The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Taking Your Questions (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 13, 2018

Today Jeff answers the important questions you have been asking. From Bibles to minimalism and the Jewish Kabbalah to Christian youth groups, Jeff dives deep into our faith. Every question is a good question, so if you have any that you would like Jeff to answer in a future episode, please feel free to email [e-mail].

You're listening to the Jeff Kavens show, episode 60, taking your questions number one. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show. Welcome to the show this week. Glad you could join me. We're doing something a little bit different this week. and don't have so much of a theme, but we're going to be taking your questions. We've been getting an awful lot of questions via email. We appreciate your feedback and appreciate you being a part of the show.

And I want to take a show just to answer some of the questions from previous shows, and they're really good questions. Some of them a little bit more difficult than others, and some of them really practical, particularly about my Bible that I use, and I think you're going to enjoy it. I think it's going to be a good, it's going to be a really good show. Hey, I do appreciate you going to iTunes. I say that on every show, but I got to tell you, it makes a difference in the ranking of the show.

And that makes a difference when it comes to people searching for topics on the web. Say they're looking for something about marriage or discouragement or hope. And the show comes up in a high ranking, and people will get the answers that they're looking for. And I appreciate you doing that. We really have a number of ways that you can hear the show. There's iTunes, there's Google Play, and you can also go straight to our Ascension Press website. You can find all the shows there. So I really look forward to it every week, spending this time with you talking about all things, discipleship,

everything relating to our daily walk with the Lord, and putting our faith into practice. We're certainly learning about our faith, but really trying to motivate you to put the faith into practice so that it makes difference on a daily basis. So I would like to jump right into the questions this week, because we do have several of them. And James writes, and he says, I listened to your podcast about marking your Bible. And I looked at the show notes, but I never saw or heard exactly which Bible you have, not just which translation, but the actual Bible that you have. Well, that's a good question. And I do want to do. understand that. You know, a lot of people are interested in the type of Bible that we use. I remember when

I did Our Father's Plan for EWTN with Scott Hahn. We did a 13-1-hour series, Our Father's Plan. And on one of those, I actually held up his Bible to the camera, and that became the show that everybody wanted to see because they wanted to see not only how you mark your Bible, what translation he was using. Well, James, to answer your question, I have a number of Bibles that I use, and I had pictures in the show notes on that particular show on a couple of Bibles. The oldest one that I have is a New American Standard Bible, and it is put out by Holman. Holman is the company that puts out that particular Bible. The New American Standard Bible is a very trustworthy literal translation. It's a translation of the Bible that is very, very

accurate, and I used that actually during our father's plan on EWTN, and I still use that quite a bit today. That's the one that has been rebound a couple of times, because it was just so old, and it was split. The binding was split. Today I use the RSV Catholic edition, and the exact one that I'm using is the Ignatius Version, and that's one that a lot of us Bible teachers use. The two most prominent translations for Catholics today are the RSV Catholic edition, which I use. The Catechism of the Catholic Church actually quotes from that translation. And then there's the New American Bible, which is used in Mass on Sunday during the liturgy. That's the translation.

And those are the two most prominent ones. But I do encourage people, James, to write in their Bible and to underline some of their favorite verses. and once again, I use colored pencils to do my underlining. I don't use a wet marker because it has a tendency to go through the very thin India paper. And it's very discouraging to see that you meant to highlight Psalm 23, but you got Psalm 28 and 29 in there as well on the following pages. But I think it's a good, good practice to write in your Bible, particularly if you do Lexio Divina, which we did a whole show on

Lexio Divina about hearing from God every day, that if you keep track of the scriptures that means something to you and the words that pop out at you as a personal word from God, I think that it's a good idea to actually go and mark your Bible. And after years of marking your Bible and taking notes and cross-references, your Bible actually becomes quite valuable because it is a kind of a copy of your walk with God. you know and what he's been saying in your life and I have three Bibles that I've been using over the years and I plan on giving those to my daughters in my will someday. Another question from Marla. Marla has a question about Bibles as well, kind of related. She says, I know you write in and mark up your Bible.

