh taking time to come on my podcast well it's a great honor and privilege for me to join you keith and also we caught about 15 minutes before we began recording and just to connect so quickly and so deeply what a grace what a blessing well it is the truth you know the pleasure is all mine and i'm humbled and honored to get to connect with you because you know a lot of my viewers know that have watched my testimony your story was really the the first one that opened my eyes up to the beauty of the catholic faith from the standpoint of a guy who was a protestant who became a catholic and for me i'd never heard of anybody doing that before so in my book i actually have a chapter about you it's it's called the chapter is it's called the first one and it's all about when i first heard your conversion story and the impact that it had on me so i'm going to send you a copy of this book you'll read it but i look forward to it thank you well what i'd like to talk to you about today is what are some things that you would say to converts today coming into the church because when you came into the church the world was a lot different we didn't have social media we didn't have a lot of the same things that we have now and i just want to ask you some questions from the standpoint of converts who are looking at you and hearing your story and are wondering you know what what's different now than maybe when you came in so tell us a little bit about what what year was it when you came into the church so it was 1986 at the easter vigil so i'm coming up to my 35th anniversary wow and it was in milwaukee when i was a doctoral student at marquette university finishing up my phd in theology way back then kimberly did not come into the church for another four years and we ended up telling our story together in rome sweet home that came out about three years after she was receiving the church in 1993. you know so you go back 1986 uh 35 years it feels almost like 350 years in terms of the cultural upheavals the seismic changes and all of that but it also feels like you know 35 weeks because uh it's still new uh at times i suppose i get uh weary and distracted and it loses its luster but that doesn't last very long but when you know to your point to the question you know uh i'm looking out and i'm realizing that the catholic faith is just as true today as it was way back then it took me maybe three or four years to to take the plunge and it was scary it was exciting it was romance it was a horror film and all of that but the thing i look back on now and i realize is it was the love of the truth that really drove me and now 35 years later it's more like the truth of love i mean i grew up in the 60s and 70s and so when we heard the word love we misspelled an l.u.v it was woodstock peace love and all of that stuff and so i had an aversion to that i was drawn much more to rc sproule's emphasis on holy holy holy there in isaiah and the apocalypse but what i discover now is that the only logic that links all of the the doctrines together as sacred mysteries is this inner logic of eternal love that defines the trinity and that might seem lofty or you know speculative but actually it is it is so grounded in who we are and what we're not and yet what we were made to be and so i would i would say like two or three thoughts that come to my mind when it you know when i was thinking and praying about our own conversation is the um that when we convert uh and back then it was so unthinkable i re i remember feeling as though what i was doing in the eyes of a lot of my friends and family members and former professors was sort of like you know the chairman of the republican party just defecting to the soviet union you know no they they come our way we don't go their way catholics become evangelicals this was just so unthinkable and yet the trickle ended up turning into something of a torrent you know especially when guy when when classmates and dear friends like marcus grodi also took the plunge you know four or five years later but conversion for us as catholics is so different than it was for us as evangelicals for for me finding christ is what got me out of juvenile court you know and he really found me when i was barely 14 i was so deeply enmeshed in delinquent felonies and misdemeanors you know i won't go into the sake of my mother's memory but you know conversion is what happened to me when i was a young adult and yet when i converted and became a catholic 35 years ago you discover that there's not only a different theology of conversion there's an entirely different experience it's not just because of the sacraments although that is i think the principle part but it's just simply because of what jesus told the disciples if anyone would follow me he must take up his cross daily you know and that is not something that becomes habitual or easy you know that is always going to require special graces and i i recall in my study of saint augustine how he emphasized how much more he needed grace years after he came into the church years after he was converted and so conversion for us is ongoing it is lifelong it is also every day and it's always going to be difficult you know the cross might be some illness the cross might be you know your spouse who misunderstands you know whatever it is it comes from god and it's meant it's basically meant to make us like christ the other thing i was thinking of too is i'm grateful that back in 86 um i was uh there in my in milwaukee studying at marquette and i was unknown um and and so for the next three or four years i really i really got time to spend prayer study research uh a lot like paul who goes to arabia after the damascus road experience and literally spent years doing what we're on we're not told but we can almost we can anticipate he must have re-read the law and the prophets because he had to rethink everything having studied at the feet of rabbi gamaliel he was the prized pupil of the master rabbi but he basically had to turn everything inside out right side up whatever and i would say you know converting does not make us uh celebrities it does not make us witnesses it makes us children of god and and take your time you know um don't rush into sharing your witness you know i had an opportunity that was unplanned at a meeting when they were going to show a video of john paul in america and for whatever reason the video player was working until it wasn't and so they're looking around and saying hey there's a new person introduce yourself would you share your story and the rest as they say is history but you know i would say become a catholic and really enter into the culture that is the not only the sacraments but the saints and also the parishioners who are you know all around us uh you know joe's six-pack in the pew is what i used to call one of them you know and uh that that kind of enculturation is not primarily intellectual it's interpersonal it's not primarily theological it really is social and emotional and it's an adjustment that takes not days not weeks not months but years and years i'm still you know i people often comment on how they still