The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Updates from Jeff: Upcoming Events, An Epic Motorcycle Trip, and the North American Martyrs

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

Jeff shares exciting news about three upcoming Great Adventure events, recounts his incredible two-week long motorcycle trip with a group of Catholic men, and shares a brief reflection about his visit to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs.

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 129, the epic motorcycle trip. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show. Hey, thanks for joining me again this week. I'm going to be just a little bit shorter show.

this week, I wanted to give you an update on a couple of things on the schedule and a little bit about the trip that we just took, an epic motorcycle trip, 4,300 miles, really, really something. And I want to kind of go through that with you and tell you some of the highlights on our trip. We've got a lot of people asking, what do you do on those motorcycle trips? And I'll give you a little bit of a rundown on that. Another thing that a lot of people have been asking about the last couple of weeks are the two huge events that are coming up coast to coast. The Great Adventure celebrating its 15th anniversary now, as far as its current form. And Ascension Press is putting on some really amazing conferences in cooperation with the Christ Cathedral, formerly the Crystal Cathedral, in Orange County, coming up in September, that's September 28th.

and the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., that's October 19th and 20th. Let me tell you a little bit about what we're going to be doing. They're selling out, so I'm trying to get my friends here on the show to get in before they completely sell out. But let me tell you what we're going to be doing coming up on September 28, 2019, in case you're listening to this years later. we are going to be presenting the entire story of the Bible in one day. I'm going to go through the whole Bible in the Bible timeline in one day, and it's going to be featuring the new Great Adventure Bible. We're going to be using that as well, and it's just going to be a great day. Lunch is included and everything, and the first opportunity is going to be on September 28th. That's a Saturday,

September 28th at the Christ Cathedral in Orange County, California. And you can sign up for this on ascensionpress.com. And if you just Google, Ascension Press and the Great Adventure Bible in a day, it'll come up with the two events. It's very, very easy. The second event is going to be in October, and that's going to be at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Now, I don't know if you have seen the museum.

been there. I have, and it is incredible. They, you know, the greens from Hobby Lobby have really built something beautiful and enduring that celebrates the Word of God's scripture. And it's not, it's not just open to Christians. There are Jews and other people around the world that take advantage of the museum, and they have a whole Catholic wing really, really done well. Well, they have a hall, a presentation hall there that's really second to none. I mean, it is really nice. And they can seat 500 people. And so we opened it up for October 19th, and it's sold out almost immediately.

And so the museum called me and asked, would you be willing to do a second day? The next day, Sunday the 20th, starting right after lunch. You know, so people can go to Mass in the morning. and I said, sure. So that second event is open, that is October 20th, and we've got people coming from all over the world for these events. So if you're interested in either one,

Christ Cathedral in Orange County, or the Bible Museum, Museum of the Bible in Washington, then go to ascensionpress.com. And you can go to the events page or just do a search on Google, Ascension Press, Bible in a day, and it'll come up right away. It's not a real problem there. So I do hope to see you at one of those events. All right, so a little bit about the trip that we just had, really,

really an amazing trip. Every year, I take the Harley, and we go out on the road for about four to five thousand miles in over a week. And we go from town to town, city to city, country to country in some cases, Canada and the U.S. And we ride, we fellowship. There's probably six to eight guys that do this. And we have Bluetooth in our helmets, so we're able to talk to one another. And we pray many, many rosaries for different causes. And from city to city, we fellowship.

And then about half of the time we stop at night and I speak at a parish. and the emphasis this year was on discipleship and sharing the gospel with people. Sean Lynn is the one who organized it from the God Squad, and that's up in Calgary, and he's done just a real fine job over the years, and Sean, you're the man, you made this happen, and you have for the last four years now, and so we're very, very grateful. My good friend, Tom Otman, and I are in the Twin Cities, and we started off on this trip, and we went to Sturgis, and that's a huge bike rally. The only thing we really do there is have something to eat,

