The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Why Remain Catholic? Divine Revelation

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

Last week, Jeff talked about “setting your face like flint” and not leaving the Church and the sacraments because of the sins of men. This week, Jeff continues his discussion on why we should remain Catholic and delves into divine revelation using paragraphs 27-100 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). For more detailed shownotes, see media.ascensionpress.com. "Just because there’s a couple bad eggs doesn’t mean that the truth is gone and we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because there’s been a 50 percent divorce rate in America doesn’t mean that marriage isn’t valid and beautiful and fruitful and wonderful. It just means that people failed. But it is not an excuse for you to leave the Eucharist."

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show episode 83. Why Remain Catholic Divine Revelation. 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.

Hey, thank you for joining me again this week. we're talking last week and this week about why remain Catholic, and I think you know why with all the news stories that are going on in the news now about the scandal, Cardinal McCarrick, and some of the others that have been named. And it's been difficult for people to endure this, to watch it, but I do think with all of my heart that there is some meaning for us in the middle of it and some things that we can grow in. And I was talking to a group. just last night, in fact, at the seminary here in the Twin Cities. And I was talking to them about, you know, how difficult this is.

And I think we're going to have a couple more shows in the future and try to bring a panel on to discuss some of these questions that many of you are asking. And by the way, when I mentioned asking, your emails are tremendous. We're going to have a whole show just answering questions that I'm getting from you that are really, really good, really good. Uh, someone says we should have, um, a show on our responsibilities to creation since the feast of St. Francis is right around the corner. Uh, Kevin writes in and he says, I want to, I'd like you to talk a little bit about you must be born again to be saved. And, uh, uh, also somebody

writes in and asks about the birth pangs of Mary. There's a lot of really good questions. And a lot of you responded to the show I did on Tevia and Golda from Fiddler on the roof and talking about, about love. I appreciate that. A lot of you said, hey, I was in that play. I was Teviya. I was gold. I was one of the daughters. And that play obviously had quite a, quite an impact on America. And it's an actually, it's a very good teaching tool, you know, in terms of teaching about marriage and families and in values. Hey, I have a prayer request for you. Would you mind praying for my friend? I have a neighbor deep in the in the woods of Minnesota. soda here. And he is going through a tough time. He has a lung disease and finds it very difficult

to breathe. He's a Christian. He's a brother in Christ. And we have good times of fellowship and talking with one another. We just had a great talk this morning about the whole issue of theologically of suffering. And his name is Sandy. And I am going to ask you to pray for Sandy. And I'm going to ask you for something specific. He is on a waiting list for a lung. right now. And my prayer is that he receives that lung. He's a beautiful brother and the Lord, wonderful wife, and I think God has some great things for him. So will you agree with me on that in prayer? Can we pray about that right now? The name of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, we lift up Sandy to you all across this world. We ask you to bless him. We ask you, Lord,

to meet the need in his life. Lord, in your providence, in your great mercy. We ask for a lung. We ask for a lung. We ask for this type of healing that he needs in his breathing right now. And we give you all the glory for this, in all honor. You are the great physician, O Lord. We pray this in your name, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Father's son and the Holy Spirit. Thank you. Thanks for praying with me on that. And if you have prayer requests, we're going to have a show coming up. And we're going to be talking about a number of prayer requests from around the world, and we're going to pray. And so if you do have prayer requests, you can email them to me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. By the way, I haven't mentioned it for quite a few

weeks now, but a reminder to go to iTunes, rank the show, leave some comments. Why? Because it really fools with the algorithm. You know, when people are interested in a show, it does something to the algorithm. And then when people are on Google, and they're searching for a particular topic that they're struggling with in their life, they will come up with this show, you know, if it's a match. And so you're a partner in this, and I do appreciate you doing that. I really, really do. Well, we're talking this week about why remain Catholic, and last week we were talking about setting your face like Flint and all the beautiful, beautiful fruit that has come from the church. And it's not a question of leaving your family. We don't do that.

