The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - What Feeds Your Soul?

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

We live in a society that is so rich, yet it often leaves us feeling so empty. How how do we feed our soul? Jeff offers us five ways to feed that hunger in our soul that always leaves us wanting more from life. Snippet from the Show “The place where your soul is fed is when you are in the Father’s plan of sheer goodness.” 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!

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 219. What Feeds Your Soul? 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. Every single day, we spend time. trying to answer the yearning and the craving in our life, whether it's food or mental activity or spiritual activity, physical activity, whatever it might be, isn't it amazing how much time we spend feeding ourselves and tending to ourselves looking for opportunities? It's really remarkable. We live in a world that is so rich in everything, and yet people feel so empty and aimless in their lives. So I'd like to talk to you today about what feeds your soul. Before we get

to that, just a quick reminder that the June pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Father Mike Schmitz and myself has been postponed again this June. It's going to go to June of 2022, and you can go to my website, jeffcavens.com, and you can get on board now because I know that that one, that one's going to fill up. This is two years in a row now that we've had to cancel that. But it's going to be next year. We do have a trip, though, coming up this January, Emily and I are going to be leading our regular January trip. And I think that's almost full. But if you would like to go with us on that, you can certainly check that out. We do really enjoy being with you and spending that pilgrimage time together. And it is good for the soul, I have to admit.

It's good for my soul. People always ask me, they'll say, don't you ever get tired of going to Israel? Because this next trip will be my 59th. And the answer is absolutely not. And one of the reasons is it does feed my soul when I go over to the Holy Land or on most pilgrimages, I feel very fed and that God has done something in my life. But I want to talk to you about this today because I see this as a problem, actually, with many Christians today who have access to so much stuff yet feel so empty. We've entered a time now where Christians, not just Catholics, but evangelicals and fundamentalist and non-denominational Christians, have entered into a phase now of almost obscene binge watching, Christian content. And just one thing after another taking up our time, you know,

to just watch and just listen. And yet I don't see the dial moving a lot in terms of the response of people as it relates to the satisfaction in their life or really experiencing the life that God intended us to experience. And I think that one of the reasons there, is that we do not experience the life of God by just simply watching stuff and listening to stuff. It's really putting certain things into practice and practicing certain things in our life. That's what really feeds our soul. Maybe you're like me in times past and still today to some degree, if I'm honest. We open up the refrigerator. Have you ever done this where you walk over to the refrigerator and you open it up and you look inside. Look for what? I don't know.

You don't know, but you're looking for something, right? Or you open up a cupboard and you're looking for something to eat. And you go up and down the refrigerator and they go, well, there's those leftovers and there's this and that. I'm just hungry for something. And then you shut the refrigerator. And then about 10 minutes later, you go back to the same refrigerator and you open it up for a second gaze, knowing nobody has put anything in here in the last 10, 15 minutes or the last half an hour, and yet here I am back looking in the refrigerator, right? And we kind of give up on that, and we go sit on the couch and we grab the holy remote. And we turn on the television and we just start going through channels to look for something, something that looks interesting,

something that will entertain me, something that hopefully makes me a better person, not really. And we go through 10, 15, 20, 100, maybe 100 channels. And you get through it. And what do you do? You start going through more channels. And you conclude that there's nothing in the fridge, nothing on the TV, but we're just, we just keep searching. And I do believe that we're living in a consumer faith culture where it's not just the fridge, it's not just the remote, but it's even on our laptop, it's YouTube videos and all of that. But there's a difference between a consumer faith Christian versus purposeful activity that feeds your soul.

Now, we do pay a lot of attention. If you're like most people, you pay a lot of attention to what you eat. Maybe you've changed your eating habits. And you say, you know what, I feel better. When I went from being a carnivore to a vegan, I felt better for it might be the opposite. Maybe you felt better going from being a vegan to a carnivore, or you don't drink anymore and you feel better, and you experiment with eating habits, or it's exercise. You have been feeling like a slug, and you don't like feeling like a slug, and so you

started to take walks or jogging, or you go to the gym, and you've got your exercise regimen, and you feel better. But doesn't this also apply to our faith life and the condition of your soul? where your heart is, are you peaceful, or are you flustered? I did a show not too long ago called Between Two Yearns, that you might want to check that out. That was show number 210, where I talk about this a little bit. But, you know, one thing that would be interesting to do, before I get into these five things I want to share with you about how to feed your soul, you might want to just take stock of where you're at and take some time at the end of the day.

