Gospel of Saint John

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We are now in lecture number 12 of the Gospel of St. John. And we're going to continue our study of the upper room that we started last time.

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last time I basically showed you that when the Greeks came and said, "We want to see Jesus," it, that was the signal that our Lord was waiting for to know that His hour has come.

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What I want to do today is go back through the entire arc of chapter 13 through 17 and then show it to you as one unit.

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And then address specific points about it. I think that's going to be more useful for you than if I tried to went, if I tried to focus on specific verses, because I simply do not have enough time, as you probably already noticed, to focus on specific verses.

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So that's what we're going to do today.

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we've moved from the Book of Signs, which is basically the Gospel of St. John from chapter 1 through 12, to the Book of Glory, which is the chapters of 13 through 20.

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That's the traditional division of the Book. But if you followed what I've already told you about the covenantal approach to the Gospel of St. John, you would see that there is a better division that shows you initially the Lord coming down and taking over the kingdom,

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then establishing His kingdom, and now saving the kingdom and explaining how He's going to rule perennially throughout time.

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And that's where we are right now in that phase. In fact, the chapters 13 through 17, and I'll show you that in a minute, are a traditional way in which the ruler will provide his testament.

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And the testament's purpose isn't to divide his wealth, it's to explain how the kingdom is going to endure,

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how the successive rulers will come and then continue the rule.

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And that's what these chapters are all about.

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So we are today, like I said, in chapter 15 through 17, but I'm going to back it up to 13 and cover 13 through 17, because it's really a full unit that talks about that testament, the will of our Lord, as He prepares to leave.

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to recap what we've seen so far in the Gospel of St. John, the word came to his own in John 1. The strong party came down, and then he began a new creation, a new creation in the sense of a new kingdom. Like I mentioned last time, oftentimes when you hear the language of the moon, the stars will fall, the sun will not give it slight, that sort of thing. That cosmic language isn't about cosmology. It isn't literally what's going to happen outside. These objects served as the clock that kingdoms measure time with. And fundamentally, when our Lord says these things, He's basically saying, "Time's up. We're going to reset."

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And in that sense, it's a new creation. It's a new kingdom that is going to be established, and this one will last until the end of time, because it is the church.

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Lord then revealed the Father's work, which is a way for Him to, A,

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prove to those who are around Him His true identity. This is who I am, and I can prove it by my works. And two, to redeem, to say that His kingdom will be one which will redeem this world, this fallen world. In that sense also, it is a new creation.

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It's also an act of judgment, because the light will judge the darkness.

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And then you can see this transition where, after taking over, He now switched towards the image of the shepherd, because it's no longer about taking over the enemies. It's about leading His people.

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And that language then culminates into the resurrection of Lazarus, which is His triumph over death.

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And having done all that, having essentially established this kingdom, even though at this point most of His followers don't understand.

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They don't understand what He's doing. They can't really completely follow it.

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But He knows that He will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will then recapitulate all that the Lord has done, and will provide them with the understanding they need.

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And having done all that, He enters into this last phase where He is going to give them His Testament.

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How will you continue to live while I'm gone? What is going to happen? And these are the chapters from 13 to 17.

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What we're going to do, like I said, is first go through those chapters very briefly, and then I'll show you thematically how they all connect together, and then we'll go through some details that I think are worth mentioning. Hopefully I'll have time to cover all of that.

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As usual, if you want to ask questions during the study, you can catch this QR code, and then you can forward your questions anonymously during the lecture.

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So I'll give you a minute to do that.

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You know, always remember this, because I know that when you go back, and hopefully you will read the Gospel of St. John,

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when you read it, your initial reaction is going to be one of

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When you hit this Gospel the first time, it feels confusing. It feels like somebody went to a bag of verses, picked a bunch of them, and threw them randomly on the page.

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And I mean that if you read it surface level, you will not feel anything. You're going to be taken by the beauty and the poetry and the good feeling and this and that and the other. But if you stop and start to think and read carefully, then it will feel confusing. And I'm hoping this will serve as a guide to give you the context in which you understand why St. John is doing what he's doing. Always remember he's very deliberate.

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He's didactic. He's a teacher. His purpose is to help people understand the faith. It's a catechism.

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Always keep that in mind whenever you read St. John.

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All right. Now let's begin with a word of prayer. Please stand.

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In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Together come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our Lady, see the wisdom.

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St. John. All the angels and saints. In the name of the Father of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.

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So we're going to go through this notion of a covenantal testament.

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This notion of a covenantal testament is actually common in the ancient times and we find it in at least three places in the scriptures aside from the Gospel of St. John. Chiefly, Genesis chapter 49, when Jacob, as he's about to die, gives his testament, his will to his sons and his will is given covenantally in forms of blessings and curses.

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And it's a little actually depressing because it's mostly curses, which is, well, it is what it is. Moses did the same thing. Deuteronomy chapter 31 and 33 is the testament of Moses. And again, it's quite depressing because it's foretelling what is going to happen to Israel. And it's again expressed covenantally in blessings and curses. And it has this, I think it's there where he has this famous line, "Behold, I said before you life and death and choose life." That's what he's basically telling them. In St. Paul in Acts chapter 20, there's also the same thing. So it's a very common mechanism, which is part of this covenantal structure to bequeath to those who follow you your rules. And again, it's not like what we do today where when you write your will today, most of the time, it's about distribution of wealth. That's what will are for today. But if you really sit down and think about,

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if I knew I'm dying next week,

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and if I asked my family to come together, what would I tell

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What would be important for me to say before I die?

