The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Introducing the Bible Timeline Show (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

In this special episode, Jeff shares with us the first episode of The Bible Timeline Show available on the Bible In a Year YouTube channel. In this inaugural episode, Jeff is joined by Fr. Mike Schmitz, priest, speaker, and host of The Bible in a Year. Together, they discuss the reality and impact of God's Word—both in their own lives, and in the lives of those who have walked with them. Snippet from the Show "When you read the Bible, you're going to find out about the heart of the Father." 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 341, introducing the Bible Timeline Show. Be sure to check out the Bible Timeline Show on the Bible in a year YouTube channel. A new episode releases on Sunday at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time. There's a lot of things that people know about me. They're like, oh, I really like Father Mike. And I know that, but if you knew the whole story, you wouldn't like me as much. I mean that in a genuine transparent.

Yeah. And I know that God has blessed me in a unique way for my youth. You know, if there's no goodness of my own, that God did something in my life. And I was like, oh, I didn't deserve that at all. If you could talk one-on-one with all those who have gone through Bible a year and say, oh, by the way, just one more thing. Remember, what would you say? Gosh, that's a great question.

So good to have you. Thanks, Jeff Fais. It's awesome to be here. I was also in the first show. It is, right? It is. You know, and while we're not really getting into, I guess, what you would say is a period of salvation history, we're going to be doing that.

I just wanted to talk to you about the Bible in your life and Bible in a year, because you and I have been friends for a long time, and I have seen what God has done through you in bringing scripture to people. And I'm just fascinated, you know, with what, and you probably didn't know he's going to do this. Not at all. No, not at all. I mean, I've always, I've always had, I've had like a lot of people, I think, the love, the distant love of scripture, like the idea, I love the idea of here's God speaking to us. And that notion of like, I want to know. I mean, I remember you sharing when you got confirmed. Right.

And you had gone back to your room and you're just like, I want to know what's in this book. And I remember when you said that, I was like, oh, me too. Like that was something that was deeply in me. I went to a moment of conversion, like 15 years old or so. That summer I went to the Crowing County Fair. Uh-huh. I got my first little Gideon, the New Testament in songs. Those little bonds that caught.

Yeah. And I was like, I want to know this. You know, so I remember starting to read Matthew and be like, okay, this is confusing. I mean, even the gospels. I was like, wait, why is this genealogy here? I don't know what to do. But there was always that sense. I mean, that Christmas then, again, I was 15, 20, 16, that Christmas I asked for my first Bible, like real Bible.

Sure. And I still have it. It's got duct tape all over it. It's just, it's falling apart. It's a mess. But it was that sense of, like, I want to know what this is. And it's almost like it's just drawing you. Yeah.

You know, come read. But there was that sense of, I would have no idea that, um, God. could use, yeah, would be able to use what I was offering to be reached so many people. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to bring in that picture at a future show of that day when I held up that Bible, a confirmation, and I never thought that that would be the rest of my life. And I imagine back when you were both hockey players. Were you? I was really bad. I played for five years and never scored a goal. Me too. Not even in practice. Me too. Were your goal?

I was a goalie. Tank it. Okay, so the one time I did score, I was playing goalie, and it came from the other end of the rink, and I wound up to, but the goalie stick is angled differently than another stick. So I just wound up to just crush it whiff and went right past me. That's the closest I had to ever scoring a goal, and my uncle who was coaching just skated out to me.

He's like, hey, Mike, how about we, how would we get back to the seats, back to the bench? That was it. That was I was done. How has this last year been for you? I mean, you went on, I know you're a long-distance runner, but you've never, I never knew you were a long-distance talker. Okay. Like, I think six and a half days or something total of the Bible.

Is that something like that? Yeah, that was one of the stats that was there. Um, yeah, it's been incredible. It's really incredible. Um, because both, both for me personally and then just also seeing, hearing what God has done in so many people's lives, just simply by reading the Bible and just letting, people, I guess, for lack of a better way to say it, is join me on that journey of reading the Bible, which, yeah, that's probably the best way to say it, because it wasn't like,

you're an expert in my, in least in my estimation, and in my life, you've been the expert, you've been the person I could just look to and say, okay, whatever, what is Jeff said about this kind of thing? But I think in some ways, of course, I studied scripture in college, like as a theology major, and I study scripture in seminary and study scripture afterwards. But there was the part, doing the Bible in the year, I think I was on the journey too, if that makes any sense. Right. That there were some things I was discovering that I had never contemplated before. I never put in context before. I don't think, and this is maybe one of those confession moments, I was so, I knew that Leviticus, like you mentioned, it would always be

tough. Leviticus was amazing. It was the prophets. I don't think I'd ever read chapter one to the end of any of the books of the prophets. I'd read all of the words, I think, at some point. But I'd never said, okay, here's Isaiah in context and do the whole thing. Or here's Jeremiah in context and the whole thing. And so I was a lot, in large part, I was on the journey as well. Right. Well, when you were doing it, no doubt you're getting feedback right away from all over the world. And you're getting email and you're getting texts from people and people leaving messages about what it is doing in their life. What were you hearing? I was hearing that, I mean, this is going to sound, well, I don't know what it's going to sound like. You know how scripture says that, like, you know,

the word descends like rain on the earth and it doesn't go back, return until it does what it was accomplished, does what it was sent to do. And it just seemed like that's what was happening again and again in people's lives was it was um people lives are being changed i mean even this last week i got a text from a brother priest in michigan and i met him once or twice and he said hey by the way um so want to let you know someone came to confession with the first time in 55 years because of the bible because they're reading listening to the bible and that is that is one of hundreds thousands i was in phoenix recently and i got to like sign some books and stuff and every time someone would ask me to sign their great adventure bible i'd be like you know i didn't write this just making sure just the narrator

not the writer. That's the same thing. Very important. Just want to say that. Like, I know. But people who are like, my life is changed. They're saved. I mean, it's just, and again, what is it simply giving people access to God's word?