and we stay in Rapid City. We don't really participate too much in anything that's going on in Sturgis, but we like to ride the Black Hills and have a great place to go to breakfast in the morning. And then after that, we headed off to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we met up with Sean Lynn from Calgary, and he accomplished the epic 1500-mile ride, 36 hours and congratulations to him. It's all about the patch, you know. And so we went on to Ancony, Iowa, right outside of Des Moines, and met our good friend Dwight and had a really

wonderful, wonderful time there at our lady's Immaculate Heart Parish. And Dwight and the team just did an amazing job of preparing a barbecue. And I think we had about 300 people. And I think we had about 300 people, something like that, who were waiting, had a barbecue, and then I gave a talk on becoming a modern-day disciple and activated disciple, and that was amazing. And then after that, we went from the Des Moines area. We went on to South Bend and had an amazing night at Holy Family Catholic Parish and a private tour of Notre Dame and the campus there. And that was the first time that I had a tour of the church and went down, downstairs. in the museum. And it's just an incredible. As you know, it's an incredible school. And we had a good

time there at Notre Dame. And then we went on from there, and we ended up meeting with a group of nuns out in the middle of Michigan, by Lowell, Michigan. And they are known as the Trinitarians of Mary. And this group of nuns are so sweet, so beautiful in the Lord. And their full-time ministry is praying for priests around the world. And they greeted us with a time of prayer in their chapel where they prayed over us and sang praises to God for our ministry and our trip. And it was so powerful, I'm telling you, it choked up all of us. And then afterwards, they had a barbecue for us.

Steaks and pork chops. And what a time with the beautiful Trinitarians of the United States. Mary Sisters. That's near Grand Rapids. And then we went on to a bike rally, nights on bikes, and spent a couple of days there, met up with our good friend Berwasnik and did some video work there. And from there, we went on to Kingston, Kingston up in Canada. And we met with Father DeSouza and had lunch with him. And then we went on to Montreal. And in Montreal, if you've never been there before, we went to St. Joseph, St. Joseph's Oratory, and we stayed there at the John the 23rd Pavilion, and just had a really good

couple days in Montreal. If you have not been to Montreal, first of all, you might want to learn a little French, but we went to St. Joseph's Oratory, but it's also the Our Lady of the Cape Shrine Day Drive. We went there, and we were able to go to the village where St. Kateri Tekewitha was from. And my wife and my good friend Tom's wife, Mary, they drove cars to Montreal and met us there. And it was so interesting because, you know, my wife wrote the book, Lily of the Mohawks, about Kateri Tekewatha, forwarded by Father Mitch Pachua. And that's from Franciscan media, if you're interested. But I really wanted Emily to see the relics and the rib-bone, of Kateri Tekewitha and where she was buried.

And we got there on a Saturday, and it was closed. And we couldn't figure it out. It's closed. And I felt so bad for Emily, driving all that way. And right as she's getting ready to leave, and the guys are on the motorcycles, I see this red truck coming down the road next to the church. I got off the truck, waved my hands. And this Native American Indian gentleman rolled up.

down his window, and I said, is there any way that we can get into the church? My wife wrote a book on Kateri. We've come all this way. Is there any way? He goes, I'm sorry. It's closed. I don't have a key. And I thought, is there any way? And he said, I'm sorry. So we got on the bikes, and we, and I showed him, I said, that's my wife down there walking across the street, if there's any way. So we took off on the bikes, and little did I know, Emily went around the block in her car. with Mary, and this guy started coming towards them at an intersection. He saw them, and he got their attention and said, I can get the key. And he got the key from someone at the local hospital came back and opened up this beautiful church where Emily got to go downstairs, and she got to

meet with some very knowledgeable people about this. And it was just God. The way God opened that up, It was really, really beautiful, really beautiful. We went on from Montreal to Ottawa to Midland, and we saw the North American shrine of the the shrine of the North American martyrs, the five French Jesuit priests who came from France over into this new world, and they were ministering among the Huron and had difficulties with the Iroquois, Iroquois Indians. and that was amazing. That was amazing. If you've never been there, it'll open up your eyes like you would not believe. It just will. We got to learn about the lives of Father Isaac Joges

