The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - A Special Christmas Gift from Fr. Mike Schmitz

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

Merry Christmas! Today, Jeff talks with Fr. Mike Schmitz about his new podcast, Bible in a Year, which launches on January 1st, 2021. Snippet from the Show “He put you here for a reason, what is that reason? Let’s move forward and listen to his word, so that he may reveal himself through it.” Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail] Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 198, special Christmas present from Father Mike Schmitz. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Hey, I want to welcome you to the show this week. I know. that today, if you're listening on the day that this is released, it is Christmas Day. And everybody is focused on the tree and the family and getting together and staying apart at the same time. But I do have something special I want to share with you today, someone special and a special

opportunity for this for this next year. But before I get into that, I just want you to know how much I appreciate you. Sticking with me throughout the year, day in, day out, week in, week out, talking about the things of the Lord and all things discipleship, talking about studying your Bible, going deeper with the Lord, growing in holiness. What does it really mean to be an activated disciple? And all of your email, all of your texts, they mean so much. And I just wanted you to know that I am thankful for you. And going into this new year, I'm praying that it'll be a year like none other. Certainly 2020 was a year like none other. But now we've got an opportunity to step up our game. And we know what the deal is now. And we're going to go into it with a

refreshed view of life. And we're going to go into it as disciples. And I'm looking forward to it, actually. I think we're living at historic times right now. And we can either hide or we can embrace the Lord during these times and be a part of change. So a Merry Christmas to you. And I'm going to open up the gift right now for you that I have for you. And it's really a person. And that is my very good friend, Father Mike Schmidt. Father Mike, good to have you on the show. Jeff, thank you so much. Merry Christmas also as well. I know this is, I don't want to be. be cheesy or anything, but you are the gift that I'm going to give my listeners this next year because you've been working on something that we're going to get to in just a moment. But how are you

right now? I mean, life has been busy for you in this last year. Yeah, no, I'm glad even as you were saying the greeting, that this is a unique time. And I was thinking about this morning when it came to, we had mass this morning with some of our students before they have left or leaving on break. And one of the prayers of the faithful, just like, you know, I just want to take an opportunity to give God thanks, not only for for the people that we got to meet this semester and for the unique semester we had, but also that he has, is giving, giving us this chance to live in such a time as this. Like, there's something unique about this time, obviously. And here is God who said, yeah, I want you to be alive during this time. And that's

just, it just, that kind of fills me with a little bit of, just not a little bit. It gives me purpose and give me that that's renewed sense of like, yeah, there is something he wants to accomplish right now. And so I don't know, it's been a, it's been a unique year. It's been a unique semester for us. And we're just wrapping it up now. And it, I'll, I wait the next one. I wait the next thing. Well, I know. You know, you know, you look back at this year and you, and you find yourself talking about it. And the one, the words don't come out of my mouth. the words are, that don't come my mouth are, you know, this year reminds me of, right. It doesn't remind me of anything that I've ever gone through in my life.

And it's like suddenly life has turned upside down. But I do know that when that happens, the Lord is there with us. And he has his purpose. And we can either hide or we can, we can stand up and we can be counted and we can be disciples of the Lord. So it is an extraordinary, extraordinary opportunity. Both of us have been sort of off the road and on to Zoom for this last last year, which has been fascinating. It has been so different. I think I, I think I've left. I was telling one of our students yesterday or the day before that I think I left town, left Duluth, the city of Duluth, twice this, this whole semester.

And that's crazy. That's so unique. One was to go to my parents' place for Thanksgiving, but Loo's was a gift. You know, we got tested and stuff before we left and everyone's safe. So that's good. Very good. Well, you know, we do have a big surprise for people. I want to announce it on the show that is something that's going to take place all throughout 2021.

Set that aside just for a second. Coming up in June of 2020. Yes. Oh, my gosh. We have something incredible. Go ahead and tell my friends about that. Well, we were scheduled to do this thing in 2020 with clear vision. and clear sight, but it is a trip to the Holy Land of pilgrimage through the land of our

ancestors, the land of the chosen people of God, the land of our Lord Jesus, going to the Holy Land from June 1st until June. Is it 12th? Is that accurate? Yeah, it's one it is. I think it's, yeah. Okay. And my gosh, so I've been there, I think maybe 13 times. Is it 13 already? Yeah. And I've been there 11 of those times I've been with Jeff. And so it has been, I, there's nothing I enjoy, I, there's very little things, I would say. I can't think of a thing that I enjoy more than pilgrimaging through the Holy Land with Jeff. It's, it's, it's awesome. So, it is fun, isn't it?

