Sunday Night Live - How to Study the Bible - Fr Groeschel with Livinia Spirito - 07-25-2010

well good evening to Sunday night alive and I just want to mention that I have no complaints about the New York Times or Time magazine or all the other people who attack the Catholic Church they missed this week I don't read them but my friends check them out for me and they tell they missed who knows maybe they're getting converted but be wonderful our topic next week is a beautiful one contemplatives in the streets people who have the ability to contemplate the presence of God in everyday life and the person leading with it a friend of mine for many years sister Carol Marie superior of the parish visitors of Mary Immaculate this was an order that was start in New York oh the early part of the 20th century sisters who work in parishes in apostolic ways not as teachers and perhaps during a mission or something like that and we are so pleased to have sister Carol Marie next week now this week our visitor is an extremely interesting person with an outstanding background lavinia spirito who founded one of the founders as Catholic Way Bible study now let me say something about Bible study years ago Catholics were not good at Bible study and in the 80s and 90s there was a big Porsche to study on the Bible and about the Bible and interestingly I can't figure why among Protestants there seemed to me a decline of the study of the Bible now this was of course not true of evangelical Protestants who loved the Bible but the Catholics were studying more and many of the main stream Protestants were not spending so much then there came along into biblical studies what is something called the historical critical critical method it was a way of studying the Bible in a way that I never found comfortable with it at all and they were explaining away things or giving explains to this some of them even explained away the miraculous the mysterious and want to read to you a little bit from Pope John Paul the second and volume one of his beautiful series Jesus of Nazareth waiting for the next issue and the Pope writes as historical critical scholarship advanced it led to finer and finer distinctions between the layers of tradition and it pointed out that they came up with all sorts of theories of what Jesus was was he a revolutionary was yet very pacifistic person and the Pope says all these attempts have produced a common result the impression that we have little certain knowledge of Jesus and only at a later stage did faith in his divinity shape the image we have of M this impression has now penetrated deeply into the minds of Christian people this is a dramatic situation for faith because it's point of reference is put into doubt image image image intimate friendship with Jesus on which everything depends is in danger clutching at thin air and this excellent book which I hope you may have been feet read I've been recommend to get several times Paul Benedict the sixteenth Jesus of Nazareth published by doubleday what this is doing is bringing into the center of Christian life and of Catholic life for a study of the scriptures not only the New Testament and the gospel but the whole Bible now my friend mrs. spirito who came on with us tonight Lavinia she belongs and is one of the founders of Catholic Way Bible study and I hope you're going to be getting hold of us through the the whole series it's led by the ship Ronald gainer of Lexington and all these people mostly are from Lexington like yourself so would you be able to give us now some of what you're doing well before you do that what are you doing with the rest of your life she's a mother so tell me I'm a mother I have two daughters 19 and 15 so I'm still you know in there a little bit and I have a wonderful husband who is very busy we're in the horse business in Lexington Kentucky and I'm an attorney I practice in juvenile court in the Fayette County school system and then in my spare time I teach the Bible and we've been doing it for 10 years actually this is our 10th anniversary year so we're there blessed to be able to have been doing this for 10 years and hope to maybe have it you know another 10 years Wow I teach our CIA occasionally I do I speak around the diocese and I hope you're gonna tell us about about the tremendous work that has been done on in this Bible series Catholic Way Bible study this is simply the gospel of Saint Luke what is in this well I tell you what's in here is blood sweat a lot of work we're all volunteers and you know I'm here I'm the face of the Bible study because I do the lectures but there is a whole Legion of people who work behind this Bible study both I compose the lectures and I give them but there's a whole question development team that develops the homework questions you know and they spend untold hours in that there's a whole administrative team we have over between 250 and 300 people who come every week so you know where do you put the chairs I mean it becomes a traffic problem too often times DVDs that you're putting out there are DVDs and CDs and CDs and these are gonna go to other parts of the country well you know people started asking me can you come do this you know in my parish or you can you come twelve Tuesday night can you and I said look I can't I've got a family so we started taping the lectures just to kind of as the need for other people and what happened was people said well can we have the questions can we have the administrative know-how so before you know it we started producing the whole package and in this Bible study package you get the 23 or 24 lectures one hour you get the homework questions each week and then you also get an administrative CD that tells you everything it's really adult education yes its examined a whole series which includes Old Testament and New Testament would take about two hours a week for nine months yes sir so it's