Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:02 If we want to get some idea of the importance of the Holy ghost in our own lives, all we have to do is to consider the actions of Saint Peter and the apostles before Lord sat down the Holy ghost and then compare those actions after he sent down the Holy ghost on them, on that first Pentecost. All right, so the possum just spent three years being taught by our Lord when it's seeing the miracles of our Lord working for our Lord and even living with our lower they'd been through him with him through thick and thin, and except for Judas, they really loved him. And at the last supper, they were ordained as the first bishops of the Catholic church and received their first communion. So on that very occasion, that Saint Peter told our large quote, I will lay down my life for you close quote.
Speaker 1 00:00:50 And he really meant it. And yet, in spite of all that, all these crazes personal friendship with our Lord wealth, he was visibly present on earth. Seeing all these miracles, spending all this time with, in spite of all that only few hours later, st. Peter was totally intimidated by serving girl, just poking at him a little bit. He wound up actually denying her Lord three times tonight that he knew him, our Lord at all right, worse yet as our Lord's dragged off to a scourge crown with thorns crucified on Calvary, where were the apostles with, except for st. John who stayed close to our lady, wherever the apostles, they're nowhere to be found. They're hiding out and fear. After spending years with our Lord believing everything that he taught. They had the faith after having just been consecrated as bishops, having just received their first communion here, the pastas are completely paralyzed by fear of servant girls of the people around them.
Speaker 1 00:02:02 And they're cowering behind locked doors and on Easter Sunday, that's exactly where a resurrected Lord fond them, still hiding out in fear behind locked doors in the upper room. Okay. So that's the situation before our Lord sends down the Holy ghost, we see a group of Catholics, but they're timid timid man men virtually conquered by a spirit of fear and timidity the pulp. The first Pope actually afraid to confess his faith so intimidated by a serving girl that he denies, that he even knows our Lord, the apostles, the first bishops hiding out in a locked room. That's the situation before our Lord sends down the Holy ghost, then what do we see? 50 days later after our Lord has ascended into heaven and sent down the Holy spirit there on that first Pentecost, what do we see? We see the very same men suddenly filled with a supernaturally strong faith.
Speaker 1 00:03:06 All of a sudden we see fearless men that are undaunted by any obstacles that are undaunted by mockery, persecution, beatings run daunted, even by buddy moderate. And we see Saint Peter asks him to be crucified upside down because he didn't think he was worthy to be crucified the same way our Lord is. We see Saint Andrew crying out in joy. When he sees his cross, he starts singing this Palm to the cross. He's about to be crucified on. We see Saint Bartholomew gets skinned alive, all the apostles, every last one of them, except st. John. We see proven their love for our Lord by a bloody martyrdom. And even st. John got boiled in oil, but he's miraculously preserve from being killed. It's easy. We consider before Pentecost and after it's easy to see the unbelievable transformation in the lives of the apostles that are brought about by the Holy ghost.
Speaker 1 00:04:04 These men are transformed by the Holy ghost from timid cowering souls, hiding out behind locked doors, and as supernaturally strong souls, that didn't hesitate to take their faith out in the public arena and think of what kind of public arena that was, that was hostile. They take it out the window and with the witness of their lives and preaching, they convert massive numbers of both Jews and pagans to the Holy faith before they themselves and up laying down their lives for our Lord. So once we get some idea of the absolute importance of the Holy ghost in the lives of the apostles, we can begin to appreciate how important it is for each of us to have the Holy ghost active in our life. It's one spiritual writer whose case is up right now for beatification notes. Quote, devotion to Holy spirit is essential to the Christian life.
Speaker 1 00:05:05 And it's weakening brings with it, a relaxation of this life and the spread of the spirit of the world. Close quote, with devotion of the Holy spirit. We have a strong Christian life, a weekend of it. Spirit of the world, the devotion to the Holy ghost is essential to our Christian life for the very simple reason that the very same God has given each one of us, the very same priceless gift of the Holy faith that he gave to the apostles. And he wants us to exercise his faith right here. And right now in our modern Neo pagan society, okay, he doesn't want us hiding out behind locked doors. He doesn't want us cowering and fear. That's not what God wants at all. That's not as well. That's not why he gave us the faith to wrap it up in some napkin and hide it away, safe, and a drawer to bury it somewhere.