Because it's obviously, like, for us, the power is in the Holy Spirit. The power is in the Word of God. That's what changes people's lives. It's not a genius teaching or whatever. It's, that has been transformative. for me as well, just to recognize, you know, sometimes all you have to do is just speak the word or let the word be accessible to others. And God does it. Yeah. Well, that's a good point. You know, when you bring that, you bring this point up about being a voice. And I think that's something

for people to remember, you know, is that it's not your word. Right. It is God's word. And God's word will not return into him void, but it will accomplish that which he desires. And to yield your voice to the Lord, like someone, you know, elector reading at mass, they're saying, Lord, use my voice to speak. And that's what you did. Just yesterday, just yesterday, I'll have to show you later. Just yesterday, someone sent me a picture. Their mother was in the hospital, and she was just diagnosed with cancer and she was in pain and he sent me a picture of her and in front of the bed there was a laptop open and there you were speaking the word of God to her and she was literally writhing in pain and I thought yeah that's that's what we wanted that's what we what we want to do

is to bring God's word to hurting people yeah and that that was a you mentioned mentioned that. I also, within the last month, another, something's very similar. Someone in the hospital, their daughter took a photo and said, here's my mom, she's still listening to the Bible. There's a mom who actually, she'd contacted me. It's just one of the most heart-wrenching letters that one of her sons had this incredible, debilitating illness that ultimately ended up taking his life. And he wasn't very old at all, between 8 and 12, somewhere in there, really young. And ultimately, it also ended up taking his hearing. And so she said that, but he'd like write on a whiteboard, just, you know, Father Mike, question mark, just as I want to, he wanted to listen to the Bible.

And she said that we'd have to turn it. His hearing was going, so they had to turn the volume up all the way. And she said in her letter, she said, even when he couldn't hear my voice, he could hear your voice. And he could hear God's, you know, God's voice. And just like, oh, my gosh. Is it such a, yeah, it's just, it's, you mentioned, you know, in the catechism, it talks about if you're a catechist, you're lending your lips to Jesus. You're letting him use your voice. You're letting him use, if you're going to teach, it's actually him who teaches.

And we're just simply at his disposal, right? We're, in some ways, a vessel through which God can reach people who need be reached. Now, people are familiar with the Bible in a year. Bible in a year. Everybody gets that. You don't even have to explain it. Bible, year, let's do it. Makes sense. But now you're going to go on another marathon. Yeah. And you're going to read the catechism in a year. You got to admit, we as Catholics, we have a lot of meta words. You know, we got the catechism taught by a catechist to the catechumans. Catechesis is the process, and we use a catechism to do it. Yes. Am I clear? That was really good. Okay. I understood every word.

Okay, so for many Catholics, they know that, okay, sure, Bible in a year. Yeah, let's do the catechism in a year. But for people who, I might add, a lot of people who went through the Bible in a year, don't know what a catechism is or what the purpose of it is. What's your elevator pitch there? What would you say to them? Yeah. Well, I think, gosh, that's a great question because what would be the elevator pitch? I would say that one of the things we say, what's a catechism is a summary of the Christian faith. So it's very, very similar. are very succinct, simply put. But why would you want a summary of the faith if you could have the Bible itself? Why would you have a summary of the faith if you could have God's very word revealed, you know, through sacred scripture?

Well, part of it is because what God is revealed is not always clearly elucidated in sacred scripture. But sacred tradition has made, has taken that data of scripture and clarified, okay, here's what it means. So, for example, a person could read to the Bible, and you can miss some things about the nature of God. You can miss some things about the goodness of God or the holiness of God, because maybe you read something that was really challenging. And it'd be tempting to remember the part that says, okay, but remember, God is completely just, that he is so good, that he is love. It would be easy to sometimes forget some of those things.

So the catechism is this, again, a sacred tradition, tradition put into this really simple, and succinct summary of things, don't forget this. This is, we took the data of scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and under that inspiration of the Holy Spirit, here's sacred tradition. And the catechism is a summary of that. So we don't forget what God has revealed about himself, about us, about our call to how we're supposed to live. I mean, there are some areas of the Christian life that the Bible doesn't address.

I mean, for example, you know, in the Acts of the Apostles, when they have the big question of should those who are not baptized, sorry, not circumcised, first be circumcised and then be baptized. And the apostles and those early disciples are like, well, Jesus didn't say anything about that. What do we do? The Bible doesn't say anything about that. What do we do?

And they prayed and here's a sacred tradition that says, okay, it seems clear to the Holy Spirit and to us that, and then fill in the blank. Here's the conclusion. And we recognize that here we are 2,000 years. years later, and we're experiencing questions and difficulties that the early church didn't experience. And so the catechism is a phenomenal way to address those complex issues. So this is a long elevator ride. And I apologize. We're all the way up to the 50th floor right now, yeah. That's slow elevator. That's good. That's good. It's just this wisdom that has been accumulated

and developed and revealed for now centuries and distilled. And there it is given in this very simple, accessible. Beautiful book. It is. Produced by extension. They did. And you know what really got me really excited about it is that they have a timeline. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's that you have it right with you. I call it like a baby, baby brother. Yeah. To the great adventure. Bible timeline. And this is amazing. It's so cool. Quickly, teach me. So, so here's the four pillars, the calm of the catechism. And so the foundations of faith approach to the Categism is, okay, these four pillars. First one is the creed. So what we believe. The second is the sacraments. So how we worship. The third is the moral life. So how we live? And the fourth is

is prayer. So how do we pray? You did that without even looking at the church. I didn't even have to glance down. But there's that sense of us. It just, it covers these aspects of life, covers these aspects, this back to what is it to be a disciple of Jesus? Well, okay, I have to believe rightly and I want to worship right and I want to live right and I want to pray right and in doing that I just I don't know

we had talked about this before but I can't love what I don't know I can't love who I don't know and so part of what here is what is what is what is driving a relation this is God revealing himself to man as a conscious subject because he wants us

to he wants to invite us into this loving relationship right he wants to enter into this relationship. And he wants us to know who he is so that we can actually genuinely love him, not just love an idea of God, but love the actual God himself. And I just, so anyway, so I really think that not only scripture, obviously, because God reveals his heart to us and gives us us heart to us. But in the catechism, it's just, it seems like, I would say bullet after bullet, just like, okay, here's this truth. And here's this another thing that contemplate about who God is and his love for us. And I mean, even the first paragraphs that are introducing what a catechism is,

talk about, there are paragraphs that sing on just God in a plan of sheer goodness book. Yeah. You know, let me just read that real quick because, you know, you always talk about, what are your favorite paragraphs in the catechism? What's your favorite verse in the Bible? And I would have to say that the first paragraph is one of my top 100. Yeah. It's one of my top 250, but yeah.