I have heard you speak about it often. I have had my Bible for 15 years. It is underlined, written in, highlighted. It is a treasure to me and documents, conversations between the Lord and myself. That's what I was talking about just a moment ago. However, she says it's falling apart. Good, Marla. We want Bibles to fall apart. That means you're using them or you are clumsy, one of the two, but I'm going to choose to believe you use your Bible an awful lot. She says, the cover is off, the binding is coming apart. I have thought about getting a new one, but this Bible means so much to me. Have you ever started over with a new Bible? Yes, I have. I can tell you about that. What did you do with the old Bible? Thanks for your constant encouragement. I listen every

week. Watch your Sunday reading videos and have done many of your Bible studies. I pray for you by name every day. Thanks, Marla. I appreciate it. Well, that's another very practical question for those that do study scripture and end up wearing out a Bible. What do you do with the old one? And how do you start a new Bible? Well, I love talking about this. So Marla, I'm glad that you asked me When you, what do you do with your old one, first of all? Well, you know, in the Jewish tradition, they have a beautiful tradition which I have adopted in my life. I've adopted in my life as well, and that is, and a lot of Catholics will adhere to this, and that is that we never destroy the word of God. We don't, we don't throw the word of God away. In the Jewish tradition,

you'll never see them throwing it away or just, you know, giving it to, the junkyard or whatever. I think that the word of God, the copy of the Word of God that you have the Holy Scriptures are so valuable just in themselves because it is the Word of God. But it's also very valuable, as you mentioned, Marla, it's documenting all the conversations that you have had between yourself and the Lord. And that's worth preserving. Now, what I would recommend is, if you can find a binder, go online, try to find someone in your city. I'm not sure where you're at, but if you try to find someone who is good at binding books, I personally think that it is worth rebinding a Bible, I do, and then bringing on a new Bible and starting to use that more, but keeping your old Bible,

for nothing else just to refer back to. But it might be a gift to a relative someday. And so I've, I had two of my Bibles have been rebound because I used them, and the current one needs to be rebound because the binding is splitting on that. And because I use it a lot and I travel with it constantly. So number one, I would encourage you to get it rebound and take care of it. Another thing that you can, that you can do is just put it on the shelf. But I find that I like going back to those old notes. So get, and if any of you, if you have had your Bible rebound, bound. Tell us your story. You know, send us a picture of your Bible that is maybe a before and after picture so that we can share that in the show notes with other people and they can get an idea.

Now, what do you do with a brand new Bible? This is the scary part. This is the part that people get all worked up about. And that is they go out and they get a brand new Bible. They bring it home and they have their colored pencils. They've got their pens. They're ready to start marking the Bible. and the first thing that they think of is I need to come up with some kind of system to mark this Bible. So they're thinking, okay, now green will be for growth, purple will be for Jesus, blue will be for Mary, red for the Holy Spirit. You know, they come up with this, but what happens to me is I come up with these nice little schemes of how I'm going to mark my Bible. And then I have my pencils and my pens with me, and I might be in a hotel. I might be, you know, out at a restaurant, having a cup of coffee, and I'm reading, and I have a tendency to just grab what's right in front of me and mark my Bible.

And so it's typically the very first time you market that you get really nervous because you want it to look all perfect and you have a ruler to underline with, you know, so it looks nice. I have found that most of those efforts fall apart at some point. I say, just get in there, start marking it. And if you're going to come up with some kind of system, come up with a system where yellow is what you are highlighting, you know, that verse, and then use a color if you want to underline certain words that pop out at you. Now, I mark my Bible because I'm a teacher, and I mark it visually so that I can quickly look down on the page and I can see my three points in that chapter. or if I'm talking, for example, about King David taking on Goliath, I can look at those two pages in my Bible, and I can tell by the purple markings underneath words that those are the four or five points that I want to make in my talk, and I have little notes in the margin.