We don't leave our family just because there's been some problems among family members, but what we do is we enjoin ourselves with the sufferings of Christ. And I want to continue to run along that theme this week, and I want to talk a little bit about divine revelation, because to be Catholic is to be a part of the body of Christ that has received tremendous benefits when it comes to divine revelation and knowing how to live our lives, who God is and knowing who we are. We are not subject to just someone's whim or some preacher's idea of what he wants to do that week. We have been given a family that gives us a great, a great diet of

God's word. Did you know that every three years, every week in the Catholic Church, we receive three readings on Sunday, and every three years we go through a cycle of all of the main parts of the Bible. And so it's like a kid growing up. You know, if you're growing up and your parents say, here's 25 bucks, we're leaving town for two days, get something to eat, well, what do you think they're going to get? They're going to get cotton candy, pizza, Pepsi, or Coke, or something like that, some snicker bars, but they're probably not going to get food that's going to be of great benefit to them. And left to our own devices, we're just going to keep going after the things we like in the Bible and truths that we like. But sometimes the truths that we need are not the

truths we like, and we don't visit those. And so the church sort of forces us to go through the whole life of Christ and through the Old Testament every three years, and we have to listen to what God is saying to us. I want to go from the catechism this week, something a little bit different. And I want to talk about the first, I don't know, 75 or so verses, or paragraph of the catechism, starting with paragraph 27. Paragraph 27 says something very important. I'm going to build this argument and then get into divine revelation and how important it is to be a part of the church to receive this. It says in paragraph 27 of the catechism that the desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God, and God never ceases to draw man to

himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. And so I want to start by saying this. You're in a search for happiness. I'm in a search for happiness. Your neighbors are, your colleagues at work, your extended family. There isn't anybody that you have walked by at the mall in the last week that is not searching for happiness. And there's a number of ways that we can try to obtain happiness. And the great philosophers and, you know, the great thinkers of the past have come up with a number of levels of happiness that people pursue. I'll go through those real quickly with you here today. The first is instant gratification. Now, instant gratification is where we buy something, we purchase something,

we possess something, we experience something, we think about something, whatever it might be, and there's suddenly this instant gratification. For you, it might be buying a Louis Vuitton purse, gals. It might be eating a filet mignon from Ruth's Chris. It might be buying a car. It might be buying a new hockey stick, some skates, a gun, a new boat, or whatever. But when we do that, we receive this instant gratification. But the problem is, in life, is that you are created for more than steak. And you're created for more than cars. You're created for more than movies. Now, these things are all good. Don't get me wrong. And I think they have a place in life and everything in moderation. But you're created for more than just instant gratification. A good example of that

is, and I've mentioned this several times before, not on this show, but on television and some other places is that the Atkins diet was a great boon, you know? And a lot of guys, they just loved it. You know, like they were 40 pounds overweight. They came home and they said to their wife, honey, I'm going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going on the Atkins diet. Now, that's the diet where you get to eat bacon and meat and butter and everything else. And you don't have to eat the vegetables and the grains. And these guys are all excited. They're saying, you know what? I care about my health. I'm right. And I'm just going to have steak now. And they get all excited about it. But here's one's interesting. After eating steak for 20 days,

they are so sick of it. They don't want it anymore. And it's a testimony to the fact that we are created for more than instant gratification. Only lasts so long. And we still are continually never stop searching for happiness. So then you move on to the second level, which is personal achievement. nothing wrong with this at all. In fact, there's nothing wrong with the first three steps here if they all have a goal, which is our fourth step. But the second one is personal achievement. You know, I'm going to learn that new language. I'm going to get shape. I'm going to become buff. And I'm going to read this book, that, but whatever it is, you know, there's all kinds of personal achievement. There's nothing wrong with it. But if that's your goal in life, then you're going to be really disappointed

because you're going to find out you're created for more than stake, you're created for more than personal achievement, and you move on to the third phase, and that is investing beyond yourself. I think two people really embody this. That's Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Both of them are billionaires. Both of them can get a stake anytime they want. Both of them have certainly achieved amazing things in their life. But what are they doing now? They're investing beyond themselves. They're creating a fund where they can help stop malaria. They can stop diseases and things like that. And I think they're doing some good things.

I don't agree with everything that they're doing, but they're an example of investing beyond yourself. But then again, you're going to come to a point where you're going to say, hey, what's it all about, Alfie? There's more to life than simply paying it forward. And that brings you to the fourth one, which is union with God. And that is really the place that we're looking for. that's where happiness is that's where joy is that is where the truth is and that's where we find the

truth is in is in god so what are some of the contenders for human happiness in your life well it could be instant gratification maybe you're so occupied with this as many americans are that you're not even close to union with god you're you're in union with beef you're in union with purses. You're in union with bowling balls and, you know, and it's just not doing it for you. Well, that's the condition of man today. Now, stay with me, because we're going to get on to, you know, should I leave the church? And I think you're going to conclude the same thing I did, and there's, no way, no way am I going to do that, right? So the catechism presents the human journey to God, not as an externally imposed command from God, but as an internal imperative for