Yeah. But listen to this. If this isn't a synopsis of Bible in a year, if this isn't a synopsis of Bible, I don't know what he is. Listen to this. God infinitely perfect and blessed in himself in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place God draws close to man and he calls man to seek him to know him to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men scattered and divided by sin into the unity of his family the church, and to accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son as

redeemer and savior, and in his son, and through him, he invites men to become in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children, and thus heirs of his blessed life. Amen. Seriously. It's the gospel. That's it. Yeah. But there's more to it. Right. It's supposed to be on that paragraph. There's more to it. Yeah, for sure. So, okay, back to the Bible for a moment here. In this last Last year, when you were reading the Bible and talking to people, did you get a sense that they were getting it? Did you get a sense of that? Or were they just as confused? No, the sense I got was, yeah, that people were getting it.

And one of the reasons I know that. Well, two reasons. One is because conversions were happening. Like there was actual life change. There are so many people like you mentioned here is this photograph of this woman in pain. but reading the Bible, listening to the Bible, and finding solace. So many people, a woman stopped me just a couple nights ago. And I was out with a friend in a restaurant, and she had said that she had the worst

year of her life last year. But every day she just kept pressing play, and listening to God's Word. And one of those things where it's like, she said, I don't know if I could have made it through this year. It would have been unbearable if it hadn't been for God's Word. right? I had meant for that. The other is, um, not only has God's word been consoling so many people like supporting them and encouraging them. It's also been really convicting, um, especially, I just think at the number of people who have reached out to me, whether they didn't believe in God,

whether they were, uh, lapsed Christians, lapsed Catholics, or even practicing. But the way that taking in the entirety of the Bible challenge them was, one that I was just like, this is so good because they thought they had a, they thought they knew who God was, but they had a version of God, whether it be like an American version, an evangelical version, a health and wealth type version. And to be able to say, no, this is actually how God has revealed himself in sacred scripture, not take him or leave him, but kind of. And do you have to say, wait, do I actually want a God like this? Do I want the God who reveals himself to actually be just as much justice as he is mercy or vice versa because sometimes we're challenged more

by the mercy because we realize we not only need it for ourselves but we need to offer it to others. And so it's been both consoling, encouraging, as well as really challenging for a lot of people. And that's why I just like think, I think people have gotten it because you had to have people say, yeah, they say, I'm going through a, I'm going through a Bible in a year, but Father, I'm like, I'm only on day 54 and it's day 130 or anything. Right. What do you say to them? I say I'm 30 days behind myself. So this year, I've been listening. I've been going through the Bible, listening to it.

I have to listen to it on a little faster speed, both because I just like you going faster. And secondly, because that way I don't hear myself as much, I just hear the word. And so it's not like, oh, I'm talking, what a moron. Because that's what I always think. But so I'm 30 plus days behind now. I think, yeah, but what I do every day,

if I've missed, just press play again. And that's the thing is, you know, you mentioned at the very beginning, some people on the Bible in two years, like, yep, that is awesome. There's no reason not to do that. You know, for a lot of people, the Bible is simply a book on a shelf at a bookstore, or they hear about it. As believers, as Catholics, the Bible has a very special place in our life. And I want to talk a little bit about where it came from and how this was put together and the nature of it because it's unlike any other book out there. But I want to start, first of all, with it's not a book, you say, right? It's in one binding, but there, as you mentioned,

it's a library. Right. 73 different books with how many different genres, you know, poetry and history, you have gospel, you have wisdom literature, you know, even the prophetic literature, like mentioned of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Like that's a whole other kind of, uh, how do you read that kind of thing? Yeah, so it's a whole different, it's a library rather than just a book, yeah. And to recognize it, here is Jesus who established the church before the New Testament existed. So the Church precedes the New Testament in time, and the New Testament actually comes from, many ways, comes out of the church. It's a tradition.

It's out of the life of the church, out of the tradition, exactly. And it's so fascinating to recognize that, you know, for the Old Testament, this is assembled over, hundreds and hundreds of years, these sacred writings, but they're also in time. And this is one of the things that the Catholic Church believes about the Word of God, or the Sacred Scripture, is that this is the Word of God in the words of men. And there's something so, it's divinely inspired, God breathed by it, about it, but also very human as well, meaning that actual authors, according to their own knowledge, according to their own time frame and all these kind of things with their own personal limitations, under the guidance

of the Holy Spirit, wrote down those things and only those things that God wanted to reveal to his people. And that's just like, I love the mix of this because, again, when I go back to when I was 15 and first picked up that, you know, small Gideon, New Testament, and Proverbs and Psalms, I'm like, I thought of the Bible as a magical book, which in some ways, is magical. You know what I mean, but it is, there's something not just otherworldly, not just God breathed about it, but also very much in time and in the messiness of life. And you think, well, wait, why is that in the Bible instead of like something nicer, instead of something more inspiring?

You realize, okay, because God wanted to reveal that somehow. And he revealed it through that particular right author. And then so the Old Testament being assembled over the course of all these years. And then as you said, here is the New Testament, which comes out of the life of the church. Right. You have to ask yourself, well, what did the early church go by for those years? Because the canon wasn't really affirmed until 393 and 37 in the councils of Hippo and Carthage. And so before that, you have these letters that have been passed around.

Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians. Just two weeks ago, I was in Philippi. I was in Corinth. We had a wonderful trip there. And to stand there and think, Paul wrote a letter, a messy letter to the Koreans, about what they're doing and what they've got to stop doing with their traditions and the temples and so forth. And he wrote that. And lo and behold, we find out that was inspired.

Right. Yeah. That's crazy. Did he know? I think sometimes my image of the inspiration of God here as Paul writing his letter was, you know, that God at some point like just took him over and he just like... Yeah, right, automatic writing. Or even I have a, my little brother's room, he has a picture of Matthew, the apostle,

as he's writing the gospel of Matthew. And there's a painting of, it's not a photo, it's a painting, of an angel whispering in his ear. And he's kind of like, oh, yeah, you know, kind of as he's in neither of those would be, they represent something, a reality, which is, it's God breathed, right? God inspired. But again, here is in the messiness of this church, God is, was speaking to his people, not just in that time and that place in Corinth or in Philippi, but to all of us. And saying, this is what I need you to know in order to know me, in order to know what I long want for you.

Yeah, our certitude with the Bible, particularly the New Testament, does get back to the church that Jesus established because in St. Augustine brought this out. He says, I would not believe that this is the word of God had the church not told me, you know. And so as Paul wrote and he talked about how the church is the pillar in support of the truth. And out of this church comes the written word. And we get the word of God in scripture. sacred scripture, but sacred tradition too. And Paul says, you know, tend to the tradition that I passed on to you. Well, we didn't have the New Testament at that point.

And so it is because of the authority of the church that we have these books. And there's a certain sense of certitude that we can depend upon them, that this is the Word of God. So when we call the Bible the Word of God, and we talk about it being inspired, we're not necessarily saying it's inspiring. Right. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. Yeah, I know. It's inspired, meaning that God's the author.

Right. The Holy Spirit is the author. And the Holy Spirit wrote through these men. The men wrote what they wanted to write, but the Holy Spirit wrote what he wanted to be written for the sake of our salvation as you said that. And that word, you mentioned it earlier, Theo Nustos, God, God breathed.

So the Word of God is the inspired, the Bible's the inspired Word of God, which means no errors, inerrant. We believe that it's inerrant. And right away, people are going to say, oh, I think there's all kinds of, you know, discrepancies and this and this and that. To which I like what St. Augustine would say, you know, that basically it'll work its way out. Right. We'll know sooner or later. The problem isn't with God. Trust me.

The problem is with you. And you're going to end up finding out what that meant, you know. and so for the early church this was the norm they you know they had these letters and then of course it was put into the it put into the canon and all these years it has been a guide for us and it's god leading and directing us and encouraging us correcting all of these things and that's such a blessing yeah completely i mean especially you know we recognize the the need for the church not only to give us the Bible, but to interpret the Bible. Good point, yeah. Just that sense of like if we, well, I remember hearing a, there was a theologian, a philosopher, in fact, who said, um, the church, for in order

for the Bible to be infallible, the church has to be infallible because a fallible organization cannot produce an infallible document. You know, like, huh, that's interesting. But then go beyond that and say, well, here is God who goes to, in some ways, goes to all this trouble to reveal himself through scripture, thousands of years, you know, translations and copies and all these kind of things, because he wants you to know who he is. He just wants you get, he doesn't want us to get his identity wrong. So here we are at the end of the, like you said, 350 and 397. Here's the list, 73 books. All inspired, all infallible. How much sense would it make for God to go to all this trouble to reveal himself to us to create an infallible book and then say, well, here you go,

read it and tell me what you think. Like we'd have to have an infallible interpreter or else that infallible book is worthless because you could read it and come to one conclusion. I could read it, come to the opposite conclusion. So we need not only the infallible church to produce the infallible word of God, but also to interpret even now. Do you struggle with that at all? I'm asking this hypothetically, that we believe that the church has received the deposit of faith, what Jesus taught. He taught the disciples. We have the sacred scripture.

We have the sacred tradition. Not tradition like we opened presents on Christmas Eve, but the tradition, you know, that Mary is the mother of God, the Council of Ephesus, for example. And ultimately it gets back to, do we believe that? that Jesus gave authority to the church and that the church can keep this, can keep this together. Have you ever struggled with that? Oh, totally. Yeah. No, I mean, earlier on in my life, that had become a kind of a real crux point in my life. Yeah, I mentioned having kind of an initial conversion at 15, 16, how old was right there

and really wanting to learn more and more about God and learning to pray. I didn't know how to pray. I knew some things about what it meant to live as a Christian, but at one point, I had gone to college and was really introduced with some thoughts that were, or some ideas that really called them the question, the authority of the church, and that basically you can't really trust the church. The church is also evolving, and church is also, which, I mean, we're always reforming. We're always coming back to this place of conversion, but really undermining what would be the authority of the church and the fact that Jesus did give his authority to the church. And so I really rebelled against the church in a pretty significant way, maybe not as big

in the sense of having left, like, but yeah, but my mind and my heart had left. Like I just, I remember thinking, I'll probably be Catholic the rest of my life, but I'll be embarrassed by a lot of these teachings. And I'll probably disagree with a lot of these teachings. And since I already have my degree in theology, I know what I'm rejecting. You know, I kind of know that I'm doing this with knowledge. You know, I'm doing this for a reason, not just because I'm petty. Turns out it was kind of petty.