So I don't know of any other way other than to come up with a simple plan of yellow as a highlight, colors mean something to you. Maybe green is a, you want to bring out a word or something like that. that. And that's a good way to go about it. George writes, and by the way, thanks, Marla. I appreciate it. And send us a picture of your Bible, Marla. We'll let the whole world see it. And it gives other people, frankly, it gives other people ideas on how to mark their Bible. George, you got a good question. George says, in your recent podcast, you mentioned that you are a minimalist. Yes, I did, didn't I? My wife and I have been on a journey to minimize our life.

Ultimately, we hope that by simplifying our possessions, we will have more time to focus on prayer and our spiritual life. Sadly, the idea of minimizing is so secular. Have you ever listened to a podcast called The Minimalists? Anyways, I think there is a close connection to a minimalist lifestyle in Christ. He rarely had possessions, and if you had two of something, you were to give the second item away. I was wondering, George says, if you could do a podcast about minimalism in the faith. George, am I going to do that? Absolutely. That is a, that is in my wheelhouse. Since I was a little

boy, my mother had a statue of St. Francis in the front of the house since I grew up. And after Emily and I got married 40 years ago, one of the first things that we received as a gift was a statue of St. Francis. And that has always been on our lawn somewhere in all these years. And so from the time that I was a kid, I had this love for minimalism, this loves for simplicity that that St. Francis would call his mistress, you know, the simplicity. He was in love with simplicity. And I do think that this is a very popular topic right now. George, yes, I have listened to the minimalists, and I've listened to their podcast. And I think they've got some good ideas. They've got some good ideas. And in the end of their exercise of being a minimalist,

this is a podcast of two guys that kind of kicked back and said, we're dropping out of that race out there. And we're going to live as minimalist. And they write. And then they go from city to city in theaters and tell people about their life as a minimalist. And that's their life as they tell people about being a minimalist. And I think there's some good stuff that they have to say. But I think you're right in that being a minimalist is not just a

a secular endeavor. Now, being a minimalist is for a purpose. And our purpose is greater than just feeling good. You know, I think that fewer possessions, an uncluttered mind, an uncluttered agenda that only has on your schedule the things that you really feel that you are called to. And if you do that, you typically have more margin in your life for things that come up on the spot. If your goal is just to feel good, that's not a big enough goal for me. The goal for me to be a minimalist, which means that my wardrobe is simple, my possessions are few, I tend to buy quality that will last a long time, and then get on with the deeper things of life, which is my relationship with the Lord,

and my relationship with other people. If you're going to do that, the greater goal is your relationship with God. And so me as a minimalist, it points to deepening the things that I think are actually more important than things. You know, I have things in my life that I want to attend to like my family and my relationship with the Lord, and they are more of a priority than a car. Now, I do have a car. But my car is, what is it now? It's 7, 8 years old. It's got 140,000 miles on it. It's my snow leopard, remember? My Subaru. I did a show on it not too long ago. My Subaru got dinged. And a lot of you actually commented on that show. It's kind of funny that for some reason. In fact, I got an email from a lady who said that it brought her to tears thinking about

her own life. Because it wasn't about the car. It was about this idea of being dinged in our spirit and marred and we long to be back where we were right with God. And the good thing is you can. But I've got a car, back to the topic, I've got a car and people will say, well, when are you going to get a new one? I'm not even thinking about getting a new car right now. I've got one with 140,000 miles on it. They tell me that the Subaru outback can easily get 250,000 miles. I've got another four or five, six years on this thing. So I don't have to spend my time making money to pay off that car, a new car right now, and I don't have to spend my time researching cars. I'm living. I'm living. And I don't need to deal with that. I think that also

