Live Stream with Fr. Murr

[00:00:00]Heat.

[00:00:07][music] [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Hello, I'm Robert Moyahan, the editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, and it is Wednesday, July 22nd, and I'm happy to have with me Father Charles Mr. who's in southern Spain near the city of Seville.

[00:00:57]Hello, Father Mr. >> Greetings to you, Robert, and a happy Wednesday.

[00:01:03]>> All right, we have someone commenting already here on the show that it's uh 12:00 p.m. somewhere. And uh and uh this person writes, "It's 12 a.m.

[00:01:16]here." So, that person must be in Asia.

[00:01:20]And uh this person Charles Russo writes, "Good day. Truth, beauty, and goodness be and the hearts and minds of everyone who joins in this live stream.

[00:01:36]>> Beautiful wish.

[00:01:38]>> All right. Truth, beauty, and goodness. Uh Father Mr. Why is it there's so much difficulty with regard to truth which is uh Jesus Christ himself beauty he's all beautiful goodness he's all good but we have a society which is filled with lies uh which is not telling the truth and which is filled with a lot of ugly things. I don't know if you and I would be included in that, but there's a lot of ugliness in >> probably are. Yes. [laughter] >> And um and uh goodness. It's seems like people's hearts have turned into stones.

[00:02:31]So I'd like to start with truth. Father Mr. Um, what do you think is the nature of truth? And how then can human beings use things like irony, sarcasm, and white lies? Like saying saying you're so handsome today?

[00:02:51]>> Would that would that be the truth or a white lie? What are you telling me?

[00:02:56][laughter] >> What What are you trying to say, Robert?

[00:03:01]All right. No are human beings.

[00:03:04]>> Let's make let's make this distinction.

[00:03:06]Let's make this distinction. I'm I'm speaking as a Catholic and I can't not speak as a Catholic, right? I I gave up speaking as as somebody in the world when I left the world to uh to really dedicate myself to to Christ, to my calling and to the to the church. Um, and there's some confusion on this also, but let me see if I can clarify it. The Catholic Church contains all the truth that I need to know to save my soul.

[00:03:47]Now, let now let me explain that a little bit more.

[00:03:51]I am not saying that the Catholic Church contains all the truth that there is because that's the truth that there is is impossible to capture and in in one place in one person except that person be Jesus Christ who is God who contains all the truth. I love the fact that Pontius Pilate looked right into the divine eyes of our Lord and asked him that question.

[00:04:22]What is truth?

[00:04:24]He was looking at truth. He was looking at He was looking at what I'm telling you right now we can never get to. He had in front of him, right? And he asks it I it's it's such a startling question. He asks truth what truth is.

[00:04:47]Uh it it's fascinating. But let's let me get back to that. What our Lord said in his lifetime, he left us. Again, our Lord did not write one word of the scriptures.

[00:05:02]As a matter of fact, he only wrote one time in his life that we know of.

[00:05:07]>> And that's [clears throat] when he bent down. When the woman in adultery was captured in adultery and and brought before him, he bent down and started writing on the sand in the dirt.

[00:05:20]>> And we [clears throat] don't even know what he wrote. We we it's not recorded what he wrote. So he did not come to write a bestseller, but his apostles knew that they had an obligation to put down in writing his teachings.

[00:05:38]They wanted to preserve them, which they did. We call this the New Testament.

[00:05:43]Uh but the New Testament and the church who uses that new ch new testament to proclaim the truth does not claim to have all of the truth does not claim to hold all of the truth.

[00:06:00]That only belongs to God. No man can have it. We search for it as we search for ultimate beauty.

[00:06:12]Let me just give you an example.

[00:06:13]Yesterday I I've seen the most beautiful the most beautiful images of a woman that I have ever seen are of the blessed mother.

[00:06:24]>> Different honor artists and sculptors uh their their concept of the most beautiful woman in the world, Mary.

[00:06:34]Yesterday was downtown Seville with a couple of friends walk walking to a takaria. We were going to have Mexican tacos. We finally found a place that had Mexican tacos. So we were going there for lunch and I was in front of a church. I it was not the the incarnation. It's a little bit before it. And it didn't have a name on it. I didn't have a map either. But there was a statue of the blessed mother over the door. And the face was absolutely beautiful. Just be stunningly beautiful according to my understanding of beauty.