day, maybe tonight, if you're in the car right now, maybe tonight, take some time and review today. If it's early in the morning, review yesterday. And ask yourself, what were you feeding on? What were you consuming in your life? What were you doing in an attempt to feed yourself? Maybe it wasn't even your soul you were thinking about. Maybe it was just your body, but take stock. Just review a day. Take a moment to review a day and write down four or five things that you can remember about how you've tried to feed yourself. I know one thing, that is that binge watching doesn't feed your soul, generally speaking. Okay, so let's look at five things that, and you could have come up with five yourself, I'm sure, but these are five things that have come to my mind

that I do know feeds my soul. And number one is it feeds my soul to hear the voice of God. that feeds my soul to hear the voice of God now what I mean by hearing the voice of God is I mean understanding what he's saying and if you want to hear the voice of God you need to be where he is speaking and that is the word of God the scripture and so when I'm feeling empty when I'm feeling aimless and I go to the fridge and go to the remote for the TV I need to pause just for moment and ask myself, Jeff, what are you looking for here? What are you looking for? And is what you're looking for found in the Word of God? My friend, I find that one of the most satisfying things in life is to hear the voice of God. Now, there's two different aspects to this. One is to hear the voice

of God as he speaks in His Word, the Scriptures. But there's also another beautiful aspect of hearing the voice of God. And that is when you sense that he is speaking to you personally, he is giving you directions or corrections or comfort in some way, not only from Scripture, but just speaking to you in that really that special time of prayer. And so one of the things that's really important, if you want to hear the voice of God, is you need to position your heart to hear God. I'll say that again. You need to position your heart. to hear God. Just like if you are physically hungry, you need to position your body in such a way that you can actually get some food and eat it. You don't just suddenly say, you know, I was so

hungry and then I don't know what happened, but a burger got inside of me and I feel, I feel satiated. I feel satisfied. We don't do that. You had to position your body in such a way as to get the burger or the veggies, whatever might be, popcorn. So you need to position your heart to hear God. And I really do believe that that feeds our soul. We need to have the attitude that we're going to never stop learning. I'm not talking about learning. This is what Paul warned.

He said, ever learning, but never coming to a knowledge of God. No, we don't need to binge watch and binge listen and just learn, learn, and never come to a knowledge of God. We want to know the voice of God. don't focus on how you can become the best you. That's not the focus of Christianity. It's not a religion that is to prop you up and make you great. Christianity starts by learning about Jesus and wanting to become like Jesus and allowing

his life to flow through you. That will feed you. But as long as we just focus on our own agenda, and try to become the best Jeff that I possibly can be, I'm going to be endlessly searching because being the best Jeff is not the answer to Jeff. The answer is becoming like Christ, communing with Jesus, understanding that he's speaking to me and giving adequate time to listen to him, which means that every single day, as Emily and I do every morning,

first thing after we get up in the morning, we make tea and we sit down together and we listen for the voice of God in our life. The parts that are a little embarrassing are those parts where we read the scripture of the day and one of us or both of us is acutely aware that, wow, that's for me. That's for me. And that's when the soul gets fed. It really does. So in addition to reading the Word of God, I would encourage you to spend some time in prayers, especially lexio divina and adoration. You know that adoration is a wonderful time to hear the voice of God. And I promise you that if you read God's word, you pray, you do lexio divina, you go into an hour of

adoration, a holy hour, it's going to feed your soul better than any of the things that you might be doing right now that are not feeding your soul. I've got four more things I'm going to go over with you right after the break here. You are listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, I'm Sonia Corbett, the Bible study of Angelista, and a Baptist turned Catholic. As a Baptist, I thought that Catholic beliefs were invented, that they came out of nowhere and had no connection whatsoever to the Bible. I also happened to believe that the Old Testament was about rules, rituals, and sacrifices that the New Testament gave us permission to ignore for a personal relationship with Jesus. It's a long story, but as God began connecting the Old and New

Testaments for me, I was stunned by the beautiful consistency of God in the Catholic Church. I can't tell you how exciting it was when God opened my eyes to the incredible ways the Old Testament foreshadows God's plan for the New Testament and for his Catholic Church. In my book fulfilled, uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism, I explain these amazing connections, and I share how those connections helped change my life. If you read this book, I promise that you will come away with tools to help you share your Catholic faith easily, answer questions about how your Catholic faith fits with what's in the Bible, and most importantly, grow deeper in your relationship with Christ. If you're interested in learning more or ordering a copy of fulfilled, uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism, you can do so at ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. Ah, we're hungry, aren't we? We're hungry. We're hungry. We're hungry. We're hungry.

for something. And God has put this hunger in our hearts so that we might seek him and search for him and live with him. And that's where we really have our soul fed. When I go into a Barnes & Noble bookstore, you go on Amazon online, you see literally thousands and thousands of books that are trying to answer this craving in your heart. The first way that we can feed our soul is to hear the voice of God. The second way is to enter into God's will and adventure and his plan of sheer goodness. There's so many things that we do in life where we make our own plans of success and our own plans of adventure. And we spend a lot of time and a lot of resources in seeing that those things come about. This last week, I was watching several videos on people who climb Mount