living a full life. The command of God, if it can be called that, comes not from outside us, but from within us, from our very nature. God has called us to be adopted, sons and daughters, to become a part of his family so he can share his blessed life with us. Now there's a number of ways to come to know God. And this is where I think the Catholic Church has such a gift for you. And when you understand it, leaving it isn't even an option. It's just not even an option. And if you do it, I'm just going to be honest with you. I'll use a Greek word. It's stupid. I'm kidding. It's not a Greek word. But you know what I'm saying. It's stupid. It is absolutely stupid because in the church we have this amazing revelation. Now paragraphs 31 through 38

talk about ways of coming to know God. And so it mentions in paragraph 32, for example, the first way is the world. We look around us, we see the universe, the sky, we see physics and the laws of physics, aerodynamics and gravity and so forth. And it says in paragraph 32 that the world's order and beauty, through the world's order and beauty,

one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe. So through the world, we can come to know something of God. You know, I'm reminded of Dr. Anthony Flew, who was, I think he was the president of the UK Atheist Society or had some fancy title like that. Anyway, he was way up there and not believing in God. And he started studying physics and science and you started talking to people and other scientists and so forth, biologists. And he finally came to the conclusion, not through the Catholic Church, but just by the world and studying that there is a God. And he had originally wrote a book called There Is No God. And his second book was, there is, it crosses out no, and it's God. There is a God. There is a God. The second way that we come to know God is through

the human person, paragraph 33. It says, with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this, he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality, which is the first cause and the final end of all things, a reality that everyone calls God. Well, you can know a lot through the world. You can know a lot through the human person. But then you move on to the third one, which is reason, reason. And it says there, in paragraph 35, man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. And we can know something

of him due to reason. We deduce that, yes, there is a God that created all of this there is a first cause and there is a final end of all things a reality that every culture even Russia you know even any country that you would say is atheistic there are those that say no there is more you know I remember being 18 years old and sitting in Chanhassen Minnesota at St. Hubert's Catholic Church I had hair halfway down my back bell-bottom jeans, bandana, and there I was alone in the balcony. My parents didn't know. My girlfriend didn't know. My friends didn't know. And I was crying out to God, who are you? I want to know you. There's something about the human person. There's something about reason.

There's something about the world that speaks of God. But then we hit a wall and we can't go on any further. That's where we are in desperate need of help. And I'm going to talk about that right after this. And if you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Leodero, Jackie Bobby Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com slash ascension Presents.

That's YouTube.com slash ascension Presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. Welcome back to the Jeff Kaven show, talking about why remain Catholic divine revelation. It's a good reason. We're talking about four levels of happiness. We're talking about ways of coming to know God in the catechism, paragraphs 31 through 35. And the catechism tells us that we can know something of God through the world, human person, and reason. But then we hit a wall and we are in desperate need of help. We can't get any further. We can look at learn a lot, at least enough to be, you know, responsible for judgment. And Paul talks about this, you know, in his letters. But we come to the wall, and this is where God does something that is absolutely remarkable. In paragraph 38, it says we stand in need of being enlightened by God's revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also about those

religious and moral truths, which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason. And so what happens is that God reveals himself to us. And that revelation starts in the Old Testament in Genesis and goes all the way to Malachi. And it is a revelation that is basically God revealing himself through covenants in salvation history. And so you have a serious of covenants. And if you're part of the Great Adventure, and in the new Great Adventure Bible, by the way, that just came out, which, by the way, is the first printing is sold out. We're getting another one on right real quick. We have a chart in there about the various covenants in salvation history. God reveals himself in salvation history piecemeal,

a little bit at a time through covenants. So you have at the very beginning one holy couple in the covenant of marriage in Genesis. And then you have the covenant with Noah. one holy family. You see, it grows, the promises, the relationship between God and his people grows from a couple to a family, and then God makes a covenant with Abram in Genesis 15, all the way to 22, and that's one holy tribe now. See, it's growing from a couple to a family to tribe. And then in Exodus, God makes a covenant with Israel, with Moses as the mediator, and we have one holy nation. A nation is made up of tribes, tribes, tribes are made up of families. The family has the husband and wife. And then after that,

God makes a covenant with David, and this is one holy kingdom. It's a kingdom. And a kingdom is made up of nations, and nations made up of tribes, the tribe's family. You kind of get the idea there. And then finally, the new covenant in Christ, where God said everything, it's the one holy Catholic and apostolic church. It is the universal family that God invites anybody into this family, and he reveals himself. Now, we know that paragraph 65 of the catechism, and of course we know this from Scripture in Hebrews chapter 1, that the new covenant in Christ is where God says everything. He totally reveals himself. He completely discloses himself to us, and we call this divine revelation. Now, I got to thinking about this a number of years ago. How do you explain this exactly?

you know, and I came up with really a great analogy. Have you seen the movie with Jim Carrey called The Truman Show? It's worth watching, particularly after this show. I think it'll take on new meaning for you. It is the ultimate reality show. And if you haven't seen it, I'll give you just a little bit of a synopsis of that. A baby is born on a Hollywood set, Truman. And he's born on a set, which is his whole world. And as he grows up, he's going to experience the things that you and I have experienced in the real world, but he's going to be experiencing it on a TV set that is monitored by producers and directors and actors. Everybody's an actor, you know, a schoolteacher, the dentist, the police officer, people at the store, you name it. They're there.