[00:07:11]This is this is where we get to into the subjective.

[00:07:15]>> I'm looking at something objectively and it conforms to what what I believe is beautiful. But it was it was remarkably beautiful and I thought I had seen all of the most beautiful faces of Mary. And on this statue uh was yet another aspect of that beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder to be to be sure. Uh but there are standards for it and this is where we're gone we've gone wrong today because we've lost those standards.

[00:07:46]Uh Picasso was one of the greatest obstacles to one of the greatest helps to losing the standards. Right. Yeah.

[00:07:53]When you get into abstract art and you get into modern art and what have you, where you've got three eyes on one side of the head and a nose up upside down or come on. This is this is kind of crazy stuff. But we've all been affected by that. We've all been affected by that.

[00:08:08]>> Well, we see see it on the we see it on the street now some places.

[00:08:13]>> Yes. And and people sometimes more intelligent than we are tell us it's stunningly beautiful. Well, you don't know whether to laugh, you know. Is is the emperor naked or or or are these people serious? You know, but uh the but the point is the point is this.

[00:08:33]All of these things are really subjective, but they exist objectively, but I can't know the fullness of them.

[00:08:43]Let me put it that way. How does how does that sound? I can't I can't know the fullness of beauty. I can't know the fullness of truth. I can't know the fullness of goodness. I I I can't I can't contain it. It's not It's not my capacity to be able to contain it to get to wrap my mind around any one of those concepts. Only God solely only God knows these things. And that's why Christ said said it and and truthfully said, "I am the truth." You don't have to look any further. You're looking right at it. I am the truth. And what what he's asking for there is an act of faith on our part. We believe that he is the truth. We believe that he contains all of the truth and has given us a portion of it. The portion that we need to get to heaven.

[00:09:36]>> How's that? How's that for a mini a mini observation?

[00:09:40]>> Okay. So, we say that Pilate says what is truth. He's the man who will condemn Jesus to death. And through that process, the death of Jesus, the world will be redeemed. It's a sacrifice willingly offered with terrible pain but accepted and it set the world on a new course and what we call it is New Testament, New Covenant. And we have a book called Old Testament which tells the story of the Jewish people. And a book called New Testament tells the story of Jesus and the first generation or generation and a half of his followers. We are among them at 2,000year mark later.

[00:10:35]So that moment pilot is fulfilling uh a kind of predestined role. He had to be condemned. He had to be executed. And yet uh he was ambivalent about it. He was uh washing his hands of it. He said, "I find no evil in the man." He offered another chance by saying, "I can release him to you or I can release Barabus."

[00:11:06]And the crowd somehow becomes the judge.

[00:11:12]release Barabus and uh >> just stop stop there for a second, Robert. Just stop it. You're you're doing fine. As far as I'm concerned, you're doing just fine. But let me make a little parenthesis there. I want people to remember that this is the same crowd who just days before welcomed our Lord into Jerusalem with palms and olive branches crying out hosana. Hosana to God. Hosana to the son of David.

[00:11:49]Putting their cloaks in front of the the the mule and the donkey that came into right. These are the same people who proclaimed him the son of God, the son of David days before are now calling for his his death.

[00:12:05]>> Yeah. Well, I mean, >> how difficult we are.

[00:12:10]>> Yeah.

[00:12:11]I'm trying to explore with you on a on a Wednesday afternoon the salvation of the world through the sacrifice of Christ which is the truth that we encounter and then either accept or reject with grave consequences. And I'm saying there's a hinge point in history between the Old and the New. the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And this echoes down to today because many of the Jews agreed that this was the Messiah and the Romans and then the disciples went and preached to the ends of the earth. And we now have preached this message virtually everywhere in the world. But the scribes and Pharisees felt that he had been a blasphemer that he was jeopardizing their operations in the temple precincts. He turned the tables over the money changers and and that community truthfully following believed that the change had not come. The prophecies had not been fulfilled. And we f and we find during the first 200 years of the church many many Jews became Christians. It's a Jewish movement and we actually we actually believe it is Judaism fulfilled and we spiritually have become [clears throat] the new Israel but many did not believe and there's a tremendous dialogue between Justin Martyr and Trifo the Jew. And in that uh Justin [clears throat] in your scriptures uh you have all the proofs that Jesus would be pierced hands and feet that's the marks of the crucifixion etc and trifle said no no no those scriptures aren't in our scriptures uh it says he he will be wounded for your transgressions but that passage about the wounds in hands and feet is not in our scripture and Justin said well I knew that it wasn't in what you are reading as your scripture because you have removed those passages because it's in the Septuagent but you're going now to the Maseretic text and you carefully between the time of Christ and the middle of the 100s have done a kind of uh bolderization removing some of the particularly uh precise texts that were fulfilled in Jesus. So I don't blame I don't blame you but recognize that something has occurred here which has led you astray.