with clothing, it's important. You spend less time choosing your clothes when you only have a few. But if you have, you know, 400 items for spring and 300 items for fall and winter, you spend so much time deciding, well, should I wear this? Does this go with that? And I think that there's an advantage to being a minimalist. And yes, we're going to do a whole show on that in the future. It's one of my one of the topics that I'm really excited about. And I think I told you at one other time, if you go into my library, you will see various topics on my, on my shelves. You'll see two shelves on, or three or four shelves, actually on Jesus. You'll see a shelf on love. You'll see a shelf on suffering. And then I know it's ironic and I know it's funny, but I've got over 60 books on

simplicity. And when I end up writing my book on simplicity, I'll probably donate all those to the seminary or something. But I want to glean all I can from what has been written before and what I'm learning in my own life. And if you would like to hear more about simplifying your life. Will you give me an email? Send me an email. Here's the email. I'll give it to you. The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. That's the Jeff Kavan Show at ascensionpress.com. And tell me about your experience with minimalism in simplifying your life and how it has aided in serving the Lord. You see, going without a lot of stuff makes you nimble. and you can react and respond to situations much quicker if the Lord is calling you to something.

All right. So here's another question. This is from Noel and Anna, and they're from Winnipeg. And Winnipeg. That's up north of Minnesota where I'm at. And boy, it gets cold up there. It gets cold up there. And at the time of this podcast, Noel and Anna, the Minnesota Wild Hockey

team is taking on the Winnipeg jets in the first round of the playoffs. So my prayer is that you lose. Ah, okay, I'm just kind of joshing with you there. But no, I'm not. I hope the wild. Well, here's the question out of Winnipeg. Can you please give us some enlightenment about the Jewish cabala in line with our Catholic beliefs? Is this good or bad Jewish practice? Lately, this concept has been adapted by the New Age movement. Thank you, and God bless you. Yeah, Kabbalah. Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism. You'll find that in most world religions, you have the main line of that of that religion, and then you have these offshoots of mysticism. So in Jewish tradition, you have reformed Judaism, which, for the lack of a better word, we're going to be.

I'm going to say is a little bit more liberal. You have conservative Judaism, and then you have Orthodox Judaism, three major branches around the world, and then within orthodoxy, you have different branches of ultra-Orthodox and other groups. And if you go over to Israel, you'll see a number of these groups. Well, the mysticism branch of Judaism is Kabbalah. It's Kabbalah. There's an Islamic branch of mysticism. And in Christian circles, there's mystical circles, you know. But your question is about the Jewish practice of Kabbalah.

The headquarters for Kabbalah is in a city in Galilee, just north of the Sea of Galilee. And it's a city called Zeffat. Zephatt. And if you go on a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and you look north, if you see a city at night on the very top of the mountains of Galilee, there's only one city up there, that is Sefat. And if you go up there today, you will see it's an artistic community where they have a lot of painters and sculptures and art,

really an art community. That's the headquarters for Kabbalah. And famous people like Madonna are big into Kabbalah, and she has gone to Israel quite a few times and has gone to, Sifat. Well, Jewish mysticism is very big on numbers, and numbers are symbolic and patterns in scripture. And is it something that we as Christians are interested? I would say not really. Not really. Most Jewish people, whether reform, conservative, or orthodox, are not even involved in Kabbalah. Kind of interesting, particularly with the numbers in what they mean and the patterns in

scripture. But I don't, I personally don't see any benefit for Christians to be, and particularly Catholics, to be involved in the practice of Kabbalah. I think that there is so much within our own faith that is, is mystical, you know, and that we have, we have so much that we can, that we can learn in our own faith that we don't really need to be going into that. And like other mystical movements, it kind of takes on that new age feel. And that can be dangerous at times. So interesting, yes, practical, good, not so much, you know, as far as our faith as Catholics. You know, in thinking about that, too, Noel and Anna, I think there's a lot of things that people can get interested and involved in when it comes to spirituality and religion. And what I have noticed is that,

