The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Becoming What You Eat

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

What we eat physically impacts our health, and what we consume spiritually influences our souls. Jeff discusses the importance of taking care of our bodies and highlights the significance of the Word of God and the Eucharist in nourishing our spiritual life. He also provides practical suggestions for maintaining a prayer life that supports optimal spiritual well-being. Snippet from the Show  "We have to pay attention to what we put into our hearts." 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 https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 407, becoming what you eat. Welcome to the show, my friend. Hey, we're going to talk about food today. You know, we're coming into the whole. home stretch of our, you know, the celebrations that we have every year with Thanksgiving and Christmas and both of them center around food. Hey, every celebration seems to center around food. And

then comes January 1st and right after that, it's the health club. People are going to be signing up in record numbers as they want to take off that weight that they put on during the celebrations. Well, we want to talk about food today and particularly what you eat and what the habits are. And there's two ways of looking at it. We're going to look at both. One is the physical things that we eat, but we're also going to look at equally important, if not more important, what you eat spiritually, if you eat spiritually, you know, taking in the Eucharist and taking in the Word of God. So we're going to talk about that. By the way, if you want the show notes, and I do have, let's see, yes, I have several scriptures I want to share with you, you can simply

text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, text it to the number 3377.7. We'll get you on the list. And you'll have show notes for every single show coming up. I appreciate your involvement in the show and the response. It's really, really great. And continue to encourage you to go ahead and rank the show, make comments on the show. It helps the algorithms. And when people are looking for answers to some of the things that I talk about on this show, your participant, will help them find it. That's the way it works today. So you and I are kind of a team in that way. I do want to talk to you a bit about what we eat and the things that we're discovering in the world today, in our diet, in the way that food is produced and so forth, I'm certainly not going to be any kind of alarmist for politics or anything like that, even though I do believe

that there's some really difficult things happening with the way that food is processed and what it does to our body, the plastics that they're finding in people these days, the 10,000 basically unregulated chemicals that are used in one way or another in our food, whereas Europe only has 400 of them that they use, there's something that is funny going on with our diet. There's something funny about the food that we eat and the processed food versus whole food, whole plant eating, and grass-fed beef and fish without mercury, from what I can hear from really, really good people, something's up. Something's up.

And people are beginning to pay more and more attention, I think they have for a long time, but more and more attention to what they eat. There is no doubt about it. Is there that what you put in your body is fuel for your body? The food is really for the purpose of you working in an optimal. way. So I do think that there's things that we as Christians must address. And our bodies, Paul says to the Corinthians, are temples of the Holy Spirit. Now, a temple is a place where God dwells and there is sacrifice in a temple. It's a holy place. It's the center of the community

in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, until it is destroyed in 70 AD. And of course, your body, Paul says to the Corinthians, is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So It stands the reason that we would take care of what goes into our body and how it affects us. Well, what about the spiritual food? What are you putting into your heart? What are you feeding on in the world today? And what kind of results does it have in your life? Now, I've mentioned this many times before that I really do not think that a constant diet of watching network news at night or cable.

news at night is a good diet for your soul and your mind. And I find that people who regularly are on that kind of diet of the news every night and talk shows constantly and YouTube videos all day long don't seem to have a lot of peace. There's always something that's stirring us up. I don't think it's that healthy. I don't think that God created us to just listen to problems all day long. And then when you relax at night listening to problems. I had a podcast that I put out several of them, I think over the years with you, where I talk about how long it takes to read each book of the Bible. And you can substitute different books of the Bible for shows that you normally would watch on TV. And that means you are consuming good supernatural calories rather than

the junk food that we see on TV so often. I'm not saying everything is junk on TV, but boy, there's a lot of it. And what I have found is that our spiritual life sort of mimics and mirrors what we do in the natural. So I'm going to take a break. And when I come back, I want to give you some suggestions here on a diet spiritually that you can go on and maintain. And I think it will be very good for your spirit and very good for your mind rather than junk feeding on everything that comes down the pike, every kind of social candy bar in the world. Rather than eating that, what are we supposed to be consuming? You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. I'm Father Mark Mary Ames with the Franciscan friars at the renewal. My brothers and sisters