[00:15:06]Have you ever heard of this before father Mr. >> Yes. many years ago reading Justin Martyr.

[00:15:13]>> Okay.

[00:15:14]>> Of course. But but look look the the the Jews had a had a problem which is not unlike everybody's problem.

[00:15:24]>> Oh you know I agree with that. I I actually realized >> each of us nothing to be boasting of, you know, nothing.

[00:15:31]>> Yeah.

[00:15:32]>> And so >> that's right.

[00:15:34]>> They had to die to themselves. And >> what they were saying, what they what they rejected from Christ. Why they why they found him repugnant is because he was trying. This was not his purpose necessarily, but they saw him as a threat to their power, to their power base and to their financial base, to everything. He threatened that the status quo. He threatened them and therefore they held on to it. Uh they had something to lose and they weren't going to lose it. Ultimately they did in the year 70 when they they lost everything as our as our Lord also prophesied. However, however, this is what's still a major stumbling block uh to many people converted to Christianity to Catholicism.

[00:16:30]They would have to change their lifestyle and they don't want to do that.

[00:16:36]>> [laughter] >> It's it's not that people reject the message of Christ. Honestly, as a matter of fact, the message of Christ is uplifting. It's very positive. It's magnificent. It promises heaven to those who who understand and believe in in the person of Jesus Christ.

[00:16:55]But it requires a change of attitude, a change of heart. If you're living in adultery, you have to stop living in adultery. If you are a swindler and a and a murderer, you have to stop murdering and swindling. If you are a cheat, you have to stop cheating. And on and on and on. If you don't honor God on his day on the Sabbath, you have to start. Well, all of that requires a change. And many of these people love the message, but they're not going to follow the the the change that's required. Do you remember the rich the the rich boy who came after after our Lord?

[00:17:34]>> The rich young man >> our Lord said >> the well I say the rich boy the rich young man he says to our Lord uh I've I'm uh I've done all these things. I've I've followed all the commandments, right?

[00:17:48]>> Yes. Yes. Every [clears throat] sing every single >> just there's just there's just one thing left for you to do. Lord says knowing that he had plenty of money, he said give up being be give up your your holdings. Give up having so much money.

[00:18:05]Give it to the poor and then come follow me. Can you imagine receiving that call from our Lord directly? Come follow me.

[00:18:12]Just do this first and then come and he he went away. How does it say? He went away sadly because he had a lot of money. [laughter] This this is exact. And this is what's repeated every day. It's not that people don't accept Jesus Christ. They say they don't for philosophical or theological reasons, but that's not really the reason. It's that something is required from them. They have to give up something and they're not they're not at all ready to do that or willing. Well, you >> Jews the Jews that you mentioned right now, the Jews in the who who who crucified Christ who had him put to death are no different than the same than the people today who who accept who will refuse to accept Jesus Christ except refuse to accept him because it requires a change. That's all. And they're not going to do that.

[00:19:05]>> Okay? you know, he's showing that his richest earthly terms were what he was most concerned about rather than the eternal fate of his soul.

[00:19:18]>> Right? And that's the whole problem of being attached to this world which is you during our lives. It's it's it's attractive to to have a nice meal and to have a nice weather and to have ease and rest and not be stressed and not be cruy treated and not be in prison. And the world is where we live and we want it to be a pleasant life and uh we think money is important for that but the world is brief. Can you reflect on that father sit gloria mundi [clears throat] >> the glory of the glory of this world is fleeting you know there was there's a beautiful I think Catholics especially should know this via sakra of course you know the via sakra in Rome >> yes the Roman the sacred way where the Roman legions would return from their conquests >> right when the Roman Roman legions would come into Rome. First of all, they were not permitted into Rome. The legions, the legions had to stay in truste.

