The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Important Content for Family Formation: Don’t Split Faith and Everyday Life (Part 4)

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Is your faith a part of your everyday life? Does it inform every part of your life? As Jeff continues his discussion of family formation, he emphasizes the importance of bringing faith into every part of your life. Truth faith is not meant for just one hour on Sundays. Jeff uses Scripture, Church documents, and other resources to explain why it is so important to bring faith into everything you do. Snippet from the Show Once you split your faith and everyday life, it is very easy to isolate your faith to just one hour on Sundays. 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!

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 348. Don't split faith in everyday life. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show. Thank you for joining me. We are continuing, by the way, this week. We're going to, continuing our important content for family formation series. This is show four. And we're going to be taking a look at the topic of splitting our faith from everyday life and the consequences of it and just how important it is. We'll also look at the way that Jesus taught and how he always brought together

faith with things of everyday living. And that was one of the reasons that I think he was so popular was he was showing people how they were to live. And they weren't caught in a religion that was up above the clouds. And then everyday living, they didn't know what to do. They were always connected. So we'll take a look at that. In fact, I had just went down the path.

I'm out here deep in the woods. And I was walking on a path. And I stopped at a beautiful little bridge that goes over a small river over in another lake and I was just sitting there looking at nature and you know looking at the we have a bunch of geese and ducks and and everything's getting ready for the winter and I was thinking to myself just how amazing God is in his creation and lately at night I've been going out on the on the back deck and looking up into the into the heavens and seeing the stars and just being in awe of of God and his power and his creativity.

And that got me thinking about this topic more in that our faith. Our faith is not, you know, just separate from all of this, but it is to be studied in this incredible world and lived out in this incredible world. And the moment that we take our faith and we split it from everyday life, we run into all kinds of trouble. Hey, I do have some really good quotes today and some scripture that I want to share with you. and if you would like to take that with you and you're in the car right now and you you don't have the time to write it all down don't write it all down when you're driving

and you can't pull over i've got all the notes waiting for you and all you got to do is text my name jeff kavens one word jeff kavens and you can text it to the number 3 3377 that's 3 3 777 i'll be happy to share those with you i know what it's like sometimes to listen to a podcast or television show and somebody says something and I think to myself, oh, that's so good in that I can't get it. You know, and it's not on a DVR, I can't go back, but I know what that's like. So I try to provide all of the notes in my shows to you so that it'll not only remind you of what we're talking about, but it might be good to pass on to other members of your family, particularly some of these good quotes that I have. And today I've got some really good quotes from

one of the Jewish philosophers called Abraham Joshua Heschel, and he was the only, really, I guess you could say Jewish philosopher that was quoted by John Paul II in his writing, Faith and Reason, Fetus at Ratio. And I just have always enjoyed studying him, and he's got some really good insight into this split between faith and everyday life. So if we're going to raise our children, that's what this series is about. important content for family formation. This one is entitled, Do Not, Don't Split Faith in Every Day Life. And that is one of the problems that we face. There was a study done years ago. I don't have it at my fingertips right at the moment, but there was a study done years ago, suffice it to say, that was studying college students and why they were leaving their faith. And they noticed that good percentage of college students were actually vacating the faith. They weren't going to mass on

Sunday. They weren't going to church on Sunday. And they wanted to know why. And so they started this study and the study showed something really interesting. The study showed that one of the chief reasons that college students in their freshman sophomore year left the faith was this. And I'm quote, they didn't know how to live out their faith. They said they had never really seen it, lived out. In other words, when they were growing up, their family had a faith, to be sure. They went to church on Sunday. There was a Bible on the bookshelf, and they said grace before meals.

But when it came to the rest of living, you know, when it came to making decisions and overcoming problems and finances and relationships, and infidelity and everything else that goes on in the world, they didn't see a relationship. And so the conclusion was, what's the point? What is the point? Why should I get up and go to church if I have learned over the years that there's really no connection between church and everyday life?