hear my evangelical dialect you know my protestant accent i suspect you're hearing that sometimes also but another thought that came to me right before we were talking was the rosary i was just with two gentlemen last weekend down in florida who are in trouble because they're at a college that won't graduate them unless they sign the statement of faith and they've already moved far from that into a catholic direction along with several of their friends and so they were going to be coming down from orlando to meet me in palm beach and when i met them one of the things i said is you you really ought to pray the rosary and they looked at each other brothers and they said we prayed we prayed a rosary all the way down from orlando and i'm like you guys are toast you're goners because once you do that you're no longer just a student doing research you know converting intellectually and discovering all of the exciting truths and making all of the exciting connections you're rediscovering the fact that you know that the the kingdom of god consists in these children and us becoming childlike and that that remains in a certain sense the the form of conversion that we become like children and the older we get in a sentence in a sense we the smaller we grow and the more unashamed we are to be seen with mother mary and to pray the rosary with the repetition and everything else it just helps us to fall in love with our heart and that i think also strengthens that it inflames it ignites the head so that we can take the light in the sacred mysteries that we ponder but we can also let them really go deeply into our hearts and affect the way we relate to family members and friends and all of that i think that's huge you know i talk a lot about how when i started getting exposed to different things with the blessed mother there was a distinct moment in my in my story where she went around the objections that i had and went right into my heart i was tasked with this is when i was still a pastor our senior pastor tasked me with preaching a sermon through in at we were in advent we were basically talking about the annunciation although we didn't call it that we just called it luke chapter one you know and i had preached the week before about when the angel gabriel came to zechariah and then now it was my turn to preach about when he came to the blessed virgin mary and when i was in my office writing this sermon i became overwhelmed with emotion and i every time i looked at the scriptures and i thought of her and i talked about her i wrote i just started to weep in my office and i had no idea what was going on so i got up and i preached this sermon that was basically like a chapter out of your book you know and i talked about how she's the new eve she's the new ark of the covenant she's the woman from genesis 3 15 revelation 12 and the fulfillment of all these things and why did the angel gabriel greet her the way he did when a week before in our study he talks to zechariah who's this this this high priest and he says nothing like this to him but yet when he meets her and it was just like this this experience that happened to me it wasn't just this truth i learned and i feel like those guys that are praying the rosary and anybody else out there when you begin to just crack the door to her a little bit she will she will overwhelm you with love and grace and mercy and bring it directly to jesus in a way that you won't be able to understand that is so true but it's also so important uh because it is the balancing of the head and heart it's also something you know i i kind of feel a sense of jealousy right now because i had nailed down about 99 out of 100 catholic doctrines that i could prove from scripture but i had such an aversion to marian doctrine and marian devotion it was the last thing but honestly it just felt like if they're right about all of these other things it seems likely that they're probably right about mary as well her immaculate conception her bodily assumption or heavenly queenship and all of that and so i prayed a rosary before i i could justify it and i apologize to our lord in advance i did this upset you yeah you know but i i think that she enabled me then suddenly to experience the truth the objective reality of the doctrine before i could take credit for studying my way to marian belief or marian devotion and it's so appropriate i suppose that you know we're digging but god is digging you know it's like digging a tunnel from both sides and you know it was right to the heart you know and that is what i still i mean i i'm not sure there's been a day in the last 35 years where i haven't prayed at least one rosary it is my favorite prayer and when i heard that pope saint john paul ii also called it his favorite prayer i felt no shame anymore you know in admitting even to my my academic colleagues and you know uh peers that this is this is my go-to prayer she is my mother and boy i tell you it really is i think the lifeline especially when we face the temptation of intellectualizing our conversion and trying to make it so that we have all the arguments so that when our family members want our friends when our former professors approach us you know it's like batting practice i i could really get puffed up with pride as to how well i could just hit every ball out of the park or so it felt you know but she keeps us grounded as sons and daughters and thanks be to god for the gift of his mother well when you think about like becoming one of the one of the appeals to me about becoming catholic was that i had spent so much time in in my protestant faith wrestling through different perspectives of theology you know i mean i i was raising a methodist my dad's a methodist pastor but i have friends that are that are calvinists that were into rc sprole and you know then i have some other friends of mine that that are into various other things and there seems to be always this jockeying for theological position trying to figure out all these nuanced things i think sometimes converts feel like they have to do the same type of intellectualism when it comes to their faith and we do to a certain point but for me one of the most liberating things was when i realized that that's what the church is for you know that i can rest in the authority and the beauty and the promise given to the church that the truth is there and the truth is protected and it's all of it you know the holy spirit guides us into all truth and that liberates us from sort of having to go on this endless quest to try to discern the truth about every little thing but i think sometimes we we still fall into that as catholics and what you just said about the blessed mother sort of you can take a rest from that and just climb up into her lap and let her bring you to jesus you know and as a child people will understand especially our lady why it is that we are so zealous to share you know i'm i'm thinking about how naturally it is for how natural it is for converts to identify with the characters and the gospel stories where jesus heals you of something that you'd almost given up on you know and and you just