[00:20:30][laughter] They had to stay on the other side of the river. Who could enter Rome was the conquering general, but he couldn't come in with his army because the Senate was afraid they might take over the whole kitten kaboodleoodle. [laughter] Right?

[00:20:43]So the the army was on the other side of the river on the tr across the tyber and the and the general would come in or the the conquering hero would come in with the with the loot with the booty that he had that that he had come back with. Uh one of them one of the most famous entrances is the uh it was after the sack of Jerusalem when the the seven the seven uh the sevenprong candle >> was brought >> the candalabra was and that's still in the the ark of of Titus isn't Titus >> yes arc of Titus but more stone but but my point is this my point is this I'm getting off the point the point is that the the conquering ing hero so that pride would not go to his head completely was reminded constantly that the victory was Rome's not his the victory was Rome's victory not his not yours general right and there was a little a funny little clown that preceded his chariot with a with a man who threw ashes at him every once in a while ashes as they were as he was running alongside of the chariot of the conquering hero and he would say Gloria Mundi remember that the glory of this world is passing is fleeting right remember all right well this is what this is our ceremony for what for Ash Wednesday that this is where it comes from it comes from this Roman procession to remember just take a time in your life to remember that whatever you have the glory that you possess even knowledge I know people who are who are very proud of their knowledge and they don't share it with anyone but they they hold it to themselves right any sort of thing that you have in your possessions they're fleeting you remember that old saying you can't take it with you can't I'm telling you you can't right and Christ is calling us to a life that that he wants us free of these things.

[00:22:58]Can we use all these things? Of course, we can use them, but we better be using them for the gospel and the spread of the gospel. That's what that's what it that's what the invitation of Christ is about.

[00:23:10]>> Okay? So, I'm I'm saying that moment that Pilate spoke with Jesus and said, "What is truth?" is standing virtually at the center of the universe, the center of history. And we we date our history from the birth of Christ.

[00:23:30]He comes into the world incarnate. And his disciples saw him filled with grace and truth. He performed miracles. He preached. He forgave sins.

[00:23:44]The Jewish elders and the Roman governors saw that he needed to be removed and saw to it that he was crucified through that death which ended the hopes of all who thought he would be the Messiah. And we get this in the conversation on the road to Emmas. father >> through the hopes were crushed. And then after 2,000 years, we still have these hopes because the hopes returned because something happened. There was a resurrection.

[00:24:17]And just reflect for a moment on the dashing of the hopes that you see in the disciples going on the road to Emmas.

[00:24:29]It's it's that's always hit me strangely, but I have to keep remembering remembering and reminding remembering myself and reminding people that we know the end of the story.

[00:24:45]And so it's unfair, it's a little bit unfair to harshly judge those who are living in the time of the story being on being told. In other words, we know about the resurrection.

[00:24:57]We know that Christ was talking about a physical resurrection, the resurrection of the body.

[00:25:03]His disciples didn't know that.

[00:25:07]They didn't get it. They just didn't they didn't get it fully. Uh they heard him talk about it. How many times did he say, "And on the third day, uh the son of man will rise again." on the third day on the third. Well, he said this over and over and over again.

[00:25:25]>> I don't know that they believed him completely.

[00:25:29][clears throat] >> I I do know I do know that and you know it. We all know it because it's in scripture that at the time of his crucifixion, everyone except John abandoned him.

[00:25:44]They all ran away. They And if they watched anything and like St. Peter watched it from a distance because they were so afraid for their own lives. We do know we do know that uh even after the resurrection even after the resurrection when many of the disciples had seen him talked to him after the these these two disciples walked with him and and asked him to stay for dinner and at the breaking of the bread recognized who it had been that they were speaking to. Even after all of that, they still doubted and Christ had to send the Holy Ghost to fortify the Pentecost to fortify that faith. Right? This is the beginning of the church. This is this is why we say Pentecost is is feast that we have. It's it's the birth date of the church. Fine.