and Jean-Brebov, Father Jean-Brebov, unbelievable stories of martyrdom like I have never heard before. and we walked into the shrine, and the shrine is on one side of the highway. On the other side is a small village that is a replica of what the French missionaries lived in during that 10-year period that they ministered to the Huron. But I went in there, and there I am just learning about the martyrdom of Jean-Breboff, and I'm not going to go into that. I mean, it is graphic. what happened to him. And he continued to proclaim the gospel. And I'm looking at the remains of his skull in this church and thinking, wow, what these guys went through. And down the back of the church, there was a priest hearing confessions. Now, listen to what happened to me. Maybe this has happened to you

as well. Here I am studying about Jean-Brebeuf, and it was hot in the church. And I'm, I'm pulling my shirt and fanning myself thinking, man, it's so hot in here. I just got to get out of here. Life is tough, you know, and then all of a sudden it hit me. Here I am studying the North American martyrs. And what am I doing? Complaining and self-centered and occupied with the temperature. All sudden it hit me. I looked down at the end of the church and saw that confessional and I went down there so fast. I went into confession. Father, bless me for I've sin. I've sin. I am self-centered. I'm so preoccupied with myself. Lord, help me to be like these North American martyrs. That was incredible. Really, really incredible. Well, from there, we went to, well, we went to

Mississauga and had a wonderful day, a wonderful time there with Monsignor Canaan. And, oh, and we also had lunch with Andre. Andre is a great brother in the Lord. And let's see if I've got that here. Yeah, he's got a new book. Andre, it's French, Ragnir, clear and simple, how to have a conversation that leads to conversion. And he's the guy that started, he and his wife started CYO, which is kind of an American focus ministry. And they have similarities, yet they're different. And I was so impressed with with Andre and his wife, and I highly recommend the work that they're doing up there. And we had a great brunch, and then we moved on to Sue St. Marie and onto Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and came home.

Now, along the way, we shared Christ with everybody we could. We were at restaurants, we were at gas stations, we're in churches, and one of the things that this team has really learned to do is to exercise the charygma. a cup of curigma we brew up a cup for almost everybody that we meet and this is just becoming a lifestyle with the activated disciple book and the motorcycling everywhere we go and so it was a very fruitful trip in that in that sense you know when you when you travel that long with guys like this good friends you got to learn to work as a team and when you're going down the highway at 70 miles an hour in a pack, you've got to communicate with each other. And it reminded me a lot of the church,

you know, and brothers and sisters in the church, when we go down the highway together as a parish or as a diocese, we've got to communicate to one another. And oftentimes it's a matter of preferring one another and watching out for the safety of each other. It's not uncommon to hear in your helmet from the guy in the back. There's a car coming up on your left and say, thanks. appreciate that but that's what that's what this trip was all about it was about sharing the gospel and parishes sharing the gospel along the way and just some good time with with brothers in the lord we're going to be doing it again next year not sure exactly where we're going to go uh let you know about that and i think we're going to be bringing a couple of new pastors with us next year oh

by the way yes yes we had uh we had this year the the privilege of writing with with a wonderful, wonderful bishop. Bishop Scott McCaig. Bishop Scott McCaig is from Ottawa, and he rides a Harley. He is the bishop over the military ordinaria in Canada. So all of the military, that's his diocese. And he does a great job of it. He's a great writer, and we got to have mass at his private chapel, and he rode with us for three days, and we had a great time. So it's priests and bishops and deacons and laymen all writing together well next week we'll continue on i've got a show i'm preparing right now next week for you again i really look forward to being with you every week and and i encourage you to pray for me and i will continue to pray for you i love you and i want to

just close in prayer this week in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen lord i thank you i thank you lord for my brother i thank you for my sister and I pray that you will bless them this week and encourage them in their walk with you. May we truly be activated disciples, people of the word, people of faithfulness, people who are not afraid to share the gospel with others. I thank you, Lord, for what you're doing and ask you to continue. May you be glorified in all that we do and say. In Jesus' name, amen.

Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you.