Everest. And it was fascinating to see how many people have spent $40,000 to $60,000 a year to climb the largest mountain in the world, 29,000 plus feet up. And how many people have lost their life? And over 200 of them still up on Everest. They died up there, pursuing the adventure of a lifetime. Now, there's nothing wrong with great adventures, is there? Especially the Bible great adventure, but there's nothing wrong with a great adventure and going out there and challenging the human spirit and going where we've never gone before. That's all part of life. But if we do all of that and don't pursue his adventure, then we're always going to be wanting more. And so the soul is fed when it enters into his adventure, his plan, or as the

catechism says the plan of sheer goodness. I love this very first paragraph in the catechism. It says, 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. That first sentence of the catechism is one of the most awesome sentences that I have read in my life. God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself. In other words, he didn't have any need of us, but in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. Seriously, my friend, can you think of Everest or K2 or any other adventure in life that is going to be more challenging and more exciting and more of a plan that feeds the soul than his plan of sheer goodness? And he does have a plan. In the New

Testament, it talks about a word, there's a word that's used called oeconomia. It's where we get the word economy from. And it's mentioned quite a few times in the New Testament. When the word economy is used, oeconomia, it really speaks about a father's household plan. And I would submit to you that the place where your soul is satisfied, the place where your soul is fed is when you are in his plan of sheer goodness. It's when you are in his economy, the father's household plan. Paul uses it several times in Ephesians when he says in Ephesians chapter one, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. So when Paul talks about a plan,

He's talking about the Oikonamia, the Father's household plan, which unites all things in Christ, things in heaven and on earth. And that's where the soul is fed when we are deliberately, intentionally pursuing his will and his plan in our life. And so, again, you might want to take a moment and just review the last day or so of your life and find out how many things were pursuing your plan. How many things did you do or think about that were pursuing your plan? And how many things did you do?

How many things did you plan according to his household plan? That's a good thing to do. Paul also said in Ephesians 3, and I'll put all these in the show notes for you. By the way, if you do want the show notes, just text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, to 3377. It's easy. 33777. You'll be on the list. You'll get all the show notes.

Ephesians 3 says, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you. That's the plan, the stewardship, the plan, oikonamia, God's plan of sheer goodness. Paul says that the plan of sheer goodness, the plan of sheer goodness was given to me for you, for you. So how much time do we really spend in understanding the overarching plan of God? That is what the Great Adventure Bible study is all about. And if you have not gone through the Great Adventure Bible study, you're missing the plan. That's what you're missing. You're missing the plan.

And so I would really encourage you to carve out some time and make a point out of knowing his plan of sheer goodness. And coupled with the catechism of the Catholic Church, you're going to feed your soul. You're going to feed your soul. But we've got to do it. We've got to do it. Paul also said in Colossians 1.25, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known. So Paul again says, I'm a minister according to the plan from God that was given to me for you.

So everything he wrote in the New Testament was for you to reveal the story. the plan for you and to make Jesus fully known. So if you're looking for a way to feed your soul, again, enter into God's will and adventure and its plan of sheer goodness. The third thing that I would recommend is to feed on the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. Oh, wow. You want to know how to feed your soul? There isn't any better way, to be honest with you, than to receive.

the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. After I came back to the Catholic Church, I was talking to some of my Protestant friends, and I told them that the Eucharist was the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, that what looked like bread was actually the body of Jesus, and what looked like wine was actually the blood of God. You know what this one guy said to me?

He says, I don't believe you. I don't believe you believe that, Jeff. And I was like, come on, give me a break. give me a royal break i believe that that's what the church teaches and i believe it and he said i don't think you do and i got a little bit mad you i was like don't tell me what i believe and don't believe he says i'm just telling you i don't believe you believe that that it's the body and blood soul and divinity of jesus christ and i said how can you how can you say that you know what he said to me he said because if i believed that that was the body and blood of christ i'd be there every day and i would

crawl on my knees down the aisle to receive it. I don't think you believe it. And wow, did he correct me? I thought to myself, you know what, he's right. Maybe I don't believe this as much as I say I do, because if I did, I would feed on it as much as I could. I would feed on it. You know, this last year of COVID-19, we went for nearly a year with being able to go

to church and receive the Eucharist. And I heard a lot of people say, oh, I was hungering for the Eucharist, hungering for the Eucharist. Were we? Were we? Are we? That's a question that each one of us has to answer ourselves. But if you want to feed your soul, there is no greater food than the body and blood of Christ. And that is the divinity in our mouth and in our stomach. It is God feeding us His grace. The Catechism has a lot to say about this, and I would really, I'll put this in the show notes for you, but I would turn your attention to paragraph 1324 to 1327. And here's what it says in 1324. It says that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian faith. The other sacraments, which the Eucharist, of course, is one of them, goes on and says, the other sacraments and indeed all

ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it for in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the church namely Christ himself our Passover lamb and so that's a pretty good paragraph don't you don't you think and for the person who is saying I'm empty I'm searching I want to feed my soul that's the paragraph for you. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. And so if you feel like you are empty and your soul is not being fed, get yourself to Mass and feed. You say, Jeff, but how does that feed me? It feeds you because that's the life of God. That's the grace of God coming into you and feeding you. And that's what you're created for. It's a

a union between you and the bridegroom. It's a love embrace. That feeds your soul. That feeds your soul more than a Netflix series, I might add. It does. Even if it's a good series, you know, I'm a fan of the chosen. I think they did a fantastic job of portraying the Gospels. And I think that it's a beautiful, refreshing new way to see the Gospels come alive. But it doesn't compare. to the Eucharist. Are you hungry? Are you empty? Make a point out of feeding on God. Feed your soul. It goes on also in paragraphs 1326 and 27. Finally, by the Eucharist, the Eucharistic celebration, we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life when God will be all in all. In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith. Our way of thinking is

attuned to the Eucharist. Oh, that's so good, isn't it? Oh, that's good. Let me say that again. Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist. Pause, time out. Let me ask you a question. Is your way of thinking attuned to the Eucharist? Is it? That's a good question. It says, our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist, in turn, confirms our way of thinking. wow number four you want to feed your soul then you need to know that your words and deeds contribute to eternal life if you know that that the things that you say during the day and you know that the things that you do during the day contribute to eternal life that's a satisfying thing you know have you ever had days where you had so many things to do on your to-do list and you felt overwhelmed

and felt like, oh, my life is out of control and I got so many things. I feel like I'm a loser. I'm not doing anything. I'm not checking anything off, even if they're listed by A, B, and C. I'm not even getting the C's done in my life. Have you ever noticed that when you start doing what you are supposed to do for your work on that checklist, you start feeling better. You start feeling like there's purpose.

I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing at work. It's the same thing in the spiritual life in our walk with Christ. When your words and your deeds contribute to the eternal plan of God, then it feeds your soul. It feeds your soul. Paragraph 53 talks about this relationship between deeds and words when it says, The divine plan of revelation is realized simultaneously by deeds and words, which are intrinsically bound up with each other and shed light on each other. It involves a specific divine pedagogy.

God communicates himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate word Jesus Christ. And the catechism goes on to say that the response to God revealing himself in deeds and words is faithfulness. And it is expressed. Our faithfulness, listen to this, our faithfulness is expressed. in the same way that God revealed himself in deeds and words. And my friend, I promise you that if your words and deeds contribute to eternal life in God's

will, it's going to feed your soul. Number five, if you want to feed your soul, then you need to love as God loves by emptying yourself, offering up your suffering, and laying your life down. you will become who God created you to be by losing yourself for the sake of God. I love what Paul says in Colossians 124. He says, Now I rejoice in my suffering for your sake and in my flesh. I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church.

Now, what could be lacking in Christ's sufferings? St. Augustine said that what is lacking is your particular. participation. The participation of the mystical body of Christ. It's when you lay down your life in love for others and become a servant and offer up your suffering to the suffering of the cross of Christ. You will sense in your spirit, in your heart, a joy, a purpose that will feed your soul. Now, these are five things that I know work. I know that they work. I know that they are center stage. And I know how we spend so much of our time just binge watching and listening and doing this and that. And it doesn't amount to a hill of beans in terms of our real growth.

It has to be intentional. And I would recommend that you take these fives as a starter. And I know you've got more and you can contribute to this conversation. I know that for sure. I know that. And I would just encourage you to share those with me. The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Love to hear from you. Okay, my friend, I wanted to share that with you this week. If you are looking for what feeds your soul and you have been feeling empty, don't go for things that are just going to make you feel good.

Go for things that feed your soul. That's right. Feed your soul. All right, I want to pray for you. And I look forward already to talking to you next week. I've got so many things I want to share with you, but I can only do this once a week. But I look forward to seeing you next week. Join me in prayer right now.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up to you, my friends. And I ask you, Lord, to move in their heart and draw them to yourself in hearing you in your word, in prayer, entering into your plan, feeding on your body and blood. and being very, very intentional about our words and our deeds contributing to eternal life. And Lord, we empty ourselves and we pick up our cross and join you. Thank you, Lord, for feeding our soul. We love you, we worship you, and we adore you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I love you, my friend. And just this is going to be a new day for you. Just go for it. Thank you.