like going off to taking a graduate course although you're doing it right home and perhaps a group of you are doing it together some people the pastor even the bishop gets involved with it I think all the bishops down in Kentucky have been involved well they at least are permitting them in their diocese which were very grateful for now could you please give us right on our scene right now what is the DVD I mean the then address for the it's the initials of Catholic Way Bible study so it's C W bs org say it again C WB s dot or dot org and if you go online you'll see there will be snippets of the lectures there'll be certain sample format homework questions we have a whole bunch of information that I think will be very useful for everybody now I don't want to scare people but because many of our audience are like myself we're getting a little on the old side and we grew up years ago Catholics did not study the Bible very much if you went to Catholic High School you did start studying the Bible and if you went to Catholic College you might get a course in scripture but the change came along in the 80s but unfortunately unfortunately it was very much emphasizing the Criss historical critical method and it was taking the Bible apart what what did you say it's a little bit about my favorite annoyance well you know if suffice it to say you're not gonna find the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith dichotomy in our Bible study and by that what I mean what I want to say is we try to approach everything from the position of faith you know there's no reason to study the Bible unless you believe in it you're going to apply it to your life if you're gonna just make it a sport so that you can pick it apart because it doesn't stand up to your quote quiet criteria then you're wasting time what's the point you know it's our belief we believe that if you're going to study the way of God it should be something that you want to apply to your life so the sources that we use I also use I try to put it in a historical context but I also try and put it in an archaeological context and in a fill illogical context in a historical context and of course in a theological context but then everything has to relate to what it could what it can mean to me at this point how am I going to relate it to my life well you see what was doing in the 70s and 80s was an attempt well-meant attempt to do a scientific study of scripture and a believing scripture scholar Catholic Protestant Orthodox should be coming they thought to the same conclusions and an unbeliever and there were a couple of unbelievers who were scripture scholars I don't know what in the world they would what they doing I don't know right but they and they were shown a great deal of honour and supposedly if you could follow their system in some way or another you exposing to be more authentic and I I think that this unfortunately did a certain amount of damage to the belief of college students and graduate students and there were very fine people priests and laypeople scholars with doctorates and difficult subjects nonetheless walked into that and that at this particular point that whole approach has gone down the ladder Pope Benedict in his book as I said Jesus of Nazareth was nicely but very clearly critical of this whole approach and not that it couldn't be used but to be the single and sole guiding approach to Scripture you say to yourself is Jesus the savior of the world or did Jesus even exist exactly and did he multiplied the loaves and did he walk on water and did he did he foretell the destruction of Jerusalem within 40 years and did he did he raise himself you know in the end it comes to that either he's the Lord of the universe or he's not right and so this is pervaded actually not only our Christian studies but I have Jewish friends who I know who also some of that Jewish scholarship is very much well that was all mythology and that was obviously not referring to Jesus but referring to the Old Testament sure that you know the supernatural occurrence is the Old Testament there's also a tendency there to kind of reduce it down to fable that's meant to educate us but really it wasn't really true you know unfortunately and this is a somewhat dangerous statement I feel sorry for people who have never in their lives touched of the edge of the supernatural that they have not been somewhat in a situation which you could not explain from natural causes and such thing a couple of times happened to me in my life I lived with a man the venerable father saw analyst who were CLE regularly work miracles it was like living with Jesus you know at the time of his death there were several hundred well-documented reports of miraculous healings we have a break now so in the meantime start working on your questions for lavinia and we'll be back in a couple of minutes yeah just I would like to ask you for our audience I'm always trying to think of my audience and people perhaps are not prepared yes that complex what should people do when they start to say well I'm gonna start reading the Bible don't start with the first page yes well you know a lot of people say I started in Genesis and it went okay and then I went to Exodus I was okay and then I arrived at Leviticus and the whole thing just you know did not work out after that and then if people fall by the wayside I suppose the the secret is context context context right so if you're gonna read if your idea fication as you are saying probably it's best to start with a gospel it's best to start by putting the first things first right so Christ is the whole object of why we study the scripture to know him to love him to serve him to know what he says is true you know a lot people come up to me and they say I don't know what God wants for me I don't know what God's plan is for my life I don't know what God would want me to do in this situation