[00:26:38]All of this is happening. We know it in retrospect. We know it because we've heard all of this. But these people are living it day to day and they're not exactly sure what's happening here.

[00:26:51]Because why? Because nobody's ever resurrected from the dead. [laughter] They knew and and had dinner with you.

[00:26:59]All of these things are new. So therefore, they had to put all of these pieces of the faith together to understand this puzzle.

[00:27:08]>> Okay?

[00:27:09]>> When they did when they did, it was magnificent. And what they did thanks to the to the grace of the Holy Ghost they fire and went out to every to the furthest corners of the world that they knew preaching the gospel and it cost them their lives and they were willing to give up their lives to preach Christ Jesus is fantastic.

[00:27:30]No other religion has such a thing.

[00:27:32]None.

[00:27:34]No rel religion has a man who is prophesied as you brought out Robert prophesied in the Old Testament who fulfilled it who rose from the dead and who began a church that's a movement Catholic universal in every part of the world today. This is magnificent.

[00:27:56]This is this is the truth and people refuse to look at it and refuse to see it and refuse to accept it still because it means in in most cases having to give up their toys.

[00:28:13]>> All right.

[00:28:14]>> It's that simple.

[00:28:16]>> I would I would like to again talk about the ontological nature that is the being itself of our universe.

[00:28:25]The fall of this universe into sin and into death and then the salvation of this universe giving it life, meaning, purpose and that this was the entire message of the Jewish people. They were set apart to prepare really to prepare Mary as the new ark of the covenant.

[00:28:53]Mary was the purpose of the whole people of Israel. She finally protected from sin a new ark of the covenant is going to be the bearer of the new covenant, the second covenant, the the uh the new testament, the incarnate son of God, the messiah. And this story changes the nature of reality.

[00:29:21]That is when Jesus rises from the dead, it's a second creation.

[00:29:27]It's associating ourselves with Jesus.

[00:29:30]We associate ourselves with he who cannot any longer die. And >> I would I would go I would go a little bit further back from that, Robert. I understand what you're saying, but the the the this the second beginning or the rebin of our human nature really began with the blessed virgin Mary, >> being conceived without sin, being the new Eve, being the woman through whom the savior was going to enter into the world. And when Jesus comes into the world, we have the ultimate of that new beginning. That's when that's when things Yeah. not with the resurrection but with the with the incarnation.

[00:30:16]>> And so you we we have philosophies which talk about the good, the true and the beautiful. This we would say was the essence of Greek hellenistic philosophy.

[00:30:27]The height in Plato, in Socrates, Aristotle.

[00:30:32]We have in the figure of Jesus, the figure of Mary, human beings who are good, who are true, who are beautiful and who are in Jesus divine. You then therefore have in this religion a an element that's outside of this world of space and time. It comes in from eternity and it comes from the other, from the beyond. And I just wanted to make this point because I've been studying AI recently and I'm going to be writing about this. They are discovering that there's a danger of AI collapse. I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but when they create the AI and then train it on using material coming into it, all the emails, all the lectures, all the podcasts is now being digested by this huge AI uh memorizer and uh categorizer of words and images and thoughts.

[00:31:40]They're discovering that it's it's like we eating our own food, having once eaten it and then spitting it up again and then eating again.

[00:31:52]The material that AI issues is also being used to train it. In other words, if I go on and ask a question says, "Please help me describe Father." And AI says, "Okay, I'll look for anything about him." and gives me in one second a kind of article about describing you even that is going back into the AI. The AI originated in creative material from people from minds from souls but it's now being trained by material from computers. What some are saying is this is going at some point to create a loop and it will collapse.

[00:32:38]Now I'm not >> just a minute just a minute. Stop stop here just a second.

[00:32:44]>> What is the ultimate goal of AI of artificial intelligence? What is its ultimate goal?

[00:32:51]>> Well, >> isn't it isn't it truth?

[00:32:54]They they try to get as near to the answer to everything as they can and some even speak of creating God.

[00:33:04]>> Oh, it's it's looking to create God.

[00:33:07]>> Some some have there was a lecture that Elon Musk gave in Lisbon some years ago and you can find it on the internet. I don't think we can post it right now.

[00:33:16]I'll look for it later.