you've got to tell somebody and when he says well you know don't don't just don't tell anybody you're like yeah whatever you know and you tell everybody and our lord can work with that as well as we read in the gospels even if it means he has to go further off in a distant place where the crowds won't bother him but i i do feel as though the zeal is something that the lord will bless when we have the opportunity to share the exciting journey that we've been on coming to a place that is not only unexpected but sort of the last place on earth i would have ended up you know expecting to end up and so yeah uh i just had another thought too about um the conversion experience you know there's a balance that has to be struck because um you you do owe it to your family members and to your friends to explain why you're doing this uh this unthinkable this abhorrent thing you know and you don't ever get a chance to say okay let's sit down for two hours i'll spend an hour and a half giving you my arguments and then when you rebut i will respond you know never happens especially in families but i think what we can do with our parents with our older siblings with our professors is you know something like this i am more grateful for my evangelical formation today than on the day i was ordained a presbyterian minister i'd get an a plus if i took a lie detector test because that is the heartfelt truth i would also say to my youth workers you know the guys who worked with me in high school you know you taught me to trust the word of god you trust you you you taught me to submit my life to the lordship of jesus christ and even though i i turned left in a way that you think is completely wrong you know i have you to thank and i'm more grateful for those lessons than ever before and and likewise to your parents whether they're practicing or not let them see that as a catholic you are a better son or daughter you show more respect you feel deeper gratitude and it's not like a rhetorical strategy it's it's it's really being drawn into a deeper reality that you ever knew before or you've experienced a deeper grace than you ever received before so just say you know mother you i mean you might not share the marian beliefs or devotions with me but you made it easier for me you know you don't have to add you know your temper made it easier for me to want a mother who is perfect and sinless but i mean just our fathers and our mothers are so often the uh the copper wire through which the divine current passes to reach us in spite of ourselves and sometimes in spite of our family members too but that kind of gratitude is what leads to the joy of the gospel of which pope francis writes so well and it's the joy that we discover in becoming a catholic where it isn't subtracting the beliefs that we once be associated with the gospel it's adding beliefs it's almost like multiplying our faith exponentially and so that joy i think is far more contagious than the best proof to text that we can deploy from memory in a strategic way and i i those are some of the lessons too that i think we have to relearn no matter where we are in the journey no matter how recently or how far in the past our conversion might be okay so when you were talking about that it sort of reminded me of like instead of saying well i was i was a bad protestant now i'm a good catholic you know i've gone from the dark side to the light side or whatever which is not a good way to talk about it obviously i like to think about it like this is the fulfillment of that kind of like for the the early christians they didn't say even even though they there were some things that that appeared to look drastically different they didn't repudiate their judaism they said no this is the fulfillment of that that's right and i kind of look at it the same way like like catholicism is really like everything that you've learned as a protestant growing up this is now the fuller scope of it and i think that's a healthy way to talk about it you know 20 years ago kimberly and i founded the saint paul center we're in this we're in the saint paul center studio right now and we uh we really identify with st paul for so many reasons most of them are obvious but he is the archetype of the convert and yet when you look more closely you realize he didn't convert in the conventional sense of leaving judaism and embracing christianity because as a jew as a pharisee even as a persecutor he knew that god had promised to send the messiah he was just convinced that jesus wasn't him you know and so when he encountered our lord on the damascus road he had to almost be blinded in order to see he had to be blinded naturally in order to gain supernatural sight to to really recognize that no jesus is it and so he didn't end up adopting a different sacred book he just ended up going back to reread everything he thought he knew so well and then suddenly it's upside down no it's right side up it's still true no it's far more true you know jesus ends up fulfilling the law of the prophets in a way that exceeded the highest hopes of all of my fellow hebrews and you know in a certain sense i would say after 35 years the father son and holy spirit mary and the saints and all the holy angels they're still blowing my mind slightly more than it was 36 or 37 years ago the good news doesn't stop getting better it just keeps getting better and better and i think that's the challenge that we also face is that we we've got to be careful not to just kind of memorize our talking points you know so that we have our story down and we know what points to hit it really hits us in a fresh way so that when we share it people are going to say that doesn't say that that doesn't seem to be canned i mean that really is something and i and i feel like i feel like that is the key to constant conversion that's the key to the joy of the gospel that's the key to connecting with people because i tell you you know i was just talking to these two brothers the other night after i'd met them last weekend for about an hour and a half and they were like oh thank you for your time and i'm like you know i enjoy this more than you do you know this is what i live for my conversion might be 35 years in the rearview mirror but i still feel like i'm i'm driving right for it and so i think the more we can renew the wellspring through study especially through prayer and finding a watering hole it might be bishop baron it might be keith nestor whoever just provides fuel for the spiritual fire in our hearts i think we've got to make it a steady diet you know to to have that fire reignited renewed on a daily basis so what do you think are some resources that are available now that you didn't have i mean i know that you like you weren't on youtube watching videos and listening to podcasts in 1986 you know um do you think that was a good thing or a bad thing uh i don't think it was a good thing for there to have been so much fewer resources i don't think it was a bad thing that there wasn't the internet or youtube because i do find that you know here at the franciscan university of steubenville where i've taught for 31 