and oftentimes I say well did you read what he said did you read the letters that he sent you did he read the scriptures I mean did you read his own personal revelation that he has set down for you because if you haven't then you can't say that you don't know what God wants you to do you're right because it's all there it's all a God in God's revelation so let me preface this we have people coming to our study who have to go out and buy a Bible because they've never even owned a Bible and we have them buy the Bible and a catechism on the other end we have people coming in with degrees in theology and in history who will also come in and our goal is to keep everybody interested not keep the newbies you know we don't want to freak anybody out okay I mean you want people to be interested we wanted to have a good community experience if we want to love the scriptures not run away tearing their hair out because they don't know what it means so we really try to but on the other hand we want to keep the interest of the people who may have been studying for a while and it's amazing because we've been able actually to hold the interest of both ends of the spectrum and everybody in between for nine months they said it would never work they said you're gonna make people come come back for nine months for an hour and a half you know for two hours every week and you're gonna make them do home look Catholics unheard of you know what's the thing in there if they learn the roof you know unheard of incredible well you know in fact if you give them what they want if you give them what they're hungry for they'll come back for it if you dumb them down and if you assume that they can't possibly you know be up to this when it said they're taking graduate courses on other materials why on earth couldn't they take maybe a more in-depth course on the Scriptures that's kind of where we're coming from now I'm gonna be a and talk about priests right now priests are over over worked the number of priests has drastically reduced and parishes in the past that had three or four priests now have won praise and maybe he's got to comparison he's got to rely on white people and the way people may feel that they're not prepared to do that but they can make themselves prepared and this is where a program like this or similar prog programs that if you've got a good group of people in a parish getting going on Scripture later on they might decide to go into church history or questions of the contemporary church but what a beautiful thing it would be in a parish to get 15 20 people interested who are educationally prepared not necessarily that they had a graduate degree or even necessarily a college degree but they're people who think who read who are concerned they're involved that's what you need and it seems to me this is a way in which the church can be enriched by the very sources from which it comes the sacred scriptures well you know we kind of noticed that because nobody ever wants to step up to the plate to lead stuff for to put stuff on they always say oh I wish I lived in wherever you all are at because then you know we could just come but really with the one of the reasons we put together this whole package we like to say it's a Bible study all you have to do is add water meaning it's got everything in it that you're ever gonna need just for that okay what you were saying which is a lot of people are very shy and they just are not used to taking a leadership role and I'm not really even thinking that they need to be have any particular level of education you're right they need to be thoughtful you know want to go deeper but you know we've had so many people come in who had to buy the Bible you know the famous people who never even been you know and and within a couple of years you know they come in they sit at the back they don't really know if they're gonna stay if they're gonna do the homework if they can hack it and then before you know it they're sitting in the middle and then one day I walk I look down and they're sitting in the front and they're in there taking notes and they're interested and that's just it's wonderful to see the lights go on you know they finally get it now this is very interesting because this is in Kentucky which was not an area and a large number of Catholics it was famous for having the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane yes I'm the Archdiocese of Louisville but and it was an old Catholic area yes and one of the earliest diocese was down there Barnes town but here you but maybe 20% of the people are Catholic it's a Bible Belt I mean yeah very it's mine or we're a mission diocese still the Diocese of Lexington but unfortunately we talk about the Bible vault but I read some of the regularly Protestant very good Protestant magazines been reading Christianity today for thirty years and I can see that the people who write are trying to get other people to stay in touch in the scriptures and somehow or other all of us get distracted from what we're supposed to be doing Catholics once knew a great deal about the Saints if you went to Catholic school you know all about the Saints many people today hardly know anything mm-hmm if I asked my audience tell me the first American Saint and you'd have to make a distinction the first American citizen was a saint was born in this city Mother Seton but who was the first Saint to be here in North America Saint Isaac jokes the missionary and the first Saint in the Western Hemisphere you probably never heard his name saying to Reba OH Archbishop of Lima but unfortunately Americans are not educationally strong as they were years ago and it's unfortunate this television could have been a marvelous instrument of education and it is largely an instrument of distraction happy to say EWTN if it watches you learn say yeah you know they gotta learn they do well actually that's one of