[00:33:19]And he said, "Late at night, 2:00 a.m. I was talking to Mr. Paige, one of the co-founders of Google, and they'd had a couple of drinks, and it's two in the morning, and he said, "Listen, tell me what are you really doing with Google?

[00:33:34]What's the purpose?"

[00:33:36]>> And Mr. Paige said, "You really want to know?" And Elon said, "Yes." And he's repeating this in a lecture in Lisbon.

[00:33:44]And Mr. Page said, "We are creating God."

[00:33:50]Now what he means by that is the sum total of all knowledge of all photos of all pixels they're digesting it and going to be able to be omnisient going to be able to know and then to have authority and power over all sorts of things maybe everything.

[00:34:10]And it's the desire of the human heart to try to get order in the chaotic nature of our world. But it's also the Prometheian desire to steal fire from heaven. It's to become like God through our creations. And so it's a repetition in some way of the very sin of the Garden of Eden.

[00:34:35]Heat of this. It's also repetition of the s of the tower of babel, isn't it?

[00:34:40]>> Yes. And this is the image that Pope Leo the 14th used in his encyclical in the first sentence of it. Magnifica humanitas about AI. He said uh the they are trying to duplicate what was attempted at Babel and it failed.

[00:34:59]>> Okay. So we're talking about truth, goodness, and beauty. We're saying Jesus is truth, goodness, and beauty. We're saying we have this faith in him because of actual historical events. And then I'm saying it's an onlogical change.

[00:35:14]It's like the salvation is an actual event. It occurred. He saved the world.

[00:35:21]And the entrance into that salvific realm through participating in his life is a real thing. And the early Christians actually said what the Eucharist is is the medicine of immortality.

[00:35:38]But so when we have problems and doubts about the church today, we're really focusing on something which is secondary because the church will have problems and persecutions and struggles and human sin will affect things including clerics and monseniors and bishops and cardinals and but the real thing that we should be And let's not forget lay people.

[00:36:11]>> Don't forget the layman.

[00:36:14]>> I know. So in the midst of all this the proclamation of this new saving reality having broken in and I it's connected with AI because what the new scholars of this AI collapse are saying is AI was only able to begin with material that came from a mind which had a spark of the soul which was free. This created AI and AI then continued to digest more and more information. But unless there's a lightning bolt from outside like the Holy Spirit coming to Isaiah and the coal of fire that he >> like like the big bang like the creation of the universe unless there's a bolt from from from outside it doesn't begin.

[00:37:04]>> Absolutely. I mean that's go ahead and explain that just once and for all that because the big bang doesn't answer it doesn't answer anything.

[00:37:13]>> Well, I'll I'll put it this way. The simplest I know nothing comes from nothing.

[00:37:22]>> Nel xdello.

[00:37:24]>> Yeah. Something comes from something.

[00:37:29]Something does not come from nothing. At least in in this re experience and physical reality, that's always the case.

[00:37:38]>> Well, that's what we're dealing with, aren't we?

[00:37:41]>> So, the Big Bang had to have something prior to it to work on.

[00:37:46]>> Excuse me. It had to have a banger.

[00:37:48][laughter] It had to have it had to have something that caused that bang. And you when you keep going back and back and back, this one of the St. Thomas's proofs of the for the existence of God. You you get to the to the ultimate well what caused that?

[00:38:06]>> And we call that the prime the prime mover. Correct.

[00:38:09]>> Yes. Yes. And and and St. Thomas says and we call this God.

[00:38:14]>> Yeah.

[00:38:14]>> Who that prime mover. Right. That's exactly it. But it the whole point it's it's extremely complicated complex but it's very simple at the same time.

[00:38:25]>> Nothing comes from nothing.

[00:38:28]Absolutely. It's elementary, dear. My dear Watson, >> my dear Watson. [laughter] Haven't heard that in years.

[00:38:36]>> Um, well, what I'm saying is here we are in a troubled time and uh all sorts of things we could discuss, but I wanted to go back to the basic things today.

[00:38:48]Truth, goodness, and beauty. the truth, goodness and beauty of Christ, the savior of the world and the onlogical change that occurred by his presence, by his act, by his sacrifice.

[00:39:02]And that brings the totally other into this world. And there's a space there. It's the sacred space. It's the sacramental space.