And my gosh, it's, and people ask me, like, what's, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your favorite part? And, and, and one of the things now is, is, I, I know initially it was, it was, it was going to the holy sites and it was, you know, just being steeped in scripture and being, you know, as you've said, the fifth gospel, actually being the Holy Land itself and being in those places. And over the course of years, it has been, that's only deepened every time going back. And, but even further, it's going back there a number of times has given me the opportunity to focus on the people that we get to travel with. And that has been again and again, one of the highlights every time I go back. Why do you keep going back? Well, because, well, the sites are deep and deep and get deeper and then the people are always new they're always different and

and that itself is a gift well if you take a look at all the people that traveled with with the two of us to the holy land over the last decade we probably we probably have like 2,500 people that have walked where Jesus walked with us and and I know that it's life transforming it is it is for myself this trip coming up in June which you can find out about it on my website Jeff Havens.com, that's going to be my 59th pilgrimage to the holy land. Yeah. And I don't, and I don't grow tired of it. Everybody, you know, they ask me the same question. Why do you keep going back? And really two reasons. One is I grow every time I go. You know, it's like a personal pilgrimage. But the other thing is I love seeing the lights turned on in people's lives

when they go over there. You know, a transformation takes place. And so that's coming up in June. You and I are going to be leading this pilgrimage. We have. We have Sarah and Andrew Swofford. Yes, who are so phenomenal. Allie Aaliyah. Yes. Zanderwaves. We have Taylor Tripote.

Yeah, Taylor to Taylor Tripote is going to almost said Truman Capote. But Taylor Tripote is the one I think we invited, if I got that right. So it's going to be a fantastic trip. And we're just going full steam ahead like it's going to happen. Yeah, just kind of acting as if like it's there. We're going to pull it off. not the big thing I want to talk about with you on this Christmas show. The present that we have is really, I think, a combination of what we can bring to the table with the great adventure. And

then you came up with an idea earlier this year and you shared it with the team and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, let's do that. So tell people what the big present is this coming year. Yes. So after a long time of knowing that it is important for Catholics to know the Bible and knowing that so many people have so many objections, they're not objections. They have obstacles. They want to do this, but they have obstacles that get in their way. But also at the same time, so many people have a number of podcasts and YouTube shows that they will listen to or watch. And I was like, wait a second. I know that I also have a number of podcasts and YouTube. shows that I watch and listen to. I know that I want to get more steeped in scripture on a regular basis where I just can just not only wash over you, but just penetrate and transform. And I thought, you know, it would be great. What would be great would be to be able to go through the Bible in a year. And from a Catholic perspective, so you have your Catholic scripture, so all 73 books. You also have the ability to have a guide who can also kind of walk with you every day. And I thought,

this would be great. Where is one? We don't have one. We should make one. And it just, it was not only like the conviction of I want to offer this. It was the conviction of I want to myself beyond this journey. Like I was not just we should this should be good service to the church. But I want that. I need this. And there was something very personal about that conviction of giving, but also of just like, this is something I kind of need to do.

So I had in actually, I don't know if I shared this with you. But when you and I had spoken on the phone in the middle of. quarantine time and stuff, you had shared some things that were deepening in your life when it came to your prayer and your scripture reading. And you had even spoken. If he said this, you said that I, I don't need to listen to so and so at night, you know, some, you know, talking head on the news. I want to read from, I want to hear from Paul. And it just stuck with me. And I just, I was like, you know what? That is. And it just, it clicked something that I had noticed, but I hadn't put words to yet.

And it was like, we need to just do this. I need to just spend that time with the Lord. And I want to take people along the journey with me. Well, just to distinguish the difference between what you're going to be doing over this next year and the regular method of reading through the Bible with the great adventure. What we do typically, my friends, is we, you know, the great adventure is taking the Bible and it's dividing it up into 12 color-coded periods. idea is make the complex simple. And then once you have those 12 periods, then out of the 73 books of

the Bible, we identify the books that keep the story moving. We call those narrative books, and there are 14 of them. We choose one gospel. You could have four, but we choose one, Luke. And so you have 14 narrative books starting in Genesis. And if you start there and you read the 14, you basically get the story. And then what we do in The Great Adventure is we show you where the other 59 books fit in their proper place. Now what Father Mike is going to be doing, which is brilliant here, is he's going to be taking those 12 periods, those 14 narrative books, but he's going to slow the pace down. You know, if you normally would read four chapters a day out of the 14 books, you'd get through it all in three months. And that means that there's a lot of extra time this

year that Father Mike is going to spend with you, not only reading the 14 narrative books, but get this, putting the other 59 books right in the context of those 14 books. And that's what makes this so special. And not only is he going to be reading that to you, but he's going to give some commentary. And what kind of commentary are you going to drop in there, Father? Luna, that's a good question because it kind of varies. It's going to be the commentary that sometimes is like, wait, what did we just hear? That's really. confusing. Why would that be the case? So sometimes it's kind of filling in those gaps, those, those obvious questions that people have, like, who are the daughters of God and who are the sons

of men? Kind of a, the situation. Who are the Nephalim, that kind of situation right at the beginning? But sometimes it's going to be addressing and really looking for that spiritual sense of scripture and where it can be, here's how this foreshadows the Lord. Here's how this applies to my life. Here's how this references the end. And so one of the things that we'll be doing, especially because we're spending a lot of time in the Old Testament, I mean, when we kind of crafted this reading plan, one of the things we noticed was, wow, if we do this where we have the 14 narrative books, well, 12 of those are in the Old Testament. And so we're going to have one month in the New Testament. So how about we'll have these things we call messianic checkpoints. And so all throughout the year, I think after maybe after three months, and I think day 90 is when we have our first messianic checkpoint.