the things we do Father is we've kind of used the Bible study as a springboard but then we bring in other topics so we do it on Saints I've done a whole series on Saints a whole series on the heresies like the ideas that cropped up and early on and keep cropping up nobody really can recognize them until there's you know their cause a disaster and they've crept in we've done a series on the history of the Catholic Church especially in times like these in which the Catholic Church seems to be in the headlights and nobody really can defend the glorious past of the church you know they don't really know they've never been taught you know so we try to address topics like that as well so as to furnish give people in their hands information that they can absorb either they listen to it in their car or they can show it to their children on a DVD form or they can put it in a parish library for example so it's all about giving the resources the Catholic Church has been around for 2,000 years and has included over the years billions of people when you think of all of those people you can talk about some of the worst people who ever lived and some of the best people ever lived you get a what they call a bell curve and at this little Allred to the curb they're pretty bad people like that the other red you have mother Teresa yeah right well now where would you like to tell us a little bit about your own personal love of the scriptures what is your experience you and your husband perhaps together as your family or girls where do you focus your intention attention on Scripture for me Scripture is as the church says the the revealed Word of God it's what the Lord wanted us to know about himself so I would like to take it very seriously the question for me was to study the scripture so that we would be able to put them in play in groups of people and then step back and see what the Holy Spirit did because the living word it's the word Living Word of God living an act of the double-edged sword as Paul says in Hebrews right so I knew that once we we put it into play it would do it something in a way we didn't even have to do anything you know just have to kind of assist it prepare it put it out there and then let let the Holy Spirit do its thing my girls and my husband you know tend to kind of put up with me in my in my studies and I'm very appreciative for that because I tend to go overboard sometimes you know studying I love to study I must say that the main reason that we do Bible study is because it is the most effective way to evangelize it is it is putting God in front of the people and it's evangelizing as we were talking about before the show is telling your story in a way that you point towards what God has done for you the Evangelion you know the event get the good news putting forth it's nice to get on your soapbox and talk in generalities but most people relate to stories and they were to personal stories not just stories not fairy tales but personal testimonies and in a way the the study of the Scriptures kind of facilitates those that personal witness to come through another goal and the reason that we say the Scriptures is to provide catechesis it's to provide education why do we do the things that we do as Catholics and as you were saying a lot of Catholics haven't received a an incredible you know amount of education and so it's a good thing to kind of put back in their hands why what the sacraments are about or what the what the apostolic succession is from what about when you do the Acts of the Apostles it kind of explains to you what the church looked like in embryo form back at Pentecost and and how did we get from there to here and in fact there is a logical journey that we took you know so things like that and then once you you take it you internalize and you are converted then you want to become formed you want to continuously overcome the obstacles to holiness that are in your path and then on top of that you want to become a disciple and those are the four things that we do when we study the scripture we want to evangelize we want to catalyze we want to form and we want to disciple and if you ask me that why am i doing that those are my four goals with my family with those closest to me and with those who walk off the street and join our Bible study and there's so many of them right now that I recognize the faces but often times I don't even I don't recognize the names you know that's that's it well you know we're at a time right now that the Hafidh church in this country and in some European countries is getting a great deal of very negative popular pop no nose nose bar and I'm very impressed week after week of the defense of Catholicism by non Catholics very beautiful thing pants written by Sam Miller it's very well known the Jewish leader Cleveland Cleveland beautiful and the sojourners magazine ad is a Protestant evangelical publication they came out very strongly in defense of the church joining the church but they're saying that this is an extremely unfair abuse of the church what is particularly painful Catholics who have nothing better to do with people like Maureen Dowd they have nothing else to do but attacked in the church and years and years ago there was someone attacking the Catholic Church and one of the old labor others Capetian lay brothers said to us it is a sick bird that be fouls its own nest a sick bird and so at this particular time it may be that this unhappy attention which has come because of a very bad understanding a moral responsibility and chastity of all places in the world I think that we will come through the other side led by the Pope himself he's been very clear we have a nice break please call in let me hear from you be having a two minute break so get to the telephone well we have our first call from Robert and it came out right the minute we had its minute Bob you must have been standing