Speaker 1 00:06:01 So we don't lose it. But someone sure wants that. This is one of Satan's most powerful plans for the pious. See if the devil can't take someone out of commission by tangling them up in all kinds of snares by getting him into sin. So he just all tangled up in the snares of sin. When the devil sees it, individual is really serious about the faith that he's living a good life looks pretty clear. He's going to continue to live a good life. Then one of his best plans is all right. I'm going to surround that man with a spirit of fear, surrounded with a spirit of timidity, to make him almost ashamed of the Holy faith. The devil wants to diffuse defang, defeat and depress pious people by keeping them hidden away in artist's circulation. The devil will do anything to stop people from spreading the Holy faith.
Speaker 1 00:06:58 The devil wants to intimidate the pious and imitating the behavior of the apostles before the coming of the Holy ghost. But God, on the other hand, doesn't want to see his cowering and fear. He doesn't want us hiding out. He expects us to engage the world. That's why he's left us in the world. We're not cloistered. He's got us in the world. That means he expects us to be APA Stalin. He didn't give us the vocation to the cloister. He gave us the vocation to be Catholics in the world. He wants us to bring him into the world. God wants to live in us. That's why he's come to us. He wants to live in us. He wants to love in us. He wants to act in us. He wants to pray in us. He wants to suffer in us. God wants us to bring him into our homes, into the workplace and the lives of our relatives and friends and acquaintances. And after all, if we don't, who will we have the cure for? Hell, Who else does
Speaker 2 00:08:20 Noah?
Speaker 1 00:08:23 If you discovered the cure for some kind of terrible cancer, would you keep it a secret? That's nothing compared to what our faith is. This is the cure for eternal damnation. And it's the key to terminal happiness. God expects us to be Apple stock. And yet how many of us can honestly say right here in our heart of hearts, sitting before a Lord and most busted sacrament, or how many of us can honestly say before God that he's filled with apostolic zeal.
Speaker 1 00:08:56 If we really look inside ourselves and compare ourselves what we're going to, what would we say to ourselves? Can I say to myself, I'm more likely apostles were before the coming of the Holy ghost or my more likely passes were after the coming of the Holy ghost, God expects us to be Apple stock. And that means we have to have supernaturally strengthened personalities, which should only come about through the action of the Holy ghost. We can't do this by ourselves. Okay, father. So how's it supposed to come about? Well, when we're in the state of grace, that's the beginning part. But when we're in a state of grace, when God poured down that that sanctifying grace in our souls of baptism, he gave us a bunch of supernatural virtues to where we can believe things, for example, with faith, because God says, so it's a supernatural power people without the faith, can't believe what we believe.
Speaker 1 00:09:47 We all believe there are certain men that can take pieces of bread and whisper words to them. And that bread becomes a man that man has God. We believe that that's not obvious. That's because God has given us a supernatural power. He's given us faith. He's given us hope. He's given us charity. He's given us infuse prudence just as for, to tempered all these supernatural powers. But he also gave us seven gifts of the Holy ghost. He poured them into us. So when, as long as we're in the state of grace, we have the seven gifts of the Holy ghost. But there's a problem until we get to a certain level of spiritually. They're like furled sails. According to the fathers, the comparison that was used is the gifts of the Holy ghost. When they're, when they're, they've basically unblocked and fully blast him in his soul, is there like seals that the Holy ghost will move that person around in interiorly Mo move their intellect, move their will and guide them.
Speaker 1 00:10:42 That's why the saints are the way they are because they've done the groundwork. And we're going to see what they did in a minute, too. They were we're living with the Holy ghost, able to move them. They had unfurled those sales cause there's part we have to do. And then the Holy ghost takes over. We have to do our part. The pastas did it in the three years, huh? We have to do it in this life. How do we do it? We've got the seven gifts. Holy ghost. They're like furled sales, which means we can't really respond to the inspirations of the movements. Like the Holy ghost wants us to, without some preparatory work on our part to unfurl those sales, so to speak and open us to the moments of God's spirit. So there's three things we need to do that are foundational. They clear the way so to speak for the Holy ghost to act in our life.
Speaker 1 00:11:27 None of these are going to be any big surprise. The first place we have to stay in the state of grace. That's a given either we're in a state of grace and adopted sons of the father or in the state of mortal sin. In which case we're slaves in bondage to the devil. So where the supernatural live or supernaturally dead, there are another choices, of course, in order to have the seven gifts of the Holy ghost, we have to be supernaturally alive. We have to be in the of grace. That depends principally upon frequent confession and fervent communions. That's the first one state of grace. Second, we have to keep the commandments. Our Lord says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So we keep the commandments because we love our Lord, but let's make sure that we never forget. What are the point of all these rules?