To be honest with you, I don't blame them. I don't blame them at all. You're a college student and you went out to a part. party the night before and you don't see any relationship between what you're doing during the day and faith, well, just continue on and maybe faith will take care of itself someday. I don't know, right? So keeping the spiritual and the physical related, that's one of the things I want to talk to you here. Don't split those two. You know, once you split them, once you split your faith and then everyday life, it becomes very easy to isolate your faith and see it as simply a

attending church, you know, once a week or maybe giving in a church mission or something like that. And that is really what your faith is made up of. You attended on Sunday. Yeah. And you have given something in the offering. But you know, we have 168 hours in a week. 168 hours in a week and if you go to mass on Sunday that is one hour if it's a fast mass that's 40 minutes but that's one hour out of the 168 hours of the week now that means that for only one hour a week we are focused on our faith and usually we are not totally focused when we go but if you want your children to know their faith and you want your children to be active in their church they will have to learn get this they will have to learn that that one hour a week that they

attend church is going to somehow have to be connected or related to every other hour the rest of the week all 167 other hours during the week that's the challenge to be honest with you, I don't think it's a challenge where you're going to win. I don't think you're going to win. I don't think that going to church one hour a week or 45 minutes a week and you're not completely there. I don't think that's enough to sustain people for the rest of the week. It's certainly not enough to sustain them in the difficulties that they are facing. They don't know how to make a decision in all these difficult situations or if anxiety sets in, which is happening with so many of our high school students these days. you know, suddenly anxiety sets in. What are they supposed to do? Think back about the homily on Sunday. They can't even remember what they wore on Sunday or anything else, much less the content of the homily. And did the homily even address what they're going through, you know, in their life? The word from many teens, the word from many teens is that is the same as their attitude towards math. And I remember saying this back when I was in high school, even though my dad was a math,

genius. I remember saying this and I think a lot of teens are saying this about their faith and it's equivalent to math and that is, what does this have to do with my life anyway? Now, that's a good question. That is a really good question. You might ask yourself that question as far as what you are providing for your teenagers, if you have teenagers, is what you're providing have anything to do with life anyway, as they say. What does this have to do with my life anyway? I used to say that to my dad all the time. Dad, why do I got to go to trigonometry?

You know, or is it trigopogatory? Dad, I don't know. What does this have to do with my life anyway? When I graduate, I'm going to forget all of this. That was my attitude. I wish I had a different attitude because now I'm kind of interested in math. Your job as a parent is to show them how, their faith fits into their everyday life. You have to remember that Jesus did not teach the faith

in a classroom and room 107 on Tuesday night. That's not the way Jesus taught his disciples the faith. He taught them in the context of everyday living, everyday living, from teaching on the sermon on the Mount to the miracles that took place to the woman that was caught in adultery and thrown out in front of him by the temple, he taught in everyday life. Now, one of my favorite quotes from a very, very cool document from Vatican 2, the documents called Godiam et spes. I'll put this quote in the notes for you. Paragraph 43.

When I ran into this quote back in 1995, it changed my life. The quote I'm about to give you changed my life back in 1990. And I will, I'll bet I have quoted this quote over, oh, 400 times, 500 times maybe. In all the speaking that I've done around the world and all of the podcasts and everything else, this one quote has kept me going forward in an integrated way, not disintegrated. A disintegrated person is a person who, they believe one thing on the inside and they do another on the outset. They're not integrated at all, and that's what we're talking about on this episode. Here's the quote, and this is Pope Paul the 6th.

This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious heirs of our age. Paragraph 43, God He admits, let me read it again. this split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives. So you see that? There's a split between their faith and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age. Wow. You know, when you look at Jesus in his teaching,

one thing you're going to realize real quick if you follow him closely is that Jesus doesn't split faith in everyday life. And if you split faith in everyday life, right in front of your kids, oh boy, what do you expect at college, right? What do you expect at college? It's going to be easier for them to split faith in everyday life. And once they realize that faith has nothing to do with everyday life, they'll give up their faith as well.

