TRANSCRIPT
(NOTE: This transcription has been automatically generated through an AI program. Consequently, this transcript may not match everything you hear in the podcast episode, and it may contain errors such as spelling, grammar, word choice, etc., due to the limitations of current AI technology.)
Hey everyone and welcome to this new episode of Midnight Carmelite in season 10. So in the last episode we were talking about who is Christ in God’s presence. And it got me thinking about how you judge that. How are we supposed to know when someone says, you know, I believe that Jesus is the Christ or they say they’re Christian or they say they’re Catholic, whatever. How do we know God is really present? them. It’s tough. That’s the first qualification I’d say. It’s this is a tough thing to figure out. Well, we know from scripture things like, you know, the you’ll know things that Christ says you’ll know them by their fruits, right? And I think I think the fruits are a pretty good way to go. The the problem that I see with the discussion of fruits today of with dealing with God’s presence is for example, you could have someone who in abstract is doing good actions. So like let’s just think of a hypothetical example. Imagine you know a person who goes to a food bank bringing food or whatever however the food bank functions and they tell you know you find out about it maybe they don’t even tell you and you say wow what a great person they volunteer at a food bank right that’s pretty great. One thing to keep in mind is that that action at the food bank where is that coming from? Now we can’t read hearts right only God can read the heart and the action ction itself is good. I want to be clear about this. In abstract, the action of helping at a food bank is good, right? So is being nice to someone that in abstract is good. Fixing a house in abstract is good. Attending a garden in abstract is good. So we need to have a deeper qualification, right? Okay. So then you say, well this the food bank involves directly a you know charity to the poor. Okay. Are we simply talking about the materially poor as those who need charity? If material needs were the simple measure of charity, then we’d be a pretty charitable world. I mean, there’s a lot of giving going on. I don’t I mean, you could just go look at the statistics yourself. Okay. So, then if material giving isn’t the simple standard now, even though someone where God is present may be involved in the action of material giving, how how do we dig deeper to this? Okay. Well, Let’s turn it on ourselves. The question is is why would someone go to a food bank if they’re going there because they want to serve the poor? That’s fine. But I would argue there’s one thing missing. If if you start digging, you say, “Well, why do you serve the poor?” Okay, Jesus told us to. Okay. And they’re my neighbor. Okay, good. One thing that may be lacking Again, I’m not in their heart, but just having observed different experiences and things over time. It’s kind of an amalgamation analysis, an anecdotal analysis. Do they see Christ in their neighbor or they just simply see another person? In other words, do they see that they are serving someone made in the image of God who is infinitely loved by God? Or do they see that this is simply a person? In other words, this is an act of human uh solidarity, right? That changes things. That changes things. Now, you say, “Well, why is that?” If it’s simply for human solidarity, then the measure is human solidarity. Now, we’re back to this measure notion again. If you’re doing it because you love God, and God loves everyone, he maintains the existence of everyone, then you’re doing it because the one you love values this person you may not even really personally know and you’re serving that person as God would serve them as Christ would serve them. So now we’re getting into kind of this stick thing of presence because that person who’s acting this way is present to God or is how is that coming out prayer this mystical life this idea of growing in faith hope and charity they’re bringing their relationship ship with God to others. They are acting as a light to the world. It’s not they’re not doing this because they of some sort of philanthropy even though philanthropy is incidental to a I would argue to a truly charitable action that does involve like again like a food bank, right? Obviously, right? Like that’s clear. In other words, you are in and if you abstract into the natural, you are helping that person simply as a human person, right? Like no doubt. But but remember this podcast about dealing with mystical theology, dealing with Christ and you know the highest stuff here. So we’re I’m not dismissing that reality that’s a part of this. I just think it’s important that we if we’re going to look at reality, we have to examine all its aspects. So I see Christ in there and that comes from God being present to them. But again, what do we who is Christ to them? Is Christ simply a a social worker? Is Christ a wise teacher? Or is Christ the savior of the world who died for our sins? Came to show love to death. He came to die as Bishop Sheen said. Now you can start seeing where this is going. This is kind of this distinction is is again you can have someone so kind of to summarize here. You can have someone who They’re doing good actions. There’s nothing intrinsically evil about them. But due to the lack of God remaining in them, quote St. John, his letter, they’re look, they’re not looking at Jesus Christ as the savior of the world and they’re bringing his saving love to others. There’s other things going on that may be primary, right? Oh, this looks good to do, you know, community service for my resume. That’s the primary goal, which again, look, you have to build, you know, if you’re getting a job, you have to build your resume. No one’s knocking that, per se, but all is ordered to the call of God and God’s presence in your life. And I think that’s kind of what I’m going at here. So, anyway, so I wanted to stop there for now before I keep going too long. And what I’m going to do next time is I’m going to bring in more discussion of presence and we’ll go from there. I’ll talk to you then.
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