next to the phone tell me what's our first question tonight yes it's good to talk to you father Grosso shale and your guests I was just wanting to see you and now with her on there they would touch on the Bible that they're using to go by and it seems like I know the Catechism the Catholic Church a lot of its refers to those diverse groups on the New Revised Standard Version for Catholics and then in Mass and church they usually go by the new American Bible but sometimes just a little bit difference in them but if they would just both of you with your insight just kind of touch on that question and go from there and thank you very much okay Robert vilette's which version an accepted version of the Bible presently what would you like well I'm partial to the Revised Standard Version always have been yes and that's what I'm holding every night the Ignatius Bible which is the revived standard version of the Catholic edition it's a very very good readable and authentic however there are others around there is the new American Bible well which is very fine and some people like to go back to the Douay Rheims or the King James because of the beautiful right artistic name but you couldn't just read those and not read one of them our modern Bible there's even the Jerusalem Bible yes and as a that wonderful take on you know the Psalms especially the Old Testament it's beautiful but in the end the way people say what should what should I buy you know you should buy the one you're gonna read so and it should be a Catholic version of course because why short yourself seven books you know why not get the whole book so I would say definitely a Catholic book I would I would recommend the revised standard version but if you want you like the new American Bible or if you have another Bible that you like if it's large print or if it's got pictures or if it's got chapters I mean in the end or a footnotes or if it's a Study Bible use the one you're gonna use use the one you're gonna read don't use the one you were given when you were you know 10 and you can't see you can't read it or you know don't use the one that intimidates you go or me but sometimes the Bible is broken down into smaller books the Ignatius Study Bible for example has different books with footnotes so there are little tiny little books the book of the apart locks to the Apostles by itself the Gospel of Luke by itself the book of Revelation by itself and sometimes that's you know if you're going to study a book it's a bit more manageable chunk of information but always net with the main book never too far because the main quotient of vibra literacy is to be able to see a passage and then see in that passage all the residents so if you're if you're reading something from the Gospel of Luke and Mary says my soul doth magnify the Lord you should have enough eventually get to the point where you have enough Bible literacy that you can say hmm I saw this before I've seen something like this now who said this before Hannah Samuels mom similar circumstances what are they trying to tell me this you know what what what are the resonances between the New Testament and the Old Testament and once you can draw those conclusions or those wonderful speeches that Peter gives and in the book of Acts right after Pentecost when he's referring to all the Psalms and then the old book of the books of the Old Testament and but he's not giving you a reference he's just saying you know before you have said you will not let my soul you know perish in the tomb well where does that come from if you don't have any thing to go by you might think oh well that's what Peter's saying but Peters actually referring back to his his wonderful upbringing as a good Jewish boy where he learned all the scriptures so if they could do it when they were literate I think we we can - we've got now so we Asuza is waiting for us there Susie what's your question where you from hypothec Rochelle I'm Susie Paine my husband Keith and I met you in Rochester New York at the Abbey the Genesee where elderly new Catholic converts we came in because of the homily of Cardinal Ratzinger at the funeral of Pope John Paul and you graciously met with us before we became Catholic and in our elderly late 60's and anyway my question is I was involved for many years in Protestant Bible study groups evangelicals small home studies precepts Bible Study Fellowship and I just wanted to ask what Vindhya is her format more for a small group work for the large auditorium concept or for any it was my one question and two does she like to concentrate on a book by itself and then kind of accidentally weave in old into the Testament and the connections or does it take the whole thread of salvation or does she do both and Lavinia I wanted to ask you personally where did you get this passion are you a cradle Catholic yeah yeah I am a cradle Catholic I've had a passion for the scriptures my whole life I you know I think that if you want to study the Bible it's because you've experienced a certain degree of conversion you know it's related to conversion so if you love the Lord you want to know more about him that's the way I see it you know so that has always been my impetus you know she had a string of questions I hope I remember them all I am actually myself and Judy Paternoster who we founded this Bible study together were in Bible Study Fellowship for many years which is a non-denominational products in Bible study I was telling you before so yes we're from the year our format is very similar to a lot of the other Bible studies in that we have homework questions we have discussion groups and we have a wrap up lecture and we also have times of prayer and times of songs we just have a nice little package all tied together so that you come in and you have your fellowship and you have your discussion and then you have some somebody to bounce off your answers