years where all six of my kids have gone through and graduated i i do find that the millennials generation z whatever you want to call them uh they don't read as much it's just too easy to kind of google it and find it inside it you know and i and i wonder someday i wonder sometime if there won't be a day where you know something happens and we'll have to go back but you know going back to the the mid 80s apart from a friend who i knew up at gordon carnival he taught at gordon college tom howard rest his soul he just died within the last few months and he was a dear friend and he was going to go russian orthodox then at the last minute he just turned into the catholic church and joined the year before i did i i hadn't had a chance to talk to him i expected to hear that he was going orthodox but back then i mean that was like going russian or chinese it was just unthinkable uh and it was a desert experience for sure i mean i had the scriptures i had the church fathers i had a number of books you know garage lagrange especially as well as bouilla and dulubach and donnie lou but i am so amazed at how in 35 years our lord has brought out of the desert something that feels more like a garden and here at the center we're not only producing books through our publishing arm emmaus road and emmaus academic we're reprinting books i in fact i'm really excited about one and this is not meant to be an advertisement this is go for it go for it the next section of the you know of my own sharing um i read a book by philippe de la trinitae who was uh discounts carmelite and he distilled aquinas and anselm in a book called what is redemption i think it was volume 25 or 26 in a 150 volume series called the encyclopedia of 20th century catholicism i read it and it showed me that you know god the father bashing his son inventing his wrath against him on the cross because he bore our sins and he couldn't see his son he could only see our sins and so he finally got it out of the system so that he could basically pour out the reward for jesus righteousness upon us and impute that right you know there are so many problematic elements about the father not recognizing his son but seeing our sin and executing an innocent victim just because he happens to be willing i mean it's divine schizophrenia it's injustice and yet it's the gospel for so many people and it's the closest counterfeit to what anselm and aquinas call vicarious satisfaction you can't execute a guy who's innocent on behalf of other people who are guilty of heinous crimes just because he's willing especially if he happens to be your only beloved son and so on the other hand what doesn't work in criminal court for capital offenses does work in tort cases of financial law where you know christ paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay and that's what saint and someone saint thomas aquinas say and so christ doesn't just pay back to the father through his sacrifice exactly what we owed as aquinas explains in question 48 of the the third part of the summa it isn't just sufficient payment it's super abundant so he's not just atoning for our sins while his slayers are killing him his love is so much greater than the malice of his slayers that while they're torturing and killing him he is redeeming and saving them and like again if your brain isn't exploding at that point you know you might need a transplant or something because i mean that book what is redemption that i read when i was a protestant and i think it's partly because i was a calvinist and so i didn't just preach penal substitution i didn't just teach it i i ate i drank i breathed it and then suddenly when i realized that is not authentic currency that what is going on doesn't in any way suspend the trinity and the relation of the father and the son it reveals that so that never was the sacred humanity of jesus so lovely for the father to behold as when he was there for three hours hanging on the cross because he wasn't the victim of divine wrath or roman injustice he was the victim of merciful love and this is what i mean it's like the good news just keeps getting better not only are there still more dominoes falling but there are many more in in many different lines and so i would encourage you know whoever is listening watching us you know that don't let the doctrine become you know just a series of propositions that you recite in the creed each sunday you know blow off the dust and look at those sacred mysteries and realize wow that's a that's an emerald that's a ruby that's an amethyst that's the pearl of great price that's the that's the hope diamond you know these things are more precious than gems our faith is more precious than our own physical life and you know i didn't mean to go on for so long but i'm not discussing i can't help it well i think about that dichotomy that a lot of us came from where it was the penal substitutionary atonement idea and you know there are elements of you know jesus takes our sin we take his righteousness but that's too simplistic i think and when we realize that what christ did was offer himself out of love for us that puts a completely different component to it that's central to what the gospel is all about it's not just god grabbed the innocent and punished him jesus makes a point to say no one takes my life from me i give it willingly again you know this book what is redemption has been out of print for 60 years it's coming back in print in the next 60 days i got to write the forward and i'm really excited about that you know but back then since we were talking about what it was like in the 80s i could almost count on one hand the number of books that had come out after vatican ii that really lit the way i mean it was just it was so confusing it was so divided it was so chaotic you know and yet our lord just led me in a way that you know skipping merrily through a minefield without a single explosion you know you get you have to give god not only all of the credit but immense glory as well but now i mean it's not ju ewtn was just barely starting back then catholic answers was just beginning it was like two people mostly part time you know and i ended up discovering carl keating and pat madrid and all of these other amazing people but what god has done in the last 35 years exceeded the faith that i had i wouldn't have had enough faith to ask him to do what he's done but the need is so great for still more to be done you know uh discovering your apostolate recently as well as your mentor devon you know and what he's doing with saint joseph custos and these sorts of things you know it's like a cascade it's like a tsunami it's like an avalanche and yet we still need more and more uh because let's face it the new evangelization is the public response to what has never been publicly called but has always been a kind of new devangelization you know where the secular culture is becoming so much more horrendously secularized and it's weaponizing almost everything in the public square to de-christianize people to help them privatize religion to help weaponize religion so that people think that it's hate speech