Speaker 1 00:12:17 It's not like priestly around at night. We have these little secret meetings where I say, all right, how can we hassle the lady this weekend? You know, we throw darts at some commandment. Ha ha no, the commandments are there. What is it? We don't make this stuff up. The point, all of these rules is to keep us from damaging or losing this priceless gift of sanctifying grace, because the state of grace is completely above our nature. It's super natural because it's completely above our nature. We can't sense it in any way. We can't feel the life of grace. You know, if you back up to woodstove, you're not going to lean on it very long before you realize, Oh, if the woodstove is burning, you're going to know why. Because naturally speaking, we have the ability with pain, reception to tell I'm damaging myself. If we eat something poisonous, we're going to get sick and start vomiting, et cetera.
Speaker 1 00:13:07 With our, of our own nature, we can Ditech dangers to our natural life. So we already have that, but we can't detect anything to do with supernatural life. We have to be told God has poured down the supernatural life, into us at baptism. And then as another gift, because that's what the rules are. He says, here's how you keep it. These are the fences. Don't crawl these fences and you'll stay supernaturally alive. You may or may not get to the point where you can see how they all connect. Depends on how serious you take your faith and keep praying and study. But even if you don't see how they all connect, that's what they're all there to do. That every one of those rules is there for reason. And the reason is to preserve the sanctifying grace, and you can die with it. If we die with it, we get to go to heaven.
Speaker 1 00:13:54 If we die without it, we can't go to heaven. That's choice B a lot of flames forever. Okay? But the whole point of that, that's why God has given us these handling instructions. The rules are a gift from God, keeping the commandments. All the more rules prevents us from damaging or destroying our supernatural life. So that second, this isn't very original. We have to stay in the state of grace. We have to keep the commandments third. Well, let me talk a little bit more about that. If we keep the commandments, let's get real. We're going to stand up. That's for sure. In a society like this, we're going to stand out by having a crucifix in our living room, a rosary in their pocket, saying grace and public in a restaurant, not mowing our lawn or shopping until we drop on Sundays, opposing contraception, sterilization praying out in front of an abortion mill.
Speaker 1 00:14:37 By the way we dress. By the way we speak, by the way we act by the entertainments, we avoid all kinds of things, you know, by the size of our families, all those things, we're going to stand out. That's for sure. That's given, but keep in mind that wants us to stand out. God expects us to stand up, not to draw attention to ourselves, but to him, it's a very important aspect of our apostolic role. Each one of us in this particular state life is supposed to be a living billboard, a living advertisement for the true faith, not in an arrogant. I know something you don't way, but in a joyful way that we have something that you need. And we'd be happy to share it with you. We are supposed to be living billboards for Christ, our Lord and his Holy church. Yeah. Sometimes that's tough.
Speaker 1 00:15:39 A lot of people sometimes very good people don't appreciate us, but Hey, God took all that into account. When he made up a little plan for our personal holiness, we've got to be humble. And even if sometimes we get treated like freaks, heavens the priest to just try walking around with a Cassick and in public, since Boston, huh? Even if we get treated like freaks, we have to keep a sense of humor about the situation. We've got to keep a sense of humor. It's not that big of a deal. Reminds me the guy back home. I knew that he had a job bone, he got cancer. So they had to cut out half his job on that, left him kind of drilling out of one side of his mouth, his whole face sag and whatnot. You might say it was pretty noticeable at any rate. He was sitting there, mind his own business. One day when a belligerent cowboy who had had just a little bit too much to drink, came up and stared him right in the face and said, Hey, what happened to you? You know, point right at his face. Real subtle. Of course the guy could have got his feelings hurt and sat there and felt like, I can't believe they're treat me like a freak and a side show or whatever. But he didn't. He just looked right back at obnoxious cobble and said, I'll just cut myself shaving.
Speaker 1 00:16:51 Even if we look like freaks to some people, relax, don't worry. Keep your sense of humor. We're supposed to be living billboards. Part of God's advertising campaign for heaven. And if you get too stressed out about standing and standing out, stick out, relax, don't worry. Say a little prayer and then have a cold one. We are Catholics. We can relax a little bit. We don't have to worry. It's just part of our life. We're going to be different, but we might as well be happy. Okay? So third, in order to have a supernaturally strong personality, we have to get our natural tendencies into check. We had to keep our passions and our desires from running away by practicing a few small mortifications every day, small modifications every day are way more important than great big ones. If you do small ones every day, that's key.