And he even has a fake ocean that is, I don't know, must be maybe a couple hundred yards deep or maybe it's longer than that. But anyway, it's quite contrived and it's fake. But he doesn't know that. he grows up and everybody outside in the world is watching this reality show, the Truman show. And so it's really kind of cool. You know, they see him born. He's growing up. A lot of people fall in love with him. It's just really something. But then what happens is, you know, he looks at the world. He understands what's happening in his own heart. He exercises reason. And he deduces that there's got to be more. There's, there's got to be more. And so he goes to the edge of the ocean and he's looking out and he's

wondering, what's out there? And the directors are getting nervous. Producers are getting nervous. There's a lot of money to be made here with sponsorship. I mean, you know, we're watching the Truman Show, sponsored by Frito Lay or whatever. And isn't it something that there is a lot of money for the world to make to keep you in your little world? And this is all there is? Don't you think that's true? If I can keep you just focused on this world and the things of this world, I can market that and make a lot of money. And that's what's happening with Truman, but his curiosity and his desire to know more

is greater than the capacity of the directors to keep him corralled. And so he's looking out there and they come up with a plan. We've got to create a storm. We've got to stop him from getting in the boat and discovering the edge of the world, just a couple hundred yards away. And they can't do it.

They can't keep him down. And he goes out, what does he do? He runs smack into the side of the world. world. And the directors know the jig is up. And they have to talk to him. And they talk to them over an intercom and it almost sounds like God, doesn't it? Truman, what? And they tell him that the stairs that he's looking at go up the stairs, you know, and he goes out of the stairs and he suddenly discovers a world that is billions of times bigger than the world he knew. That's like divine revelation. Where the directors showed Truman the reality of truth, so God is

has opened up the doors for us and it's divine revelation. And this is what we have. I know what you're hearing on the news. I know what you're hearing on podcasts. I know what you're hearing on the radio. This is the gold mine. Divine revelation. Not our problems. Those are serious. Don't get me wrong. But let's get our mind and our heart on what God has called us to. This divine revelation has been given fully in Christ, and then 2,000 years ago, what did he do? He entrusted it to his 12 disciples. By the way, one of them, one of them was bad news. But it didn't stop the family. It didn't stop the graces. Judas did not stop the Eucharist. And these problems should not stop you. I cannot emphasize this enough.

my friends, they should not stop you. Now the transmission of this divine revelation in paragraphs 74 through 100 in the catechism talk about the fact that the plan starts with Jesus and then passing on this deposit of faith to the disciples. And so this plan starts with apostolic tradition. Jesus said in Matthew 28, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always to the close of the age. Now, the Lord commanded them to hand on the gospel, didn't he? And we see that it was handed on in two ways. One, orally, the preaching, their example, the institutions, the institutions that they established, they preached what

they received, whether from the lips of the Lord, from his way of life, or from the Holy Spirit. So one way that this divine revelation was passed on was orally. Another way, which, by the way, he did not say to do, but they did. And he said, this is divinely inspired, was writing. And so those who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit carry with them aspects of this divine deposit that we need to know. So together with the sacred tradition and the sacred scripture, we have what the church has always called the Word of God, just like in the Old Testament. If you're a Protestant and you're listening to the show, it's important to know that the Jews have always believed that the Word of God

was written and oral tradition. That's right. I'm not talking about tradition like opening presents on Christmas Eve. I'm talking about Big Tea tradition. I'm talking about things that are really, really important. Now, in order to preserve the deposit of faith, as mentioned in paragraph 84, or the apostles left bishops. Oh, there we're on that word. He left bishops as their successors who gave to the next generation their own position of teaching authority.

You can read about it in paragraph 77. The living transmission of the faith accompanied by the Holy Spirit is what we call tradition. In her doctrine, life, and worship, the church perpetuation and transmits to every generation, all that she is and believes.

So there's a relationship between tradition and sacred scripture, as mentioned in paragraph 80, if you've got your catechism. And I'm going to put a lot of this in the notes for you. Don't worry about it. I mean, if you're writing in the car, chill. I'm putting it all in the notes for you. This is so important. Tradition and scripture are bound together and communicate one with the other.