from and then in the end if you have any more questions the wrap-up lets you're supposed to hit all that you know so yes we have used those formats I don't I forgot what the other question was would you repeat that's what they oh it is designed to go you can do it at home study you can put your CDs in your car and do your homework by yourself or you can take it for a home study if you want to but it's designed to work very effectively in very large groups like I said our Thursday morning group is almost 300 people every Thursday morning and then we have a night group that's about 50 people and then we're running this study all across the country in different places and in England too and so they go from groups of ten to group of groups of 20 groups of 50 groups of 60 groups of I think there's one that's like eight so you know it just depends so but I mean the main answer is we designed this so it would not be limited to one format only so that everybody would be able to use it I won't answer all the questions we have a call now from patty patty where are you from and what you're going to ask us I'm from Richmond Virginia father god Bless You Father Groeschel here's my question I'm a history teacher and I teach 11th grade and I'm the mother of four teenage children and we're all Catholics I will say that my perhaps my question has already been answered by Lavinia but I'm wondering how palatable this is for my children as well as teenagers my my my own children get excited when they talk to their friends who experience evangelicals and especially my college level child who comes home and just gets fired up by the non Catholics and what they're saying so I'm just wondering if you think that this would do the same in reaching out to my own children and beyond because this is a deep need in terms of the Catholic youth out there and I'll wait for your answer thank you thank you we have actually several members who use the CDs and the DVDs with their children we've also had members who have brought their older teenagers and college aged children to Bible study with very good results if it were ever to be adapted for teenagers only maybe you would make it in maybe a more you know and maybe a lighter format may be shorter questions you know that kind of thing but yes it's been very successful we've had we've had good results and it answers the question of kids who belong to the Protestant churches with their family they're turned on to the Scriptures mm-hmm why can't Catholics be why the Catholics have to get the impression well we sort of leave the Bible out you hear people say this I am and unfortunately to some degree it's true now the Catholics have other emphasis the sacraments you know sacraments are not very much important in the Protestant world there's a central thing in Catholic life and Orthodox life the Holy Communion confession but these are directly from the scriptures and unfortunately from our point of view it was a very big mistake to leave the sacraments out of Christian life we have a call from Teresa Teresa where you're from and what you can tell us good evening father um I'm from Groton Connecticut and I'm a catechist and a confirmation teacher my question has somewhat been answered but I want to clarify do you do apologetics scripture apologetics in your Bible study for example the importance of the keys I mentioned in the Old Testament big beer you know the importance of Solomon's mother as pre mother and the relationship with the Blessed Mother in this Bible study yes yes we do that's one of the reasons we actually decided to develop our own materials so that we would have time to to to tie it all together if we needed to and wouldn't be limited to somebody else's project towards a program so yes absolutely you better believe anytime there is an apologetic approach that can be taken we go to town with it for example you know we've done the Gospel of John we hit very heavily of course the whole doctrine of transfer suction and the understanding of the body blood soul and divinity of the Lord in the Eucharist and what did that what does that mean we've we've tried to really hit that very thoroughly in acts we hit the whole concept of apostolic succession the whole concept of patron primacy nor the primacy of the Holy Father you know wherever we can I try to draw from also patristic sources that would be the the early church fathers who wrote about these topics very early on in the minute you pull in Clement of Rome you know writing in the 90s who is telling you about you know the proper role of deacons and priests and bishops in the early church and they're in inter from today's reading Ignatius of Antioch from the from the office you know he he's being marched to Rome to be fed to the Lions in 105 107 ad so that's pretty recent right I mean you imagine I mean that's that's almost at the same time as the the events of the Gospels you know it's a catalyzed by st. John and and he's saying the things that we say today so there is a continuity of doctrine it might be some development of doctrine but is that the seeds are there so yes you betcha every time we have an opportunity to bring that out we bring that out both in the lectures and we bring it out also in the homework questions which is a wonderful forum to kind of develop that kind of idea so we can just really ask very pointed questions you know John 6 says this what do you think about this and how when was the last time you thought about this so we try to kind of really develop apologetics one of the things that I noticed from my reading of solid Protestant magazines that there is much more interest in tradition the whole issue one time on tradition now in the Protestant world tradition began in the 17th century with Martin Luther and John Calvin and later on by Wesley but now people are beginning to look back to the very early church a very distinguished