at the service of becoming saints and falling in love with Jesus and Mary in the Most Holy Rosary, the team here at Ascension Press have put together the Rosary in a Year podcast. Each day, we're going to have a 10 to 15 minute episode where we're just going to work through the basics of the rosary. Who is Jesus? How do we encounter Jesus? Who is our lady? What does it mean for us to be in a relationship to her?

We're going to go through the Hail Mary, the Our Father, each of the different mysteries. And then we're going to bring in some saint writings on the mysteries and some sacred art that speaks on the mysteries and all of this to help enrich our prayer. to renew our prayer to help us fall in love with Jesus and Mary, and to fall in love with the rosary again. If you want to join us in this journey,

you can begin by going to Assetjepress.com forward slash rosary in a year to download the prayer plan and by listening and praying with us through the Rosary in a Year podcast. All right, look forward to the journey with you. Thank you for returning. We're talking today about becoming what you eat. If you eat junk food, it's going to affect your body. if you eat things that are going to affect your nervous system, for example, in a negative way,

you're going to feel that. In the same way, we have to pay attention to what we put into our hearts. And before the break, I was mentioning all the garbage that people consume night after night, day after day, in the car, on the way to work, on the way home. They get home and they're frustrated. They're all juiced up about something. and all jacked up about this or that. And they don't find peace for their soul.

They don't find the peace that they need to become that father or mother or to become that priest, that deacon, that employer, employee, because they're so wrapped up in controversy and all kinds of things. So the Bible does have something to say about this. And I want to start in the Old Testament. And God makes a profound statement that most of us have heard one time, or another. When Israel came out of Egypt in the book of Exodus, and we have sprinklings of this in numbers and Deuteronomy, God says something about the hunger that people have and what they are

going to eat. And again, this may talk about what's happening in the natural, but I think you'll see in this Deuteronomy text that it crosses from the natural to the supernatural, from that which we can see to the supernatural, the thing we cannot see. Now, here it is. In Deuteronomy 8.3, this is what God said through Moses. He said, and God humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that God has said. every word of God. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's how you and I live. And so as Israel came out of Egypt, much of what they were eating was tied to their idolatry in Egypt, even the bread.

The bread, as I have mentioned to you before, was made in honor of the great spiritual baker. You have Osiris and ISIS was this heavenly baker, and they made this. bread that Hecca, that is magic in Egypt, was inserted into the bread, and in 18 minutes, of course it was the leaven that caused it to rise, but they believed that it rose because of the activity of these Egyptian gods, and they would eat it and receive everlasting life. And some of them even made the bread in the shape of the body of ISIS, and then we distribute it throughout the land. Does that sound vaguely familiar? Yeah. And so what they ate in Egypt was tied to the spiritual activity of the Egyptians. And that's why God says, no leaven in the Exodus. No leaven. Why? Because leaven was what caused the bread to rise in that 18 minutes. And they gave credit to

ISIS. Osiris, this thing called magic. Hecca was the result. And they received. it. And so when it came time for the great Exodus, what did God say? No leaven, unleavened bread. The Egyptian gods are not going to get credit for this great deliverance at all. It'll be unleavened bread. I will show you that I'm the one that is setting you free. And he says, I humbled you, I let you hunger, and I fed you with manna in the wilderness. It's a bread you didn't know. And nor did your fathers that God might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And so ultimately, ultimately, we don't live by bread alone. We live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In other words, anything that God says,