without even having to think about it you know and so our efforts have got to match theirs and then some and i can't help but think that the best is yet to come i mean the worst is too you know but when it gets darker the light shines brighter and so you know i i i i've often described to my friends how for 35 years i have felt like the forest gump of catholic theology when people tell me oh you're so intelligent you write so much i'm like if i didn't know me i might be impressed but since i go to confession every week for 35 years and my wife and my kids have never said i go too often you know it's a reality check for me to see i am still a sinner i'm made to be a saint the sacraments don't make it easy along with the saints they just make it possible and so you know i just feel like you know i'll race you to heaven keith on your mark get set go oh well i wouldn't want to be in a race to get to heaven with you and next to me that's for sure but i can tell here's here's a couple things that that i could think of when i think of the world in 1986 and then for when i came in in you know 2017 first of all in 1986 this is going to sound weird to say but you know we didn't have you so like there was no scott han conversion story that somebody could hand somebody like was handed to me there was no the journey home program back then where we could see all of these things and i'm sure you had your resources but i feel like today you know we have such a blessing a treasure of converts that have come into the church that have helped people and i remember when i was starting to you know after a period of just not wanting to be in ministry just be catholic you know my priest told me he said i'm going to leave you alone for a year and i was happy to do that but when i started talking about my faith a little bit i was amazed at how many people would contact me with the same story you know and it was the story that you and i both had i just discovered this and i know nothing about it you know and tell me and i keep thinking to myself well they don't need me they've got so many other people but what i'm learning is we're all needed you know because we all have a different perspective and a different group of people that are drawn to us and i feel like as catholics we've got to have our eyes open don't we to to how we can be helpful to these converts that are out there with these questions so i guess i would ask you what do you think that the average catholic who's you know whether they're a convert or not they're in the church they're catholic what can we do to be more helpful to those that are trying to find their way into the catholic church well let's just back up one step and say whether they're cradle catholics or converts there's a sense in which we as converts can not only thank them for holding down the fort and keeping the lights on and the door unlocked for us amen we can also remind them of what we've discovered and that is we're all converts and we're always converting you know and so don't just kind of rest because if you're not moving forward you know on a on a steep mountain you're going to end up sliding backwards i would also say this that i suspect that you and i and many others share this experience in common that we're so grateful for the catholic church the hierarchy the magisterium the skeletal structure of the body of christ that is upright and strong but we're also grateful for not only the muscle the organs the sinew the tissue but the fact that there is a soul that is almost invisible that there is a lay apostolate that there is a laity that has come that is coming alive that in a sense we're we're prodding the slumbering giant and that's the catholic church and you know at times the hierarchy can be like a skeleton that creaks you know but it doesn't matter because we we know that when the bishop lays hands on my son jeremiah on may 21st of this year you know he'll be a priest and he'll confess the eucharist you know and likewise my son joe uh we've got two in the seminary preparing for the priesthood thanks be to god amen but there's just something so objectively real about the uh the grace of god that comes to us through the sacraments and all of that but here's what i'm thinking when i was in high school when i first experienced the grace of salvation i had a mentor in jack then another one an art then an rc sprole you know and then when i went off to college we went to the next level you know there was terry and there was brad and there were all these guys and my professors who were investing themselves in my life and then i went to seminary at gordon conwell and there was roger nicole and i got to be his ta and jack davis an amazing professor all of these colleagues and professors and then when i i decided i might be called to become a catholic i went to marquette and i went into this desert zone where there was a complete vacuum of mentors where there was no discipleship and it's like knocking on doors and if i had said i can become a jesuit you know i'm sure they would have given me the time of day but i was married so that wasn't not an option and so i i resolved when i became a catholic you know it never occurred to me that i would step into a kind of fame that i you know i i didn't really want um and today i suppose i want it for some wrong reasons but you know if god can use it then glory to him but i remember you know spending time a lot of spare time reading and studying and all of that for two or three or four years until kimberly came in and just wondering why are there no mentors disciplers i want to make up for lost time and so when we moved here in 1990 to steubenville ohio to take a position in the department of theology where at that point we had over 200 theology majors now it's closer to 500 and almost immediately we bought a house big enough not only for our three kids now we have six and they're all grown up we we bought a house big enough so that we could invite students to live with us not as borders but as extended families so tim gray was the first one who was uh you know i i'd had him as a freshman and so he came and lived with my family ted sri was another one curtis martin was another one michael barber and then jeff cavins for a while and so all of these guys were coming to stu and build a study and they had me for class they had me in office hours but to have i think in the last 31 years we've had between 55 and 60 guys live with us some of them are priests you know and others all kinds of things but you know i would say discipleship mentoring whatever you want to call it it really is a form of spiritual reproduction and it was part of our dna as evangelical as evangelical protestants and now that we're evangelical catholics it's not like well tone down the evangelical no you know evangelical catholic is not some kind of mixed bag you know like you know an oxymoron as though you're a married bachelor evangelical catholic you got to choose one of the other it really is just being a more radically consistent catholic to look for opportunities again with family members with friends if you're in a high school or if