Protestant theologian McAfee Brown is deceased now outstanding Protestant theologian we were having a meeting and he said the more and more I study the ancient church the more the arrows are pointing to Rome so it's not a battle between us and Protestants but there are things that we all could learn from each of it we learned from the Protestants having the service not in Latin but in English and now some people don't like it but for the vast number of people it's been a great step in the right direction and we learn something abroad yeah we do so the Protestants if you go to Protestant churches now I went to a Presbyterian church every Sunday they have two Eucharistic services used to have once a month mm-hmm and a white cloth on a table with two candles and the bread and wine I said well we have a call from an and where are your problem what you got to tell us I'm firm mate and I have a question about the veil ability of the material what you're talking about well I'm in a small vibe not Bible but prayer group and that consists of about five or six people and I understand that this information again we can take advantage of it in the small group and I would like very much to know how these materials are available if you go to see WBS org Catholic Way Bible study not again so slowly I'm talking too fast Catholic Way Bible study see WBS org you will have an opportunity to order materials to ask questions we have emails there are our dear friend Mary Lou nemecheck is always on time on tap to answer questions to provide you with packets we can mail you a packet that will come to you in the mail it will have handouts it will have the brochures it will high even have a sample DVD it will have a letter from our Bishop welcoming you to this experience if you decide to go that way so we try to make it as easy as possible you might also read off the regular name in case they did not have the DVD the what do you call it the Catholic Way Bible study you mean yes but this is their address some people don't have internet NASP oh you mean a street address yes it's box 2 to 3 to 4 Fox 2 to 3 to 4 lexington kentucky 405 2 to 405 to 2 some people like myself we just go by snail mail yep and so yeah so there's many ways to to get a hold of us if all else fails call the Diocese of Lexington Kentucky and we're affiliated we're a legal part of the corporate entity of the diocese so we are a diocese and study so you know if push comes to shove remember lexington kentucky call the Chancery and they'll they'll be able to track us down we have a call now from dawn dawn where are you from and what he's gonna tell yes yes hi father I'm from Indiana and there's such controversy and when the New Testament was written after the death of Christ some people say 50 years some people say a couple hundred years can you tell me exactly well why don't you make some comments about that all day out of you in the next 18 seconds well you know first of all we need to figure out that Jesus did not write an outline he did not write a 12-point talk outline that he left he didn't say here's the New Testament guys put it in your shirt pocket and go out and you know he didn't do that what did he do he lived with his disciples and he traveled with them and he ate with them and he slept around the campfire with them and he just did life with them so that when he left he bequeathed to them his entire person not just what he said but what he did and Saint John very aptly says at the end of John if we were to include all the things that Jesus said and did there wouldn't be enough books in the world to include it so that therefore as Catholics we have not only the written word which are the Gospels but we also have the oral tradition with the big t of what all the things that he said and did and we have the Imagi serum to interpret it so you know if we could we could be here for a long time pinpointing exactly when they were written but the point is it's the whole person of Jesus however if somebody is saying to you that the New Testament was written two hundred years later on they're deceiving you or someone is deceiving them the pieces of the New Testament were written the Gospels the epistles the writings of st. Paul which are almost almost all of them written by a single person and you can look in the language and without what year that was in before the years the year 63 why why do we why are people taking such a position which is intellectually very very shabby in order to undermine the belief of other people I think it's a very cruel thing to do to lead other people into their loss and there are books written night now easily to get gain of the history of the writing of the Bible and the New Testament I don't have a title right with you but I would think you could look it up I just wanna say one thing if you were to give it a chronological spread you could go from the earliest book written which was the book letter to the Thessalonians in 48 49 ad all the way through the book of Revelation which depending on who you talk to was written in 96 97 98 yes that's the span of the New Testament now we have to make a close thank you so much being with us today on an interesting fascinating talk and we'd ask you all to join us for a prayer Oh Lord each one of us place ourselves before you and we ask you to guide us in our life and with our love of Sacred Scripture we pray through Christ our Lord God bless you in the name of the Father the Son Holy Spirit amen and of course I'm going to pass the boat the the plate to ask the usual collection help EWTN stay on the Airways and my dear friend Mother Angelica will be particularly happy you're helping us god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 24,846

Rating: 4.8291817 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic

Id: V0UtQCp1IyU

Length: 54min 1sec (3241 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2010