And they come from the same wellspring and form one thing. And this is one way that the Lord fulfills his promise in Matthew 28 to remain with us always. So these things are very, very important. And then we understand that Jesus gives the keys to Peter, and Peter is the prime minister. You can read about that job description of the Old Testament prime minister, the Al-Habayet, the one who's over the household. You can read about it in Isaiah 22. He's given something that is very peculiar, and that is the keys to the kingdom. And in the New Testament, in Matthew 16, Jesus gives the keys to the kingdom to Peter.

And that means that this deposit of faith, this sacred tradition, this sacred scripture, this word of God that we have received, the fullness of faith, comes to us in the Catholic Church, headed by the Pope, which there has been an unbroken succession. It comes to us through the Magisterium as the official teaching body of the church. Ah, but Jeff, there's been some bad popes. There's been some bad bishops. Yes, I know. I watch CNN. Okay? But that doesn't change the reality that God uses this body of the magistrarium to protect and teach the truth. Just because there's a couple bad eggs doesn't mean that the truth is gone and we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because there's been 50% divorce rate in America doesn't mean that marriage isn't very.

valid and beautiful and fruitful and wonderful. No, it just means that people failed. But it is not an excuse for you to leave the Eucharist and the sacraments, in the tradition, in the scriptures, and the family of the Blessed Mother and Joseph, in the saints, and the catechism, and all of these wonderful things that we've been given. We have been given everything to live a godly life. And so the Magisterium is given to us. And the task of the Magisterium is to interpret. They're the authentic interpreters of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of tradition. And has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the church alone. and the Magisterium, as I said, is the bishop in communion with the Pope.

And it says right in the catechism and the church is teaching that the magisterium is not superior to the word of God, but it's servant. A servant. And that's an important point for us to remember. So let me wrap this up by saying this this week. I know I've said a lot of things here from the catechism this week, which I don't typically do, but I just felt like I needed to share this with you at this particular time. And that is this. Watching the news is tough, right? It's tough. Some people even ask, well, how did some of these people

become elected bishops and how did they become elected as a cardinal? It's a good question. And we're going to talk about that on future shows, but I got a good one for you. How come Jesus chose Judas? How come Jesus chose Judas to become one of the 12? Didn't you know better? I think there's a mystery here. And we're going to look into that in the future show. goes here. We're going to keep on this for a little while. I might talk about some other things, but I don't want to let this go, and I want to give you hope, and I want to buoy you up on what this week? On the fact that divine revelation has been passed on and protected and taught by this magnificent church that we spoke about last week. Troubles, yes. Jesus said in this world you will have

tribulation. You know that word tribulation means literally to be torn apart from the inside? Yeah, we're going to have it as part of it. But he also said, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. My friend, I'd like to hear from you. You got ideas for shows. You've got comments. I'd like to hear from you. And really encourage you to go to iTunes or Google Play. Rank the show and leave your comments. But do write me, will you? My email is, The Jeffcaven show at ascensionpress.com, and I would love to hear from you. This is a relationship. I'm not sitting here in the deep woods of Minnesota, overlooking the lakes with loons on them to just simply talk. This is a relationship, and it's important that I hear from you and know how

you're doing, and I just want to be an encouragement to you with these shows, and I really do enjoy it. Also, remember, my friend Sandy, pray for a lung. I'm believing for big things. big, big, big things. And he gets that lung and he gets that transplant. I'm going to bring him on over here to this side of the woods, and we're going to talk. And maybe he'll throw a little thanks out to you. So will you do that, please? I really, really encourage you to do that. Let's close in prayer. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness. Even though we're unfaithful, Lord, you said you would remain faithful. And that's what we're clinging to right now. We pray for the church. We pray for our leaders. We pray for the

Holy Father, Pope Francis. We pray for our bishops and cardinals that they would walk according to your word as we need to in our own lives. And may it be a clarion call to all of us to get our act together and to walk in righteousness. Lord, for those of us that we find ourselves in sin from time to time, may we quickly run to you in the sacrament of reconciliation to get right with you and receive grace for the time of need and receive grace in the Eucharist. The greatest source of your life, the life of the Trinity. Jesus, we need you. We need you and we love you.

We want to be like you. We want to be disciples. We want to join you in your mission. Help us at this time. And Lord, I pray that my friends who know of others who are lagging behind and are suffering and are discouraged, may they share this show with them, is a gift of hope. pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen, my friend. God bless you. Love you. And you're not alone. We're going to get through this together. God bless.