you do rcia you are that little link in the chain you know we're not indispensable in the kingdom but all of us are useful you know god can use anybody but i think at the end of the day perhaps the most important lesson that our lord wants to teach me for i think the ten thousandth time is this scott i i wanna sanctify you more than i want to use you to sanctify other people i want you to become a saint alone with me like our lord says in the simmer of the mount so that your father who sees in secret will reward you more that i want to you know because that kind of fame and you're going to taste it more and more that sort of celebrity status does not conduce well to sanctity it's it's an impediment i have found myself distracted so many times by you know oh lord so many people want so much for me and he's whispering scott no they don't they just want me and so make sure you're filled with me because that's really why they're coming to you they want more of the holy spirit they want more of the truth of god's word and so we've just got to completely we've got to be completely honest with ourselves and say how seductive how subtle that kind of distraction is and so that's why conversion is for converts something not only necessarily continuous but in some ways perhaps more necessary for guys like you and me than it might be for joe six pack in the pew you know i think that's huge you know to to and i think this is a good lesson for for converts coming in and really for anybody but especially for someone who's new to catholicism is to remember because there's so many things as catholics especially as a new catholic that you have to learn how to do you have to learn okay i got to pray this prayer this holy day of obligation this different thing you know i mean it's just endless it's enculturation it is but i think remember always guys at the heart of it is your relationship with jesus and his interest isn't in just trying to get you to do more stuff it's to to draw you near to his heart and all of the stuff around catholicism it's not meant to be just these hoops that we that we jump through so we can check the box say okay i fulfilled my obligation you know that's what we are accused of often but we can't let it become that it's it's got to become that that road of discipleship that we are constantly moving with jesus and that's a lesson that i had to learn as a new catholic um because there's you can get overwhelmed easily with all the stuff that's right you know c.s lewis made a comment i didn't memorize it so i won't get it exactly but from memory he said you know the apologist faces a difficulty that when you hear yourself explaining the mysteries of faith you know they end up feeling as almost as though they they came from you or they depend upon you and we get so good at mary the pope purgatory the saints the seven sacraments and all of these things that we forget that you know they're not just subject matter this is the objective reality without which i don't have a chance of becoming a saint you know but in a kind of divine conspiracy yes that's really why we're here and we can have a whole lot of fun you know i again i i felt like forrest gump run forrest run you know and i just keep finding more and more it's also in narnia you know further up and further in you just never it never gets old uh and if it does that's a sign that you know we need a heart transplant out with the heart of stone and with the heart of flesh and that's what the sacred heart or the immaculate heart are for this is more than devotionalism these are deep realities that are really making it so that even if we're on life support you know we're it's eternal life support and that again is not just a catholic zinger that is more real than any life support system you might find at a hospital amen well i have a couple more questions for you i know we're getting short on time so i just wanna i'm just gonna throw these out to you and i'd love to hear your take on it but what do you think are like two or three of the most important things that new catholics need to know when they're coming into the church you know that the objective reality that we have discovered to be true is also subjectively powerful and that you know focusing it on content that adds so much luster to what we already believed it's so right but you know it's sort of like inhale before you exhale you know breathe in the breath of god's spirit come holy spirit come holy spirit living in mary and continually inhale you know but then exhale share the breath of the spirit you we we consumed the word made flesh in the holy eucharist and so itamissa asked you know this masses and that we're on mission that's what misa means it's not just where we get mass it's also where we get missionary and so exhale but you can't give what you don't have and you know ultimately you have to have more you know to bring somebody up to this point you've got to be at a higher level and for that i would say the mass proper preparation for it daily mass if possible the rosary and you know combining those and taking your beads to the adoration chapel once it opens up again and just you know going through the sacred mysteries of the rosary with our lady hand in hand and i would also say sacred scripture is not less important but more you know i'm fond of pointing out this discovery that i made years ago you know where in the new testament you find the sacrifice of the mass well the only thing jesus ever calls the new testament the only time he uses that greek phrase he kind of diatheke is when he's instituting the eucharist in luke 22 25 luke 22 20. and uh first corinthians 11 25 and so once you realize that the new testament was a sacrament before it became a document according to the document it doesn't devalue the document it invests far more sacramentality far more divine truth and so reading sacred scripture especially from the heart of the church what are the readings for today's mass what are the readings for next sunday's mass and so really getting in lock step with our mother the church in terms of how we read the scripture when we read these passages that's really important too so the eucharist obviously the blessed virgin mary and the sacred scripture and then i would just say father show me my older siblings help me to make deep friendships with the saints and especially my guardian angel you know i pray the guardian angel prayer most days dozens of times before i enter class to all of my students and their guardian angels before we did this program as well and before meetings and that kind of thing because you know if you had a friend wealthier than jeff bezos you know and and and more powerful than a nuclear bomb you know what would you do well you have a friend like that you know the guardian angel is that's not in any way hyped up exaggeration and so to have a best friend who exists for the purpose of getting us holy and getting us home to heaven you know those kinds of bonds that's what covenant theology really is you know it's it's a it's a theology of the family that you know you can really take home with you and it's what