And that is, I believe, the gospel of John. And we'll just take that week and read through the gospel of John. And it's just like this kind of shot in the arm of like, remember, this is all about, this is all leading up to our Lord Jesus. And so just that kind of reminder. And then we'll go dive back into the story again. And yeah, I'm super excited how this, the commentary then, will be everything from, again, the moral sense, the spiritual sense here, how it applies to our lives, as well as trying to connect some dots and saying, okay, here's the story of,

you say we're in Genesis and here's Abraham and Isaac. Okay, does it look like what's happening here? Is this a father who is terrorizing a son? Is this a, you know, an act of abuse? What is going on here? And let's like unpack this and find out really what the saints and the church have said when it comes to a lot of these scriptures. It's going to be great. It really is. And the Bible you're going to be using is the Great Adventure. Yes, the Great Adventure Bible.

And I am so excited about it because as I'm looking at my Great Adventure Bible right now, it is color-coded. It has the 12 periods. It will show you, the Bible actually shows you how to read the Bible. And you're going to be using that. And people can get a hold of their Bible. They sell quick. I'll tell you. They really sell quick.

But if you get a hold of Ascension Press, they have the information there on how to get that Bible. In fact, I'll put it in the show notes. Just put a link in the show notes for you to get your Bible if you haven't received that Bible yet. And it's just going to be a great opportunity. Imagine everyone in the future is going to be saying, where were you in 2020? You know, they're going to say that. But I think the response to that is, well, what were you doing in 2021? And this is our, this is our response.

Yeah, our response is we're going to soak ourselves in God's word. The word of God is unique. It is powerful, rich. It's inspired by God. God is the author. There's nothing about God's word when released that does not accomplish, that which God wants. And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. it's all up you know and um and it's it's going to be a year of direction a year of um strengthening

repair encouragement direction uh correction we need all of it and so i think this is going to be a a wonderful a wonderful thing i'm going to go i'm going to go through it with you and then i'm going to join you periodically yes and that's i'm so excited i'm so grateful for you to do that too to introduce those periods because because you're i'm going to say you're the master but you are you are i mean it's it's such a gift to be able to have that resource that you placed into our our hands well it's it's you know people come up to me all the time at conferences and emails and say well the bible timelines changed my life and i'll say i know it changed mine too because when i was 25 years old and i first developed that i had absolutely no idea that that would basically define my life

you know yeah of teaching people how to read the bible but i'm I'm excited. I'm excited for the opportunity to work with you. And I want to encourage all of you listening that, yes, this is a gift. It's a gift of a year of soaking in scripture and listening to Father Mike and his commentary. But I want to encourage you to give it as a gift to somebody else. Just think with me for a moment. How many people do you know in your life right now who have been beaten down, battered, bruised by 2020, discouraged, and left a life filled with anxiety, they need help. They need encouragement. They need direction and correction and a real boost, you know, from the Lord. You can give this to them as a gift. And you can, we'll put that information

in the show notes. And by the way, if you don't get the show notes and you're new to my show, then all you have to do is type my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, and text it to 3377. We'll get the show notes to you, and I'll put all this information in there. And I'll put information about going to the Holy Land with the two of us in June. What do you say? 2021, let's turn things around, let's get focused and serve God, even in the midst of the difficult days that we are in. there are going to be so many people looking for direction this next year. And you and me, Father Mike, we're going to be soaking in God's words.

So any Christmas message you have, Father, for this wonderful, wonderful group of friends of mine? No, I would say that I would say exactly what you're saying, which is let's resolve. One of the big things going into lockdown, going into pandemic, whatever, everything that's happening was like, I don't want to email. emerge from this, the same person I was. I want to not waste this time. I want to be able to use this time. And I think that that's what this turn of the year is going to be about. This Christmas is going to be about it. It's like the gift of I'm still alive during this time. I'm still alive in a time such as this. And so God wants that to be the case for a reason. And so he put you here for a reason. What is that? Let's move forward and and listen to his word so that maybe he can reveal

not only his reason, but reveal himself through his word. Well, maybe periodically a couple times during this next year, we can get you back on the show. Yeah, just talk about some of the response that you're getting from people around the world and what the Word of God is doing in their life. You know, there's so many people who appreciate your ministry and you're a great guy. Don't get me wrong. But it is the Word of God that's going to change people's lives.

Exactly. It's not the commentary. it's going to be the actual, let's just, like you keep saying, soak in the word of God. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do that. Well, I'm going to ask you, Father, if you could give a blessing to the wonderful people who join me every week and then we'll close it out. Absolutely. We pray in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit.

Father in heaven, give you praise and glory, ask you to please send your Holy Spirit in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, upon every person who is listening to this, wherever they are. You fill them with your joy, with your peace. fill them with your Holy Spirit of love and of grace. And bless them now in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.