and I'm not saying you guys, I don't even know you personally, but, and it doesn't sound like you're really involved in this, but people will get involved in all kinds of peripheral types of movements and beliefs when they don't even know the basics about the Bible or the catechism or the tenets of the faith. You know, if you don't know what the theological virtues are, why should we be going to Safat to learn about Jewish, you know, mysticism? If we don't know the Ten Commandments, you know, or the basics of Jesus' teaching in the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount, these are the things that we really want to go deep into. And I think you're going to find plenty of mystical thoughts, you know, when you look into prayer and

the Holy Spirit and the movements of the Spirit. It's just amazing stuff in Catholic theology. Tell you what, we're going to take a break, and then we come back. We've got more questions that we want to get to here. and this is the first show of its kind on the Jeff Kaven show. It's called Taking Your Questions, and this is show number one, time to time. We will be bringing questions to the show. And if you do have questions, give me an email.

If you have a question for a later show, you can write that down, send it into the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. We'll be back in just a moment. the great adventure catholic bible study program is the most popular and acclaimed catholic bible study out there and it has helped hundreds of thousands of people find new meaning in their lives if you want to encounter the power of god's word and better understand how your life fits into the story of salvation history consider participating in a great adventure bible study to preview the first session of any tGA bible study for free. Create an online account at ascensionpress.com. Welcome back to the Jeff Kaven Show. A little Q&A today taking some time to answer your thoughtful questions and

appreciate your time and you took to send me those questions via email the Jeff Kaven Show at Ascensionpress.com. I certainly appreciate it. Picking up with our questions, less asks a difficult question. This is one of those tough ones. He says, I'm presenting the Bible timeline video series to my parish in Texas. He says, tonight a question came up. I would like to get your perspective on. In numbers, Miriam and Aaron revolt against Moses out of jealousy. Miriam gets punished, but Aaron seems to get off free. There are other stories in the Old Testament that are similar. The woman gets the punishment, but the man does not. This raises the ire of some women in our group. I've tried to address some of it on the basis of how women were viewed

in those days and how Eve was the first to be tempted, but from God's perspective, those discussions fell short. Do you have any advice on how to answer the question? Why do women seem to get the punishment more than the man? Blessings. Well, it's a good question. I would start off by saying that I don't know that it is true, that women always get the, you know, the punishment and the men in the men don't. I think we've got to start from the basic foundational perspective, and that is that God is just and that God is just and that God knows what he is doing and his response to individuals. One of the things that I have learned over the years, over the last 42 years of studying the Bible, is that when you read it at face value, you many times will not get the answer that you

are looking for. I'll give you an example on this as well. There are examples in the Bible where somebody does something that we would consider wrong, like Jacob stealing the blessing from Esau. Remember that story? Well, you read that story, and it appears at least that the narrative is moving on after Jacob steals his brother's blessing from Isaac. If he fools his father, Isaac and gets the blessing of Esau. Esau becomes very angry. Esau wants to chase him down and kill him, and Jacob has to leave the country. And so he goes off to Heron up north, about 600 miles up north.

And so then the story moves on after that. And the American reader, you know, sits back and says, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. There's got to be a punishment here. You don't just get off Scott. after doing that? Aren't there consequences, Jeff? Well, there are. And this is an example of what I'm talking about.

When you read Jewish literature, the Bible, the consequences oftentimes are not spoken. In other words, after Jacob fools Esau and his dad and his mother was complicit here. complicit we don't hear after that God's saying now I'm going to punish you this way this is going to be your spanking but there are consequences but here's the key God doesn't tell you he shows you he shows you in real life the consequences I'll give you the example Jacob did this to Esau he had to flee up north and he was up there for you over 20 years, and that's where he ended up finding his wife and Rachel. That's where he found Rachel. But do you remember how he found her and how he ended up marrying her? Well, remember,

what did he do to his father? His father was blind. He was about to die. It was in the darkness of his life, and he was fooled by his son. And he goes up north, and he meets a relative. And Laban, an uncle Laban, and he falls in love with Rachel and says, hey, I want to marry Rachel. And Laban says, yes, you can't. He's all work seven years for her. He says, yes. So seven years

go by, wedding is going to take place. Wedding night comes around. A lot of wine drunk at the weddings. And he wakes up in the morning and guess who is in the tent with him? Wasn't Rachel. It was Rachel's

older sister Leah. And he wakes up and says, Oe they, what's going on? And he goes to Laban and says, hey, he's probably pretty mad. And he says, what is going on? I work seven years for Rachel. And I ended up with Leah, her older sister. And what does Laban say?