[00:39:14]All of this is a mystery. This is the mystery of the faith. And it's in this world and the world is doesn't know what to do with it. It wants to persecute it, get rid of it because it wants to go about its daily business. But this is the only hope that any human being has of connection to the eternal holy reality behind the facade of this world.

[00:39:41]True. And since we are made up of body and soul, the spiritual and the physical, there's a conflict, continual conflict that's going on between the body and the soul, between the mind, between willing what is right, you know this, and willing what is wrong. this back and forth, the conscience, which which is a fantastic >> like the red angel and the green angel and >> and Walt Disney I just remember Walt Disney doing a great cartoon about that.

[00:40:15]He had the the angel sitting on I remember there was a driver the driving rage. It was called driving rage. a a man driving a sports car and on one shoulder he had an angel and on the other the devil in in red and the devil is telling him go faster past this guy up up and no calm calm down you've got this con this is going on constantly as a matter of fact it's a marvelous thing that's going on constantly because when it stops you're dead >> okay [laughter] so this is going to >> this is a way of saying that the moral question is implicit in all free will and free act.

[00:40:55]>> We have to choose the better and the worse. And you're always saying, "Oh, I'd like this right now." And then some other voice says, "No, uh, not now." Or, "Okay, or no, it's a bad thing. It's something you think you want, but you don't really." This is going on. It's called conscience. And this is the drama. So Zaniten said the whole peace and war of the world occurs in the drama within each person's soul >> and therefore >> and therefore as as we face the crazy things in the world we do have to come back to ourselves first and say let's return to the sanity the the beauty of faith hope and charity to the beauty of our baptismal moment and uh rededicate ourselves and do it again and again each day. And this is the process of continual conversion in its connection with what is eternally true, good and beautiful and makes the better choice. And this would be the true MAGA. Make America good again. We our greatness would be our goodness. We would choose the good thing. We would choose to make sure no child is is abused, to make sure no child is uh hungry, to make sure there's justice in our streets and in our law processes.

[00:42:23]Everybody knows that you're paying a little bribe here and there or if you're wealthy, you have a different justice.

[00:42:29]Correct.

[00:42:30]>> Absolutely.

[00:42:32]>> So, the world is filled with injustice.

[00:42:34]We should make it more just and we should do it as we can in our daily lives as disciples of Jesus Christ and participants in his journey.

[00:42:43]>> Let me just let me just jump in here with this just on the question of justice and injustice.

[00:42:50]We know the difference, don't we?

[00:42:53]Between something that's just and something that's injust or unjust.

[00:42:59]Uh how do we know that? How do we know that? Are you This is a marvelous thing.

[00:43:07]>> Are you speaking of natural law?

[00:43:09]>> I am. I am. It's there already. It's there already. It's there in a in a child born with no parents abandon a youth with a child born with no education, with nothing, just food to grow. He already knows what's just and what's unjust. If somebody steals from an apple from him, that's unjust. he gets it and he can apply that. This is natural reason and it's it's natural law. We all have this. Uh that's where I think I may be wrong, but I think AI is always going to fail because it doesn't have it doesn't have natural reasoning.

[00:43:53]It doesn't it doesn't possess that.

[00:43:56]>> It doesn't have a conscience. It doesn't have a conscience. You can put all of the information there. all the pros and cons of anything so that it makes a decision based on those pros and cons.

[00:44:07]But I've I've had moments in my life where I've had more cons and I've selected the pro. [laughter] >> Good for you. Good for you, father.

[00:44:17]>> But because of a conscience and I and and you the AI is not going to permit that. It's going to go where there's more. Okay.

[00:44:25]>> Yeah. There's there's Thomas Moore. His wife says, "Come on, Tom. come home to the family >> and his daughter taunting him [laughter] >> and then you know everyone in court saying why would he take his own life and throw it away instead of accepting this and then the probe he says I don't believe it's right and he gives his life for that >> AI would never give its life for something like that >> hey so >> I think we've You touched on something and that that giving life of something invisible, something beyond the material is already a spiritual quality which approaches the divinity. I don't know how we would technically call it natural law which also gives great dignity to every human being even absolutely >> even aside from whether they're Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim every human being has this mind and soul which is endued and somehow touched with natural law. And I have to say my two sons were dividing a piece of pie and they one is older than the other. And I said, "Okay, you can take a little bigger piece." And uh I started to cut it myself. He was going to get two/3s and the littleer boy was going to get one third. He said, "Dad, that's not fair. Cut it right now. Cut it right in."