When asked, what is the greatest commandment, listen to this, and Jesus never splits faith in everyday life. When he was asked, what is the greatest commandment? Listen to what he said. And this is from Matthew 22, verses 36 and 37. You know what? I'll put the whole thing in the notes for you. Here's what it says.

Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the great and first commandment. Okay. So that's the first commandment. They said, what's the greatest commandment? He says, well, the greatest one.

and everybody happened to know it. If you asked anybody that question in the first century, they would have all given you the same answer. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. Okay, so we'll call that faith. Loving God, loving the God that you cannot see. So how do you do that?

Jesus always connects the natural everyday living to the faith. teacher which is the greatest commandment well you shall love the lord your god with all of your heart and with all your soul with all your mind this is the great in first commandment jesus said and then he said and second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets now what did he do there i'll tell you what he did there what he did was he connected faith in everyday life you see how do You love God who you can't see? How do you love God that is out there somewhere, but you don't know. You do have his word, but how do I love you, God? And Jesus gives the answer. Love your neighbor as yourself. So if you want to love God with all of your heart, you love your neighbor. You see, faith, everyday life. They fit together there. If you despise your neighbor, ignore your neighbor, you lie about your neighbor. You know, you lie about your neighbor. You know, neighbor, you steal from your neighbor, you bear false witness. Guess what you are doing in your

relationship to God? No, you're not loving God. That's for sure. Someone says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I love God. Trust me, I love God. I just have a real problem with that neighbor, that Oscar over there. Well, no, no, you see, you're splitting faith in everyday life. You say you love God. You need to love Oscar over there. No matter what he's doing, you need to love him. Now, there's a lot of another story that is told by Jesus, and it is the Good Samaritan. That one is a fantastic one that really illustrates what I'm saying to you today. In Luke chapter 10, I'll put this in the notes for you as well. It says, but he desiring to justify himself, this guy, says to Jesus, and he says, who's my neighbor? Who's my neighbor? He's supposed to love, you know, love your neighbor.

and who's my neighbor? Jesus replied, well, I'll tell you who your neighbor is, okay? So this guy says, well, I've done all of the law. You know, I've done everything. And he says, who's my neighbor? Jesus says this. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now, by chance, a priest was going down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite. when he came to the place and saw him pass by on the other side. But a Samaritan, time out, this is the unlikely guy, okay? The priest and the Levite, they're the likely ones that are going to help the Samaritan. No way. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion

and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him, Samaritan. Well, the next day he took out to Denarii and gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever more you spend, I'll repay you when I come back. And then Jesus says, which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? and he said, the one who showed mercy on him. And Jesus said to him, yep, go and do likewise. See, that's the difference is that the priest and the Levite, were they religious?

Give me a break. Of course they were religious. They even dressed the part. But there was a split between their faith in everyday life. So are you the priest or the Levite or are you the Good Samaritan? are you keeping your faith with everyday life this more than anything that i've seen is what is going to really have an impact on our kids when they see that our spiritual formulations our creeds our prayers our reflections all find a place in everyday living and consequences for everyday living

that will catch their attention. I believe it'll catch your attention certainly more than their attention is being caught presently. Now, I want to share with you something really powerful about the way we teach our children, and I think this is going to make a difference to you. This is where Abraham Joshua Heschel comes up, but I'm going to do that right after our break.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Hello, my name is Father Mark Tupes, author of The Rejoiced Advent meditation series, and if this Advent, you're looking for a peaceful encounter with God, I invite you to order a copy of Rejoice and Advent Pilgrimage into the Heart of Scripture Year B. You can find out more at Rejoiceprogram.com. God bless you. Welcome back. Talking today about, really about don't split faith in everyday life. That great quote from Gaudium, it spes. It's in the notes. This split. between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the

more serious heirs of our age. Very, very important. Very important. You know that when we teach our children, we need to teach them in such a way that they see that their faith is going to have an impact on the way that they work at work, the way they drive the car, the way that they treat the poor, the way that they treat their future spouse and their children, the way that they are honest at work, it's going to play into every single area.