And it wasn't until it was revealed to me, taught to me, like, oh, no, here's where the authority comes from. Here's where you're actually wrong on this. And here's where the church is right. The whole long story, many times it happened. And it happened so many times that I was demonstrated, demonstrated to be wrong. And the church was demonstrated to be right that it just was like, well, shoot. I guess it's this is no this is a non-starter now this is no longer an issue and for me that's what

it's been ever since there was this deeper secondary or maybe tertiary or whatever a conversion that um made it very very clear that uh i can trust the church and it's similar to that sense of okay i can trust god's word if i don't get it like you mentioned sin augustin if i don't get it the problems with me like if i don't get it it's because i might be most likely reading this wrong or my own intellect or my heart is my that's the limitation right and same thing has been true with the church um uh even when you come face to face with the humanity of the church and brokenness and sin in the church um again it's a grace to be able to see that and say okay that isn't the teaching of the church especially like the brokenness and the sin and like the evil that people have done either in the church

or in the name of the church or both that's like that's that's people not living up to the teachings of the church. That's people not living up to the gospel. Even the scriptures, even, you know, St. Paul Literative Timothy, he says, what is the pillar and foundation of truth? The pillar and foundation of truth is the church. And so that sense of being able to say, again, not triumphalistically, right? And I know our conversation could be, someone to tune into it and be like, oh, you guys just think the Catholic church is right and you want to kind of bang your own drum. And in a certain sense of like, well, yes, maybe, but at the same time, what joy is there? Like, so when we, we read through the whole Bible in the podcast, Bible on the ear, we read all 73 books,

including those seven Deuterocanical books that a lot of our Protestant brothers and sisters haven't ever heard of or even read. And one of the ways we wanted to introduce them was a way of saying, okay, this is a treasure that you just haven't had access to. You didn't even know this was part of your inheritance. Right. And that's, I think that's part of, that's where I was. Exactly. What we're saying is like, so if someone doesn't know about, here's baptism, Here's the Eucharist. Here are all those really big, powerful ways in which God comes into our lives or how do I live marriage and what is marriage in the first place? All these pieces.

It's not trying to say, well, we're over here on this team. We have so much more things than you do. It's that sense of saying you realize this is the fullness of the inheritance that God wants for everyone to experience. Not our team wins or our side is the best. As much as it is, this is the inheritance. that you might not even know that you have access to. You might not even know it was there, it's there for you. Yeah.

And so part of that inheritance is scripture, of course. Yeah, and that's what happened to me. I still remember the day so clearly. I was in Dayton, Ohio, and I was a pastor, and I was starting to read the early church fathers. And, of course, scripture, yes, I mean, I love it, but I was reading the early church fathers and listening to common denominators, Eucharist, the role of Mary is the the mother of Jesus, the bishop of Rome, all of these various teachings.

And it made me so hungry for more. So I didn't look at it as, I'm right, you're wrong, or we have more, you have less, or anything like that at all. It was like, wait a minute, I mean there's more, right? There's more? If there's more, I want it, you know? And I think that's the right attitude, you know, for people to have is that if there's more, I want it.

I want as much of Jesus as I can possibly get. Well, God doesn't ration his spirit. And so he pours out himself over and over again all the time. And for you, I mean, just even to go back to here, you had been, the Bible had been the center of your life for years and years. I mean, studying not just kind of like, I read the Bible regularly on a daily basis, but like studying the Bible to be able to examine every possible way to understand it. And then realizing that was the first room.

there is this whole other house that, uh, that's there. And so it wasn't like, uh, that was fine, but it's, um, I need somewhere else. It's, this is as much as I can. This is this gold mine. It's amazing. And wait, there's, there's not just a room. There's an entire house here too, which is I think is amazing. And I might add, uh, you know, as we're talking about this, that, uh, over this next year, we're going to have a lot of different shows. We're going to have a lot of different speakers, uh, scholars, theologians who are going to be joining us. and we're not going to skirt around some of these topics. We're going to hit them.

We're going to talk about them. And with a heart that is open, what does God want for us? How can we receive more? And I hope you'll go with us on that journey. I really do because it's really all about understanding more and more about the Lord. There's two things, you know, and the Catechism brings this up. two things that that we gain more and more of in scripture when we read it. It talks about the theology and it talks about what's called the economy of God,

big fancy words, you know, the theology and the economy or what, say, oikonomia, if you want to really sound smart. Yeah, the Greek, it's great. Oh, yeah, that makes you sound smart. But you got the theology and the economy, and the theology, it speaks about knowing the mystery of the trinity. and that mystery of the Trinity, break it down even more. It's knowing the heart of your father.

And when we talk about God revealing himself in sacred scripture, the one thing that is revealed for sure is the heart of our father, which sometimes is different than we thought. You know, sometimes people have this idea of who God is and you did something wrong, boom, you know, that type of thing. You get to know the heart of your father. but then the other word that is used is the economy of God. The economy of God.

And that speaks of a father's household plan. So when you read the Bible, you're going to find out about the heart of your father, but also the household plan. And that gives you a platform in which you can trust. And talk to me a little bit about trust in the days that we're living. living in now. I'm hearing people, they're not finding what they're looking for in Hollywood, politics, social movements, and so forth. And I think one of the reasons the Bible in a year was so successful is because there's more questions than ever right now. So talk to me a little bit

about trust and the Bible. Yeah, that's really good. Also, not necessarily finding what they're looking for in any individual either, whether that person not only be like a celebrity or a politician, but also, you know, a religious leader. And there's something about that that's really so powerful to recognize that, okay, yes, every human being is fallen, every human being is broken. Every human being is going to at some point let me down. And not in a, not to say that in a like Eeyore kind of like, a won't want kind of way, but just like, no, I just know this. Therefore, I trust individuals, I trust human beings, to the degree that they're trustworthy. Hopefully, no less, but hopefully no more, because that's just, that's, but we can trust the Lord.

Without, without fail, we can trust the Lord without holding anything back. We don't have to guard ourselves from trusting him. And it's something similar when it comes to, I can just lean into his word. And that it's not going to be, he's not going to lead me astray. Because, again, if this was just a document that he passed on to us, that's interesting things. we should know about me. That's one thing. But if this is, like you've mentioned, this is my very heart revealed and given to you so that you can actually learn to love me and I can share my life with you. Like there's a whole other element there where I say, okay, I know I can trust

in this because this reveals a trustworthy heart. And I just think, I don't know, again, in a world where we recognize that too many of us have placed our trust in people and we shouldn't have or institutions that we shouldn't have or in politicians or promises or whatever the thing is that we shouldn't have god demonstrates that he is trustworthy and i just yeah it's just no one else is well i mentioned earlier about coming back around to the church at large and you have the scripture which is the great it's the greatest treasure to come out of the tradition of the word of god is such a gift but there's another thing that is a tremendous gift and uh and it's it's equal to in veneration, that's the Eucharist.