[00:45:56]>> And I've never forgotten that. I like to repeat it because I was struck. He was four years old and his brother was one year old.

[00:46:04]>> And where did that and where did that insight come from?

[00:46:09]>> It's we are surrounded >> natural a natural sense of justice where justice is.

[00:46:15]>> Yeah. And this is why even in a situation of terrible concentration camp or prison or [laughter] in in a society that's grown very corrupt. We still can return to this and it's very difficult at times. I guess we would call people saints who see everyone else going along and they just have to do what Thomas Moore did.

[00:46:42]Say no, I can't go along. What do you think of that problem?

[00:46:48][laughter] >> I think it's a marvelous problem. I think it's a marvelous problem and it has a marvelous solution in what God has created and given us each one of us in a conscience. And now my conscience is bothering me a little bit, Robert, because I have another program I've got to get to and jump over to another channel.

[00:47:08]>> Okay. Well, what I wanted I wanted to just say we're going to come visit you in October. Then we also have pilgrimages >> in November and December. Could you just say one thing about joining us on pilgrimage to any of our viewers?

[00:47:21]>> Join us on pilgrimage.

[00:47:24]>> Jo, you'd have a marvelous time. You know, here's here's the thing, too.

[00:47:28]Here's the thing, too. Uh uh I'm not going to get into the whole thing of of uh uh of of my inheritance from my mother and everything else, but we finally we finally after 30 years, we we we were able to get an inheritance. I bought a home. I bought a home and it's a beautiful home in Spain. I wanted to get away from everything and I wanted to be out in the country and I love Spain and speak Spanish quite well and everything was right. As soon as I I started fixing this place up and putting so much money into it, I realized this isn't mine.

[00:48:05]This [laughter] isn't mine and I can't have it to myself. It's it's not right.

[00:48:09]So we opened it to retreats into retreat house and I give this retreat to to your group of of people who have fantastic groups of people. Every every group that you brought over for retreats are are magnificent people. They really no exceptions uh and and smaller retreats and uh some priests come and give retreat. Some individuals come, marriages come. planning another one from a group from from Madrid coming.

[00:48:39]It's it's marvelous when I see this isn't mine. This is to be used for God's work. Right? When I go to God, good.

[00:48:48]I've got I've got my I've got a few things, a few items to show that I've done, I hope, correctly. The retreat is always a beautiful experience because it's a combination of not because I'm such a magnificent retreat master but I give two two talks in the morning and mass and in the afternoons uh the same group goes out on pilgrimage as pilgrims to different places through Granada to Cordova uh to the Alhhamra it's it's it's a beautiful experience and and they come back having made a pilgrimage, having toured and made a pilgrimage and at the same time having made a spiritual retreat and I think they come back a little bit charged, stronger in their faith. That's the idea anyway. Now I am going to leave. So those who wish to join us, please, please know that you're most welcome. I give the rest to Robert. God bless Robert. See you next week, God willing.

[00:49:50]Same time, same station.

[00:49:51]>> Thank you, Father.

[00:49:52]>> Thank you.

[00:49:54]Come with us on a unique pilgrimage and retreat to renew your spirit. Experience the beauty and richness of southern Spain. Our retreat master, Father Charles T. Mr., a renowned Catholic priest, best-selling author, philosopher, theologian, trained psychologist, and pastor of souls.

[00:50:13]Father Mr. will guide us through three [music] mornings of spiritual reflections at a convent located in the historic heart of Carmona, Spain, promising a transformative journey.

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[00:50:33]Explore picturesque [music] towns in Analysia, each with its own history and charm. From the ancient [music] streets of Carmona to the majestic beauty of Cordova, the breathtaking views of Rhonda, the remarkable village of Centineal, and the historic wonders of Seville. Our pilgrimage will be filled with all inspiring moments. Join us on this profound spiritual journey and rediscover the joy of faith, fellowship, and renewal. Book your place now and embark on a pilgrimage and retreat unlike any other.