you discover when you get home that this this network of natural family and divine supernatural family it's so um penetrated that again it's almost too good to be true unless it is the truth of the gospel the whole truth and nothing but the truth and so you know that's not a quick answer but those are the things that came to my mind when you were asking so i got pray the rosary get ready like learn the mass go as much as you can read the sacred scriptures like don't think that now you don't have to do that and then dive into the intercession of the saints i remember you know the book of hebrews talks about that great cloud of witnesses that surround us that's that's meant more to me now as a catholic than i could ever explain that's right it's powerful and the writings of the saints as well as the biographies the lives of the saints that really inspires us too and then disciple people as much as you can and be and continually be mentored be formed spiritual direction i've gotten i've been a cooperator in opus dei for a year longer than i've been a catholic i never knew what spiritual direction was and once i found it i just couldn't turn my back on it i love what you said too about inhale before you exhale you know just let it let let the faith just take care of you and nurture you let jesus christ give you that life promised in the holy eucharist and then it will it will naturally come from you but okay i got one more question okay this is a different question kind of a different question a little personal that's okay but is there any advice let's say let's say you could get in a time machine right now and hop back to let's say 1986 is there any advice that that that dr han gives younger dr han maybe you weren't a doctor back then i don't know um when you're walking into the catholic church and you're starting to do this what advice would you give yourself from 35 years ago wow okay i mean the first thing would be to go back over the same things that we were just talking about i would want to prepare better to sell it for the celebration of the mass i'd want to pray the rosary a little bit slower i'd also want to read scripture more than i did although i i did it a fair bit i would also want to avoid argumentation more than i did and you know the old adage people don't know how they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care uh i wish that i had been less of a zealot you know but on the other hand you know god works you know god writes straight with crooked lines and so i would say you know at the end of the day um everything i write i look back on and reread and blush you know but now i'm writing things that in a year or two i'll look back on reread and blush you know and so i think that um i'm reminded of a line that uh then father ratzinger gave to one of his doctoral students you know be courageous enough to accept your limitations uh and and that is what i'm discovering now that i'm in my 60s is that when you slow down you know there's a sense in which you realize that it isn't primarily how hard you row you know there's a sense in which hoist the sails let the wind of the spirit carry you because god can do more for me than i can do for him and uh and for other people too and so you know when you have that sense of a deeper peace you also end up with a sense of a deeper joy um but you know honestly i you're you're asking the wrong guy because i've had like three meetings this morning and this afternoon and the one thing that everyone who works with me at the st paul center knows about me is that he second guesses himself or do i no i don't yes i do you know and so the only thing that i'm really sure of are the sacred mysteries the reality of the catholic faith is what gets me through and so you know when i think back not only to 35 years ago what would i do differently i could think back to 35 minutes ago and second guess myself into a state of paralysis why did i say this to keith why didn't i say that and all of this so you know trust god you know he has it's a strange sort of paradox he has predestined all of us to be entirely free and i totally believe freely in his total sovereign control over every single detail of my life that doesn't diminish my freedom that enhances and perfects it and so you know just keep following jesus well it could all you could also think about it too in terms of is there any encouragement you would have given your younger self like were there moments in those early days where you were struggling maybe now today you would look back and say hey it's going to be okay i mean it's it's not that's true i mean you know yeah two things just as a ps one less debates and more dates with kimberly okay you know i just i wish that i had been a better husband to her um yeah um boy i can't even start down that road yeah the other thing i i think of is uh the encouragement that i would give you know was it seems dark it seems hopeless you know you've committed professional suicide you're not celibate so you'll never have a job you know these were the things that these were the things that i feared so much that they were almost paralyzing me because i turned my back on theology on ministry and the pastorate and all of that and and and i had no lack of faith when it came to the truth but i had such a lack of trust when it came to how totally in control of my life i wasn't but he was and still is and so just trust the lord extend to him an unlimited line of credit that no bank would ever even dream of doing you know amen i want i want all of you listening to this to really key in on what dr han just said because i know many of you are in that place where you're feeling the call of the catholic church but you also look at your life and everything that it would cost you to walk through that door of the catholic faith and you're in this tough spot where you know this is the truth but the realities and the practicalities of life and what the unknown of what it's going to look like here hear dr han say that trust the lord trust god because i guarantee you this you know when in 1986 if you were to ask scott hahn do you think that in 35 years you'll be you'll be doing what you're doing now i i don't know that you would have been able to call that not one percent yeah exactly i i think our our yeah i think our lord and i have an agreement that i will let you use me to sanctify others as long as you promise to finish the work that you began in me because it seems like i'm farther away from holiness than i was when i started you know that's and i think that's ultimately the beauty of our discipleship is that the closer we get to jesus the more radiant he becomes the more holy we recognize him to be which then of course turns to ourselves and we realize all the more that we need his mercy we need his grace we never get to a point where we check that box and go yup i've arrived when you become catholic guys you're not going to be able just to like go okay all of that struggle all of that search is now over it's you're just beginning but it's a good thing it's awesome one last thought you know from what you just said uh i'm thinking