we can live on that. I think in some ways, we as modern Catholics, as Christians, we need to almost have that wilderness experience where God takes away. weigh everything and shows us that we can live by His Word and not bread alone, not entertainment alone, not sports alone, not together, you know, not junk food, but by His Word. And that's ultimately what he's trying to get us to do, to live by His Word. And so naturally, number one, a diet for the Christian would be a diet of feeding on the Word of God every day. Now you have to ask yourself, garbage in, garbage out, good nutrition in, the body runs well. What about your spirit? Garbage in, garbage out. But if you really want to walk in an optimal way, spiritually, you're going to have to

feed on the Word of God. You're going to have to feed on the Word of God. And Peter wrote about this in 1. Peter 2, verses 2 and 3. And I'll put that in the show notes for you. He said, like newborn babes long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up to salvation for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. I love that like newborn babes long for the pure milk, the spiritual milk of the word. So if you call yourself a Christian, which you probably do because you and I have been together here for a while, you need to have a diet of the word of God. Now, what Emily and I do is we read the gospel readings every single day, and we pray about it, we talk about it, we feed off of it, and it nourishes our souls throughout the day.

I also find other times during the day to snack on the Word of God. I don't mean that lightly. I mean literally throughout the day, I will snack on the Word of God. I will read scripture, I will write something down, I will meditate on something I read about earlier, and I have these snacks that tied me over. And I would recommend to you to have a regular diet of the Word of God. Now, ask yourself, are you doing that now? Or are you in the category of, yeah, I probably should do that more?

If you're in that second category, get with it. Seriously, I mean, get with it and start to feed regularly on the Word of God. Just get rid of one of those goofy shows. that you're watching, you know, or get rid of one of those evening entertainment shows and take some time to read God's word. Man lives on the word of God. Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. By the way, that Deuteronomy 8.3, that's quoted in the New Testament, where in Matthew 4, Jesus answers, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Secondly, what should we be feeding on?

You got it. The Eucharist, the bread of life. We don't eat bread like the Egyptians attributed to Egyptian gods and magic. No, no, we don't. We receive the Eucharist, and even the Eucharistic bread that we receive that is changed into the body of Christ is unleaven. There's no chance of any credit going to any God these days other than God who gives us his body and blood. And the scripture to meditate on this is John chapter 6. starting in verse 46. Listen to this. This is, of course, the bread of life discourse. We're talking about the Eucharist here. Not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat of it. not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal.

life, and I will raise him up on the last day, for my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Well, I think that just about says it right there. If you believe, you raise your hand right now saying, Jeff, I believe that the Eucharist is literally the body and blood of God, then I have to ask you, do you consume it? And how often? Are you in real need right now of help in your life over a certain thing? Maybe you need more food. Maybe you should be hitting the books. Maybe you should be reading his word more. Maybe you should be going to mass and consuming the body and blood of Jesus because the church teaches that it's the greatest source of grace. And what's grace? Well, grace is the life of the Trinity. And you might need that. Now,

the greatest place to get both, a two-for, is in mass. Because in mass, you get it. You get, the word of God and you get the Eucharist, the liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and you're feeding on God, His Word, and His Body and Blood. And that's what your soul really needs. One of the things that I've been blown away by recently is listening to microbiologists and others who are really in the know when it comes to health and what we put into our bodies. And they're saying that all this stuff, it tastes good, but at the molecular level, it's a disaster. It's a disaster. Now, if I say to you that the Word of God and the Eucharist can get into every cell of your body and it can give you life, but you don't necessarily see it, well, that's what you're experiencing in the natural with food, eating junk that tastes good, but at the molecular level is a disaster, a complete disaster. And so we need to trust God when he says that he wants to feel.

us his word. He wants to feed us. The body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. You need the strength of the Trinity. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, we are convicted today of what we are putting into our soul and what we're feeding on. Lord, it's leaving us empty. It's leaving us discouraged. It's leaving us with no power. Lord, when we feed on your word and on your body and blood, we are invigorated. Spiritually, we come alive. affects our bodies. Help us, Lord, to make the proper decisions to feed our hearts well and not with junk food. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. I love you, my friend. God bless you. Look forward to talking to you next week.