Speaker 1 00:17:49 What do we mean? Things like having one less cup of coffee or letting your coffee get a little colder than you like, or one less scoop has sugar in it eating more of something you don't like less is something you do. Like you go to restaurant, find what you really like or something else off the menu. When you're taking a shower at then you shower turn on cold for one or two or three glory, BES and turn around all these kinds of things where you're denying yourself, legitimate goods, huh? Two or three or four little mortifications every day, day in and day out will make us very, very strong over time by bringing our natural desires under control. If you're faithful to the small things, you'll get stronger and stronger and stronger. This is essential. You have to be in a state of grace yet to keep the commandments and you have to get your passions under control. So you're not getting dragged around. You're in control of yourself. That's the foundational work in order to have supernaturally strong apostolate personalities, we need to do our part to open ourselves to the moments of Holy ghost. Again, by staying in the state of grace, keeping the commandments and our sense of humor and practicing three or four small modifications every day, all those Hugin help unfurl the sales of those seven gifts. So to speak. Then the fourth thing comes along, which you should be doing anyway. It's prayer.
Speaker 1 00:19:10 If we're doing these other three things, the prayer starts picking things up. If we want to have a supernaturally strong app, a stock personality, and God wants us to, we need to pray. Especially the Holy ghost to strengthen and guide us. Just have a devotional. Holy ghost. One easy way is to just stick one prayer on any rosary. You don't have to do 15. Litanies more is not better in our religion. Something done with devotion is better than 14 million things, but we need to have a devotional Holy ghost. Okay. So finally we want to act without regard to our fears. Sometimes we might feel afraid to bring our faith into the public arena. That's a feeling we should just plow ahead. Anyway, we've all experienced this. Maybe the first couple of times you've been down to the abortion mill. You're a little scared or had a funny feeling.
Speaker 1 00:19:57 You're styling, but after a while it passes, right? You looked forward to going down there. You look forward to getting in their face. You look forward to please God shaking somebody up inside there and converting them, or please God have interest queue. You look forward to it in the beginning, it might be fearful, but you look forward to it. You get the grace, huh? We don't want to let the devil smother us with this spirit of timidity to just cast a spirit of fear over us. Huh? The Holy scripture is very consoling. There's some scriptures we should memorize. The Holy ghost tells us himself in first John four, four words that we ought to burn into our mind and our heart. He who is in you is greater than he, who is in the world. He was in you is greater than he. Who is the world.
Speaker 1 00:20:49 The devils are afraid of us. They don't let you know they're doing the wizard of Oz routine with the big curtain and yelling at you and stuff. But it's some little pipsqueak back there. They're afraid of us. He who is in you is greater than he, who is in the world. That's so encouraging. And then the beautiful roads to the Holy ghost and the Psalm about the good shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for the art with me, thy rod and thy staff. They comfort me. It's I'll prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, the unknown. It's my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Even though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for the art with me.
Speaker 1 00:22:03 God doesn't want us covered with a spirit of fear, hiding behind locked doors. He wants us to carry him out into the world, in our homes, no workplace in the lives of those around us. And if we don't, who will
Speaker 2 00:22:21 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:22:24 He expects us to engage the world. He set up a church that requires our cooperation in the salvation of other men. He didn't have to do it that way.
Speaker 2 00:22:36 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:22:39 It's just like birth. He could have kept creating every one of us the same way he did the first fan, but he didn't. He requires human cooperation and bringing new human beings into the world. And it requires human cooperation, bringing new human beings into the kingdom of heaven. He expects us to be apostolic. That's why he gave us the faith. And when we look around and how very few people have it nowadays, how urgent it is that we share it with others. Let us close with a prayer. Please kneel down. You're not yourself to this prayer. I'll pray a prayer. The consecration of the Holy spirit written by Pope Saint Pius, the 10th on behalf of all here, present in the name of the father and the son and the Holy ghost. Amen. All Holy spirit, divine spirit of light and love. I consecrate to the, my understanding my and my will, my whole being for time and for eternity, they may understand he'd be always submissive to thy heavenly inspirations and to the teachings of the Holy Catholic church of which style art, the infallible guide. May my heart be ever inflamed with love of God and of my neighbor. Then I will be ever conformed to the divine will in my, my whole life, the, a faithful imitation of the life and virtues of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ to whom with the father and the, the honor and glory forever.
Speaker 5 00:24:33 Hey man
Speaker 1 00:24:34 Is the name of the father and the son and the Holy ghost.
Speaker 5 00:24:38 Amen.