And so when you take the Eucharist and you take the word of God, where's the one place that you celebrate both? Yeah. Well, I love the fact that even was it, shoot, Dr. Scott Hahn has the book, consuming the word. Right. And in it, he makes the connection of the term even testament is connected with the term covenant.

and so the old book of the Old Testament is the Old Covenant and the New Testament is the New Covenant so that and what does Jesus say at the last supper he says take this all of you and drink from it this is the chalice of my blood the blood of the new and eternal covenant and he makes the claim and I think this just blew my mind when he pointed out he said that the New Testament was a sacrament that the Eucharist before it became a document and the fact the only reason why we consider those letters and gospels of the New Testament as New Testament is because they were read at the New Testament. They were read at the Mass.

And that's the, it was like, what? Are you kidding me? This is amazing. But it also highlights the fact that if I didn't know this, I'm a priest, I didn't know this until the last decade or whenever he read the, wrote the book. It's like, well, no wonder we have such a disjoint, disjunction. We disconnect. No wonder we have this disconnect between the sacramental life, right?

The Eucharist, the mass and the Bible, even though, okay, every time I go to Mass, what do I get? Like you said, I get the Bible and I get the Eucharist. I just thought in some ways maybe they were arbitrarily together. It's very helpful to read the scriptures as well as celebrate the Mass. But not to realize. They're down to two things. Yeah, exactly.

The inextricably connected. Yeah. Well, you see it in Luke chapter 24 too. Right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. When you see the road to a man. You got these two individuals who are walking away from the action.

They're walking away from the stadium. Games over. Jesus was crucified, we're going home, we thought it was going to be something else. And Jesus joins him on the road. I get a kick out of that. He joins, what are you guys talking about? And they look at him like, you only want it, doesn't get it? And they were looking downcast, right?

Yeah. All their hope, they had placed in Jesus and the game's over. We lost. Yeah. And you think, again, we mentioned how we are right now, so many people in our lives, in our world, and our culture, just like, oh, well, I thought this would be better. I thought 2020, 22, 2023, 2024, I thought it would be better. And here we are.

And game over. Yeah. Yeah. So what Jesus says, what are you talking about? You know, what are you guys talking about? Well, you're the only one that doesn't know. What? And they said, what about Jesus?

And he gives them an amazing teaching. I'd love to, you know, if I get to heaven, please God, I want to listen to that teaching, you know. And he talks about throughout the entire Hebrew scriptures, why the son of man had to suffer. And he gives that to them. and then he ends up staying with him. And in the breaking of the bread, their eyes are open. And so there seems to be this one-two punch in a way. You've got the word and you've got the Eucharist,

and the two come together. And the result is that your eyes are opened. You are satisfied. You are fed and truly fed. and that is the model for the man. I mean, as we're not our hearts burning within us, as he opened the scriptures to us. So their hearts are on fire

as they hear God's word explain to them and then their eyes are open. Like that double movement of hearts on fire, what I hoped in and failed, what I thought failed, is actually I can trust now again, that I have hope once again. I have this love for the Lord. And then I can see him.

I can actually encounter him. And it's just like, as you said, that is the model for every time we go to Mass. Yeah. Have God's word proclaimed? Hearts on fire. Here's another thing that when people get excited about the Lord, oftentimes they get their Bible, you know, and they start buying books and things. And that's good. That's really, really good.

But it's a matter of explaining the faith and why we're right and why, you know, it's apologetics. You know, and there's certainly a room for apologetics, no doubt. But going beyond that, what can people expect from the Word of God? What, you know, someone says, well, why should I read this? Why should I study this? What, I guess that's that old question. What's in it for me? Yeah.

You know, that's a good. I mean, and I really do want to affirm, like you just said, apologetics, like knowing why we believe what we believe, that was so critical for me. Yeah. A number of times in my life where it was, you can ask the question. And I'm, if I don't know the answer, I'm kind of embarrassed. I don't know why I believe that. And so to realize, oh, there are actually really good answers to those really hard questions

that helped me a ton. So I think, like you said, it has its place. It's not the end, though. I think it's some ways the, for me, it was, oh, so there are really good answers to these really hard questions that I can trust. And so it was kind of paved the way a little bit for, okay, now it's no longer about fighting, don't longer about arguing. Now it's about living in this dynamic relationship of love to use, you know, whatever, kind of highfalutin language. But what can people expect?

I think, you know, so I always think of this in relation to the book of Job, where the big question of, if God is good, and if God is all good and not powerful, then why do bad things happen to good people? because Job is presented right from the beginning as the best, right? He's a righteous human being. He's really good human being. God loves him. He cares about it. He's proud of me. He knows him.

And then all these things, horrible things happen to him. And even in high school and in college, I remember reading the book of Job with that notion of, oh, I hear this is the best answer that we have to the problem of pain, to the problem of suffering. And getting to the end of it and realizing, wait, there's no answer. There's no reason that God gives in the book of Job of like, Job, this is why these things happen and this is why they're going to happen to everybody there's no reason and so i wanted an apologetic answer um which there are some really good ones um it's the hardest questions to answer um

but i love c s louis he has you know three books he wrote to answer that question the problem of pain uh till we have faces and a grief observed or is three ways of looking at this issue one from an intellectual perspective uh the problem of pain one from a creative uh imaginative perspective of till we have faces and then one from the emotional gut of his own grief and grief observed. But once those questions from me were answered, like the apologetic question, I was like, oh, this is how we can reconcile the God is all good, all powerful, and there's evil in the world, then I can go back and read Job and be like, oh, here is what God is ultimately saying, at least here's what I would say.

I love this line. At the end of all of this, God reveals, God shows up and basically questions Job and says, You know, were you there when I created the stars? Were you there when, do you even know the depths of the ocean? Do you know these sea creatures that are just, you know, you have no idea. And I remember thinking when I first read it, huh, God just shows up and kind of lectures Job and says, you don't know as much as I do. So be quiet.