This is the answer you're looking for. You're looking for a woodshed event. That's not what you get. Here's what you get. Laban says to Jacob, I don't know what they do where you come from, Jacob. but here the oldest goes first. Jacob has been Jacobed.

He has been fooled, and when was he fooled? In the middle of the night, in the darkness. Just as he fooled his father, Isaac, in the darkness, he was fooled himself. Consequences. Sin has consequences. Our actions have consequences. And so that's an example of we don't see everything,

it when we first read it. Now, back to Aaron, one of the things that, and I've asked this question before, too, why doesn't Aaron get punished here? Well, there's a number of answers, really, that could take place. Ultimately, we don't know exactly for sure, but he could have repented, but we don't know about it. God could have, for the good of the people at that point, use Jacob, even in his fallen state to lead the people out of bondage and to continue to use him in his Exodus program. Now, God can do that if he wants to. He writes straight with crooked lines oftentimes. He writes straight with crooked lines sometimes. And the good news out of this is this. What about our life? What about when we screw up? What about when we're

caught in sin, is God just done with us? God can still use us in powerful ways. But, yeah, there's a lot of these situations in the Bible where we don't have exactly a black and white situation. And we're a little bit unsure, but that's okay. That tells us that there's more in scripture to go into and more, more to study. Perhaps we'll do a whole show in the future just on what I would call tough, tough questions. Another question from Texas from Terry, one of the things that I've been having a hard time with is finding out that my soon-to-be little sister-in-law has decided to explore another faith. She's in college and decided over the summer to attend a non-denominational church. I've talked to my sponsor couple about this issue.

They provided thoughtful information when I initially found out. I just wonder what else I can do as she's trying to figure it out. I would love for her to join her brothers and my growing Catholic faith, but I don't want to be forceful either. We are not close, but I would like for us to eventually have a close relationship. Thanks so much for your time and your feedback. That's Terry in Texas. Good question, Terry.

And I think, Terry, you are asking a question that a lot of of people are asking. You know, if we polled our whole audience here on the show, we would probably find that there's a good percentage of people who have members of their family who have either totally left the Catholic Church or have ended up going to a non-denominational church like Joel Osteen's Church or a Word of Faith Church or a Seeker-friendly Church or an Assembly of God, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal, all kinds of churches. choices out there. Now, the question is this. If we have children who, let's say, are high school students or college students, and they have not responded well to the Catholic faith. But suddenly

they come in and they say, Mom, Dad, my friend Cindy, my friend Bob invited me over to New Covenant Fellowship. And they have a youth group that is amazing. And then they go on this retreat in the summer, and all my friends are going on that, is it okay if I go over to that youth group? Here's what my answer is, okay? My answer is that, number one, if you become harsh with your children or loved ones or friends about attending a non-Catholic church, oftentimes there is more harm done. They are showing a movement to Christ. They may even feel like a bruise.

reed, and you do not want to break a bruised read. You want to foster that movement to Christ. Christ may be wooing them right now. In theology, we call that prevenient grace. God is wooing them. God is calling them to himself. They don't recognize it as being a Catholic call. They just know that something stirring inside of them. I, number one, do not discourage this, and do not be harsh on them, because then they may ultimately reject both the Catholic Church and the possibility of going to a friend. I mean, think about it. Maybe you've been praying for this for years that they would serve the Lord, that they'd want

to know Jesus. My suggestion is that if they are excited about going to that youth group, I'm in favor of it. I'm in favor of them moving towards the Lord, but not just letting them go, but sitting down and saying, you know, honey, I want you to know that we truly believe that the Catholic Church has the fullness of faith and that all the riches of grace are found within this family. But, honey, I also understand that your heart is being moved in this direction. And I am proud of you for wanting to know the Lord and to seek the Lord.