And if they can't make that connection, then they're going to just have to do the best they can, you know? and that's not what we want them to do. We want them to go out there and armed for life. Now, Abraham Joshua Heschel, he said in an essay entitled Religion in a Free Society from his book, and I love the title of this book. I'm looking at it right now. The title of the book is The Insecurity of Freedom.

If you have it, it's on page 19. The Insecurity of Freedom. What a great title. He says, one of the chief problems of the first of, contemporary man is the problem what to do with time. What to do with time. For most of our lives, he says, we spend time in order to gain space, namely things of space. Yet when the situation arrives in which no things of space may be gained, the average man is at a loss as to what to do with time. That, my friend, okay, I'll put it in the show notes for you.

But that one is very powerful. And I know this to be true. Most of our lives, we spend our time doing what, gaining things. I'm going to get this. I'm going to buy that. I'm going to work for this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to polish that. I'm going to store that. I'm going to move this. I'm going to rearrange all that. And we spend our time gaining things and our kids will too, unless there's some kind of simplicity movement they join. Yet it says when the situation arrives, which there are no more things to gain, you know, we don't have the money to gain. We don't have the time to gain any more things. He says, the average man is at a loss as to what to do. So what do we do? What do we do? And so we spend our time in our life focused on things to fill the space

in our life. But what we have to teach our children is that our faith, our faith does meet the things of space, but the things of space are opportunities to love God and worship God. and praise God with our activities, that there is more than just accumulating things in life. There's more to it. And if we split our faith in everyday life, our kids will end up with a lot of things. And if they can't get more things, then they're empty. And I would argue that we have a generation, if not two, a very empty people, subject to anxiety, emptiness, a loneliness in their life.

And I think some of it goes back to this split between faith and everyday life. Now, one of the reasons for this is that we're not used to doing the faith in time. We're not used to doing the faith in time. We're used to going to church and then dropping everything and going back to time and space and accumulating. so we're not used to doing the faith in time or filling our time with the what the church calls the obedience of faith now Heschel went on to talk about in another book of his called the Sabbath when writing about the Sabbath Heschel wrote to gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks the danger begins when in

gaining power in the realm of space, we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own, but to give, not to control, but to share, not to subdue, but to be in accord. life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our soul concern. Teaching your children, the faith as it relates to everyday life, will prevent them from becoming so caught up in just the acquisition of things. And if life is only the acquisition of things, then we will compare. our things with other people and we will typically come up wanting. And envy sets in.

What's envy? Envy's a spiritual disease that does not understand the gifts that God has given us, that our father has given us. He's unfair. They have more. They have more. So this is where our young people are at. You take their phones away and emptiness fills the room. quickly and they don't know what to do with it. Heschel says the Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of faith. And I like that in that we ask our children to respond to the faith that we have by taking a leap of action rather than just a leap of faith, a leap of action. He is asked to surpass his needs to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.

And finally here, one of the greatest insights, I think, that Heschel brought out in his other book called Between God and Man, an interpretation of Judaism. And you think about Judaism, you know, there's really good thoughts here that are biblical thoughts that we can learn from. Let me set the table for this real quick. Perhaps I think the greatest difference between the Jewish people of Jesus Day and modern Christians today. is how we understand the relationship between education and life. That's what we're talking about on this episode. We're talking about splitting the faith from everyday life. And I think that the Jewish people of Jesus Day had it right

when they understood the relationship between education and life. And today, I think we have it wrong. I really do. For many today, education is merely the ticket to get to the next level in life. life. We struggle through grade school. Why? To get to high school. We struggle through high school, studying and hoping that we can get good grades so that we can move on to the next of life's proving grounds. College. And oftentimes it is college, isn't it? And if we can get through college, we will possess a diploma that says to a prospective employer that we are

prepared for and worthy of being hired by you. All too often, however, education is separate from the details of living. I just spoke to someone the other day that said that their son went through a tremendous high school and all 12 years of school and got out and could not balance their checkbook. Education is separate from the details of living. Disengage. from a greater purpose in life and merely represents steps taken toward a better life. There was and still is a difference between a Greek mindset and a Hebraic mindset of Jesus' day. The Jewish philosopher Heschel said, and I quote, The Greeks learned in order to comprehend.