That's what I interpreted it as. And I missed the very most important line, I think, which is Job saying, before I'd only heard of you. But now I've seen you with my own eyes. and I repent of, I repent of my sin. I repent, I repent of my, what I, my folly. And ultimately, it just revealed that, okay, after apologetics, after I get, I have a good intellectual grasp, God is inviting me, just say, just trust me. If you can encounter me as I am, then even if you don't have an answer for why is this

happening right now, you have the answer and the answer is me. And that's the piece that's just like, what can you expect when you open, yourself to God's word, you might not get an answer to every single one of your questions, but you get him. And that's the, that's the heart of it. There's so much more. And this is, this is the exciting thing about studying the Bible. People have asked me, I've been studying the Bible for over 45 years, something like that. And they say, well, do you ever get tired of it? No, don't get tired of it. It just gets deeper and deeper. It's like an onion. Yeah. You know, with all the different layers.

It just gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And I love what St. Ephraim said, you know, because sometimes people can become discouraged. They'll read the Bible or they're listening on Sunday. And it's like, well, all of it, I didn't pick up all that. Or I went through Bible in a year and I don't remember a lot of it. And I kind of feel bad. And St. Ephraim said, listen, think of Bible reading and Bible studying.

It's like a drinking fountain. He said, don't be discouraged by everything. that fell to the ground, but but be encouraged for what you received for you don't exhaust the fountain. The fountain exhausts you. Right. And so don't be all worked up about, well, I missed this and I miss that. Rejoice in what you got, you know. You'll be back. There'll be more. I mean, it's what I remember thinking, it's the very first time you and I ever went to Israel, taking Holy Land together. I remember I was just like trying to take it all in. And there was this panic of I can't, I can't take it all in. Is this too much? And then I thought, okay, I'm

coming back. That was, I was just, okay, that's it. I'm coming back. And then I was able to relax. Because all the stuff I missed, I'm like, I'll be back. I'll get it next time or I'll get the time after that. And I think sometimes it's like that for scripture as well. It's that sense of there's so much more here. And I just trying to cram it in. Like, it's going to be fine. You'll come back. You'll read this. You'll let it be spoken or you'll speak it out loud. Yeah. There is more, but there's also, God willing, more time. Yeah. So relax. And as his father said, you know, you're in that sandbox and enjoy. You're not going to ruin it.

You're not going to ruin the Bible. We haven't been able to do that. But you can relax and enjoy and investigate and go to depths you never thought you would go to before. And in the end, it all comes down to becoming more like Christ, doing what he said, being doers of the word and not just hears. Now, there's a strong one for Bible in a year, you know, because people were hearing it. don't be just to hear, be a doer of the word. I want to turn our attention as we're getting ready close here to some personal things. Okay. How about you? Because everybody wants to know some personal things about Father Mike. Hi, I'm Jeff Kavenson. I'm excited to introduce you to

the Ascension app. It contains the full text of the Great Adventure Bible, the full text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and both the Bible and Catechism in a year podcast. The app has special features that make the connections between the Bible and the catechism crystal clear, like color-coded cross-links and easy navigation. It also answers nearly 1,000 questions from Bible in a year listeners about the Bible with videos from myself and others, also audio clips and excerpts from Ascension's popular books. To download the app, simply go to the app store on your phone and search Ascension. I hope you enjoy it. I enjoy it. I enjoy it. carried around everywhere I go.

Okay, I got to ask you, what's your favorite verse? It changes always. You know, on Fridays, we pray Psalm 50. I mean, I really mean it. On Fridays we pray Psalm 51 every morning. And I just love Psalm 51. And mercy of God, have mercy. And there's a line that says,

wash me more and more from my sin. And I just love that image of this, wash me more and more. And not just once, but just more and more. because I realized that just, like, God, I need your, I need your mercy constantly, and just that the mercy that makes me new. There's one. Another is cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. Again, it's one of those that just comes back and strikes me as far as, especially when I find myself being anxious, and that's another one. For freedom, Christ set us free. Oh, I love that.

So did not submit against the oath of slavery. And among, I just, at any given moment, if I'm praying, usually in front of the Eucharist, occasionally, meaning regularly, the words, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. John one. And then jumping back to, jumping to verse 14, I think, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of a father's only son.

And just those are just these words. Is that just, some of them are encouraging, right? They watch me more and more and cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. And some just, especially that John one, it's just, this is true. Aw. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not just a statement and it's not for me, but I get to behold it, you know? And it just kind of lives inside.

Yeah, you're talking about something that is so important for everybody who's gone through Bible in a year, and that is you're hiding God's word in your heart. You're not just hearing it. you're hiding it in your heart. It'll feed you. It'll correct you. It'll comfort you, you know, in the future. And that's something that I really encourage all my students to do is start memorizing. We used to do this. We had a holy hour every morning. We still do up at the university. But at the end of the holy hour, we had, we added a new memorization verse at the end of it. So by the end of the year, we had, you know, 40 different. It went on for like five minutes,

like one, two, three. And it was awesome. It was so great. But yeah, just hiding it there. also recognizing that sometimes we're taking in God's word and it's sticking more than we realize. So the example, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I was kind of lamenting a little bit of the fact that I don't really have Friper memorized overwhelmingly. You know, I know some people just like it just comes out of them. It's amazing. But I was in retreat at a hermitage place just north of Anoka and called Potchaemen Terrace. And I remember I was just walking in January.

So everything was just covered in snow, super cold. And I was out kind of between this little hermitage I was in and the trails all around. And I just wanted to praise God. And I remember as I was walking, all of a sudden, just the words of the Psalms just started coming to me. And I realized like, oh my gosh. Like I've been praying these Psalms regularly multiple times a day, not trying to memorize them, but just the fact that I returned to them, they lived inside. Yeah.