And I encourage you to do that. And I want to pray with you. and so if they're going to go to another Bible study or go to a youth group, I would suggest that you positively pray with them and encourage them, love them, and do not become what they think they're leaving, which is people who don't get it. You can't do that. You can't afford to. I've had people in my own family who have said, I want to join my friends in a youth group. And what's my thought? praise God. I'd rather you go to a youth group than some bar, you know, with all of your friends. I encourage this. And then stay with them. Ask them what they're studying. Ask them what they're learning. And don't come back with counters like, well, we do that or we do it even better.

Give them encouragement. You're learning about making Jesus, Lord of your life? Honey, that's beautiful. that's what it's all about, isn't it? That's beautiful. And there's a time to begin to bring the Catholic faith back in there. But I always would remind them that when you come to a place where you want even more that the Catholic Church, yes, maybe our parish doesn't have an exciting youth group. Maybe we don't have a great summer mission program. Maybe all your friends are not coming over to St. So-and-so Church. But when you grow old enough to where you want more, I want you to remember, what I'm telling you is your father, as your friend, as your brother, as your mother about the fullness of faith here. So I personally do not have a hard time with saying yes to people going to other

places if their heart is in that direction, but at the same time reminding them of the good things that we have and that that's what we're about too, but they might not get it. You know, one of the things we have to overcome, to be honest with you, is meta-language. When you go to these non-denominational churches, they don't use a lot of meta-language. So they'll use things like washed in the blood of the lamb and stuff like that. But Catholicism is heavily laden with meta-language that a lot of young people don't understand. You know, sitting before the monstrance on a holy hour and contemplating original justice and theological virtues and blah-la-la-la-la-la. And they're like, I just want to know who God is.

And so that's what we have to keep in mind when people leave, and we need to continue to soak them with prayer all that time. I think we've got time for one more question. No, I think I'm going to save that for the next show, for the next Q&A show, because that's going to take a little bit more time to answer. So Christian, from the Dominican Republic, we're going to get to you at a later show. But I do appreciate the questions that we've received, and we've got a lot more, too. and if you do have a question you want me to address, please do that by sending me an email at the Jeffcaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And please know that there's no dumb questions at all. There is no dumb questions at all, or stupid questions, as they say, every question is important,

and I think that every question has an answer. Well, I'm going to pray for you this week that God will continue to bless you and that you will walk with him. Stay tuned, by the way, to some of the things that are going to be coming out from Ascension Press. We've got some exciting stuff coming out this year. I'm not going to go into it right now, but it's life-changing stuff, and I really encourage you to continue to pursue the Lord. And we're going to be there with you with this great stuff that's coming out. Also at Ascension Press, Check out some of the other podcasts we have. We've gotten some new studies out.

If your church is doing the great adventure, I'd love to hear how you're doing with the great adventure or any of the great adventure studies. Send me an email and tell me what is going on there. I'll be going very shortly to Ireland and leading a pilgrimage, and then in May, Father Mike Schmitz and I are leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And, of course, next January, I'll be going back to the Holy Land. If you need more information on that,

that is at my website, which is jeffcavens.com. And I'm sending out a lot of tweets recently of some things that are coming to mind. And maybe I'll bring those into the show later, but I'm just simply Jeff Kavans at Twitter. And join me there if you are not already a partner. Well, let's close in prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord, I thank you for the good things you're doing in our life and in my friend's life. And I lift up my friend. right now who's listening, and pray, Lord, that you continue to move in their heart in a powerful way,

to move in their heart and draw them close to you, that they would become more like you. And I also pray and ask our dear mother to intercede for everyone who is listening today. As we lift up our intentions right now, hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with the blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Have a great week.