The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use to bacon. oh, the formulation, knowledge is power. This is how people are urged to study today. Knowledge means power. Knowledge means success. We need to examine ourselves and really locate our hearts in this. I think we study all things Catholic to know and serve God,

not to get ahead or grow a YouTube channel or gain respect in the community. we study what we are called on to study to revere god and we cannot revere god separate from everyday living the first century disciples of jesus did not share the views of modern man they did not see the dichotomy between spiritual things and secular life there was no dichotomy there all learning was related to real living and all living was informed by faith. As Proverbs says, in Proverbs 24, by wisdom, a house is built, and by understanding it is established by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

To the Jews of Jesus' day, study was not separate from worship. Study was worship. The study was considered a beautiful way to worship God. and its full expression was the doing of God's word. Pope Paul VI recognized this problem with the modern man when in the Vatican II document, Gaudium and Spez, he said, the split between faith in everyday life deserves to be counted among the more serious heirs of our age.

Not just the serious areas of our age, but one of the more serious heirs of our age. It would do us all well, I think, to reorient our minds and hearts regarding education and learning. Rather than seeing education as a series of hurdles that must be overcome or personal gain, we should see learning as a valuable opportunity to worship God with all of our heart, mind, and strength, and to connect our faith to everyday life amid all our spirit. life amid all our spiritual, quote-unquote, spiritual or quote-unquote secular learning, when we live our lives as committed disciples of Jesus, we must ask ourselves,

how can the knowledge I am gaining lead me into the deeper relationship with God that will result in honoring God? You know, back in college, I wrote a paper about why more Jews more than any other ethnic group in the world won a disproportionate number of Nobel Peace prices. Why did the Jews win a disproportionate number of Nobel Peace prices? And one of the conclusions that I came to, and I can't say that it was my sole conclusion. It was based on, you know, study at that age and listening to what other minds had to say. But it was because there was a number of reasons, but it was because the study habits that they employed did not split faith in everyday life. They saw the earth as God's toy box, as God's sandbox, and they enjoyed

taking it apart and putting it back together and celebrating the creativity of God and giving him a blessing. Baruchata, Adunai, Elohim, Melah, Alam. Just seeing everything is coming from God and going to God. They didn't split their faith between, or split between their faith in everyday life. That split wasn't there. So as parents, and I'm one of them, I got three daughters, I got three grandchildren, I'm with you, totally, you and I stand in solidarity. Let's do this, this week.

Let's focus. Let's focus on connecting our faith to everyday life when we talk to our children. Please, oh, please, oh, please, may this not be a good podcast. My prayer is that this isn't just a good podcast. We walk away, you know, saying, well, that was interesting. No, what can we do? What can we do to bridge the gap between faith in everyday life for our children and teach them and walk with them that way?

Because if you don't do it, I promise you. I promise you. The odds of them connecting it when they're away from. home are quite small. This is your time, this is your place, if not you, who, if not now, when, which, by the way, was also a Jewish rabbi by the name of Hillel. So let's pray, and let's make that a real point. We've only got one life with these kids.

We only have one, one lifetime with grandchildren. Let's go after it. Don't get caught up in all the things in this world, these shiny things that take your attention away when there's so much at stake. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you. We thank you so much. We thank you that you always, Lord, you always kept faith in everyday life together and you showed us so much. Help us to study that way and help us to live that way and to teach that way. May we be examples to all of those who are looking to us of what faith really is and how concrete it is in every

day living. We thank you for this in Jesus name, your beautiful name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I love you, my friend, as always. And next week, we'll be back with more important content, our family formation.