And so then when I needed to pray, it just, oh, here's that first line. Oh, I know the second line. Yeah. Oh, the third line. And it wasn't a memorization exercise. It was becoming like tattooed on my heart. It was coming embedded in my, in my heart and mind. And just thought, that happened.

I didn't even mean for it to happen. That's beautiful. And, you know, my friends, this is what getting into the Word of God will do for you, is that, yeah, it's interesting to hear the whole story and get your arms around, your mind around it. But when it's, you start to enter the story and you start to walk in the story. in that story, and you hide God's word in your heart, his word is sharper than any two-edged sword, and it will get into your heart, and it will lead you and guide you and correct you

and comfort you at the time when you really need it. It's really, really powerful, and I think everybody should have a life verse. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've got one, Galatians 220. That's my life verse. You know, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith, and the son of God who love me, delivered himself up for me. That's my life verse. And I would encourage you to have a life verse as well. Okay. Of all the people in the Bible, besides Samson, who do you identify with the most and why? He's plenty broken so I could maybe. You know, I, you know, it's very strange to have to well the answer would be David and the answer is you know so my best friend Nick he says that

he wants to be like Job's son Job's kids because they didn't have a role didn't have names that we know of necessarily but they served a role in Job coming to know God in a deeper way even at the cost of their lives and he's just like I'm like that's a really good answer that's a humble answer. That's an obscure answer. And to pick one of the stars of the Old Testament, I don't mean that in that way, the star way. I mean it in this way. David, from his youth, really experienced blessing from God. And I know that God has blessed me in a unique way for my youth. You know, if there's no goodness of my own, that God just did something in my life. And I was like, oh, I didn't deserve that at all. Just like how David was anointed. He didn't deserve any of that at all. I know that

God has used a certain moments in my life for certain gifts for him. And I'm like, okay, they're kind of like David. But I also know that when you read all of David's life, you see a man who has been annoyed by the Lord and has done good things. But also see, like, someone, when you know his old story, you don't like him as much. And I think that's a reality, I think, when I look at myself, I think there's a lot of things that people know about me. They're like, oh, I really like Father Mike. And I know that, but if you knew the whole story, you wouldn't like me as much. I did not, I don't say that in a,

like, one, you know, violin way. I mean that in a genuine transparent. Yeah, just that, that that sense of, I love the hero who David is. And I'd like to be like the hero David is. But I also know that I'm just as much the broken man that David is, that he had, when he lived on mission, he did so well. When he lived off mission, he did so awfully. And I'm like, yeah, I can see that too in my own heart. And lastly, the big fear is David led a nation really, really well in many ways. But as, you know, we heard in the stories of Absalom and the stories of, you know, rest of some of his other family members, he wasn't a very good father. And so I see that as a warning, rather than a prediction, you know, as a warning of, okay, you can do a number of things

well. You can maybe lead a parish maybe, or we're trying to build a Newman Center. You can do that well. But are you a good dad to the students? Are you a good father to the parishioners? And so I see in David both some of the blessings that I think, you know, God has given, but also a lot of the, a lot of the shadow. maybe even, you might say like that, or the warning, because David's life could have been, I want to say all blessing, because all of our lives are mixed like this. But he had plenty of opportunities, like even with Absalom, he had plenty of opportunities to reach out to Absalom himself before it was too late.

And it wasn't until after Absalom had died that David even, you know, says my son. And I just, there's something about that that just, I don't. I don't want to, I recognize enough David and me that I don't want to be David. Maybe it's something like that. Yeah. Yeah. If you could talk one-on-one with all those who have gone through Bible a year and say, oh, by the way, just one more thing, remember. What would you say? Gosh, that's a great question. Maybe it would be this. Actually, I think, maybe two things. One is that word. You said, one more thing. Remember.

That is one of the refrains of the Bible. Again, again, just remember what God has done. Just don't forget this. And I think there's something about this. I don't want this to be, well, that's what I did in 2021. That's what I did in 2022. But like, no, no, remember that here's what God has done.

Here's what he's doing in your life. You're part of the story. So remember, the second thing would be your story isn't over yet. Just remember your story's not over yet. And so for all of us and that recognition of whether it be the peak, you know, good times, good times don't last, but neither do bad times. If it's a valley, just recognize that.

Yeah, so we could say don't put a period where God put a coma. Yeah, that's a great way to say. Yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, the last question, I'm asking everybody this question, show me your Bible. This is, show me your Bible. Can I show you mine? Yes.

I'll lead in this. Great. I want to find out if people are living in their Bible. That's what I'm interested in. So I've had this Bible for a while. So this is where I lived. You like writing. I like writing.

Show me your bar. Okay. This is mine right here. I like that. There's a handprint here. You can see my thumb. There is. See my thumb.

That's where my thumb goes right here. Just boom. And, uh, um, that's a well-worn Bible. Inside is, I don't write as much in there as you. I've underlined things a lot. But, uh, but, but. That's good. That's, you lived in it.

Yep. And then you're continuing to live in it. And this is this weekend's homily. So there we do have a great adventure Bible too, don't you have a great adventure Bible? Yes, I left that at home. I'm sorry to bring it. Let's close out. I'm going to ask you to pray for all of my good friends who are joining us and are going on the catechism in a year. And some people are doing Bible in year and catechism in a year. Just close out and pray for them. Awesome. You want me to pray? Yeah. No, you're praying. You're praying. You're praying. okay i will do it you're better that's in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen father in heaven to give you praise we thank you so much thank you for this

opportunity to be in this place and the opposite opportunity to talk to my friend jeff we thank you for all the people we have joined us and have put up with our conversation today and hopefully just lord god please bless them not only through this conversation also through your word through your sacraments through your presence uh that continues to abide with us and within us we ask you to please heal what has been broken. We ask you to make whole what has been wounded. We ask you to please bring back to life what has died and above all, Lord God. Help us to be yours so fully, more fully today than ever before. Help us fall in love with you more today than ever before. Help us to know that we can trust in you today more than ever before. And may you be glorified now and forever. Amen.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you for watching. If you would like to to see more amazing content on the Bible, be sure to like and subscribe.