of paul in romans eight you know that the suffering that we have to undergo isn't even worth comparing to the glory that awaits us that's not only true eschatologically that's true today tomorrow and the next day because i do know many colleagues and friends of mine who have deliberately stopped short because of the professional consequences or because the interpersonal difficulties that they face you know but as marcus grodi have shared so many times that what you give up isn't even worth comparing to what you get in the holy eucharist you know and the the lessons that we have learned and taught about the lordship of jesus christ this really is for people you know maybe not the final exam we'll have on the last day but it's more than a midterm it really is it is the test of faith not just whether we can teach them and believe them but whether we can entrust ourselves and like a rich young ruler you know who could not give up what he saw but if he'd only looked at what he would get instead he'd be like you know these are nothing but pennies in my pocket compared to the riches that await me amen none of the disciples decided they wanted to go back to being fishermen and tax collectors they they didn't say that they did that well dr hunt thank you so much before we go tell us a little bit about what you've been up to i know you mentioned the saint paul center i just ordered this book by the way and i started reading it last week and it's it's amazing it is right and just and this is this is fantastic i just want to tell you i really appreciate it and i've been i look forward to finishing it i've been digging into it a little bit and it's yeah that is my most recent book i had two in 2020 one near the beginning and one near the end and it was so ironic because i just thought these are good books but i had no i didn't have the sense of divine timing just days after the coveted pandemic became public my book hoped to die the christian meaning of death and the body came out and it was just like well done lord you knew but none of us knew and then right after the most controversial presidential election of my life you know it is right and just came out why the future of civilization depends upon true religion and it's not about you know trying to establish a theocracy through political action or whatever it's just recognizing that god the father has already established a christocracy and that you know he's given us our marching orders make disciples of all nations you know ours is not the reason why ours is but to do or die we just have to be faithful to the great commission and try to become true disciples and then make disciples of all of the ethnic all of the groups the communities that we're a part of and and i have i have nothing but gratitude to god for the timing of these two books but i also want to thank all of my co-workers here at the saint paul center and our publishing arm emmaus rhodes because i am so proud but also humbled by the team that our lord has assembled to put this out there and have it such have to be such high quality i've worked with doubleday and you know random house in the past and uh my teammates have made you know these books as big and beautiful as anything i've ever done since the lamb's supper and so i also want to say check out the saint paul center dot com the saint paul center for biblical theology beginner intermediate advanced we just started live streaming a brand new journey through scripture called perusia the bible and the mass on ash wednesday and uh so free live streaming at the saint paul center website 10 episodes about 20 minutes a piece where i basically break down the lamb's supper the fourth cup and all of the other talks that i've given on the holy eucharist in sacred scripture and so i could go on and on but i will wear you out well i i would i would uh eat it like candy because it's i mean that stuff has just been so huge for me so all those links will be in the description you guys and i encourage all of you jump in and grab some of those resources from the saint paul center they are they are fantastic the bible and the sacraments i remember um that's from saint paul center isn't it yeah that's right the bible and the sacraments the bible and the virgin mary that blew me up that blew me away when i was some of the church fathers the last five years worth when i was coming into the church i didn't go through rcia my priest just we went met together and he gave me the the bible and the sacraments and it was it was incredible and that's exciting so i encourage all of you guys to check that out well dr hunt thank you once again for not just for being here on this podcast to me but really for your for your ministry and for you know the way you've you've just changed so many people's lives by your willingness to overcome that fear overcome those all of those things that you had to sacrifice all of the the the theological treason you had to commit back in the day you mentioned that earlier i can relate to that but you know you you did you kind of blazed a trail and a lot of us are here because of that so the lord has used you in a mighty way and i know you don't take credit for it personally but i just want you to know that god has used you in my own personal life and in the lives of many people that i know so i want to thank you for that first you're welcome thank you keith not only for this time but for all that you're doing with your wife estelle and uh i just pray that the lord magnifies his glory through your work because you know it's just an exciting discovery for me to see another fellow apostle doing very faithful and fruitful labor god bless you well thank you so much hey everybody thank you so much for watching this episode of catholic feedback i know that it is one that you will probably want to watch again please share it if you found it helpful and i want to thank you guys for supporting the podcast if you have a question that you'd like me to tackle here at catholic feedback please send an email to me at feedback catholicfeedback.com and i'll add it to the mix god bless you guys take care and we'll see you next week thanks for listening to catholic feedback with keith nester send in your questions and comments to feedback at catholicfeedback.com this podcast is brought to you by stewardship a mission of faith and is also supported by our team at patreon.com forward slash keith nester please consider joining our support team catholic feedback is a production of down to earth ministries for more information about down to earth or to bring me to your parish or event visit downthenumber2earthministry.org see you next time

Channel: Keith Nester

Views: 54,299

Rating: 4.9576344 out of 5

Keywords: Keith Nester, Catholic Feedback, Catholic, Catholic Podcast, Catholic Talk Show, Catholic Radio, Catholic TV, Catholic Show, Taylor Marshall, Matt Fradd, Mike Schmitz, Robert Barron, Catholic Answers, Catholic Stuff You Should Know, Church Militant, Bishop Barron, Unpacking the Mass, Rosary Crew, Scott Hahn

Id: POE574q4c08

Length: 60min 13sec (3613 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021