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It's something that most of us don't really spend time thinking about, and yet we should, because it affects, I'm sure you know that, it affects those we leave behind quite a bit.

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And that's exactly what these chapters are all about. Our Lord is about to leave, and he's going now to tell them what is going to

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So these are five chapters. It's one farewell and heard in five moments.

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So like I said before, if you read straight through these five chapters, so 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17,

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they really feel like a pile of loosely related things. And some of them repeat, and you don't really understand why they're repeating. St. John is not telling you what the structure is. Again, he doesn't give you sort of the

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teacher's cheat sheet to say, "This chapter is about this, and this is my purpose, and this is what I'm doing."

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But the reason why he doesn't doing is because of the genre. We're not used to that covenantal will. It's not something that we read regularly.

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So it's a testament. It's a farewell speech.

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Like I said, the same kind of speech Jacob gave to his sons. In Genesis 49, Moses gave Israel an oronomy, and Paul gave the Ephesian elders in Act 20.

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And typically, if the person's saying goodbye, they don't go about it step by step. They circle back to a few things.

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Like you might, if you were to really think about it, you might say, "All right, these are the three, four things that are really important to me." And you tell this to your kids. This is what I want to tell you. And you rattle them off. And then what do you do? You go back.

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And you talk about one, and you talk about the other, and a third, and all, as you do this, the thing that is dearest to your heart will keep repeating.

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The thing about, for instance, if it's a mother who is young and has young children,

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would you find it strange if she repeated, "You're going to be okay. Everything's going to be all right. Don't worry."

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You wouldn't, right? It's the same thing happening here.

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Once you see it through this lens, it's hard to make sense.

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And it also tells you that St. John did not invent this stuff.

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Because it does feel like someone speaking.

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So, you circle back. "I love you. Don't be afraid. Here's how to carry on. Hard things are coming, and here's my prayer for you." And these five chapters hit all of these points. More than once. It feels repetitive. It's not linear.

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It's not trying to be an essay.

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It's somebody saying goodbye.

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If you keep these things in mind and read them this way, these chapters will make a lot more

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if I looked only to 15th through 17, that's initially what I wanted to do. I just wanted to share this with you right now before we go to the larger grouping.

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You see that he's now telling them, after having spoken about the institution of the Church, he's basically saying they need to abide in him. They need to endure the world. They will receive the spirit. They're going to go through sorrow. And then he prays for them. It really feels like someone saying to his children,

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"Stay true to what I told you.

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You're going to have to endure."

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That would be tough times ahead. But don't worry. You're not going to be alone.

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And I will take care of you.

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What's striking is, like I told you, if you contrast this to the Testament of Jacob or Moses, those are chilling. This is consoling.

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The difference here is remarkable because neither Jacob nor Moses had the means, the races, to be able to save their

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So, in essence, it is the Testament of people who live in a structure that acknowledges failure and has no means to repair

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This is different.

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This is the one who fixes everything.

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So, this is sometimes if you're in church and you hear the Gospel of St. John through these chapters,

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you could be lulled by

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how nice it is.

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You can carry on as if you're in your mother's arms and she's cradling you. You have this nice feeling, which is good. The problem is, it could rob you from the real treasure, which is understanding what really he's saying in the context of this

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So, we start with chapter 13. In chapter 13, the hour came. What happens when the hour came? When he says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." You would think that it's going to be glorious and it's the exact opposite.

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Judas betrays him.

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what you see here is the foreshadowing of the cross.

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Judas

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him.

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He

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humbles himself and acts like a slave,

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foreshadowing that he's going to be crucified like a thief.

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He tells them to love one another as they have loved you, foreshadowing the fact that he's going to love us from the cross.

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And then, what is the answer? The answer comes through Peter,

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a bold promise,

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which is based on his own strength, not on God's grace. And that's denied immediately.

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And, by the way, remember I told you about number three in Hebrew, right? Because Hebrew doesn't have superlatives.

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Peter will deny him three

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It is the worst possible form of denial.

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In a fundamental sense, Peter's sin was

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worse than Judas.

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Never ever underestimate what Peter did.

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If you understand that, then if you were to go read the Gospel of St. Mark, you then realize why is it so sarcastic whenever it speaks about the apostles. Because St. Mark was St. Peter's companion and basically you're hearing St. Peter's voice.

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So, the whole thing begins with Jesus knew that his hour had come to the part out of this world to the Father.

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So, once he knows he's leaving,

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the testament begins.

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And it doesn't begin with words, it begins with

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He shows them before he tells them. This is what you're supposed to

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If you really understand what Christ is trying to do with this washing of the feet,

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you see that his purpose is to have his Father glorified.

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And in order to have his Father glorified, as he will say later, he wants his followers to bear fruit. For his followers to bear fruit, they need to deny themselves.

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That's the logic that is almost mathematical because we are born with original sin. Original sin acts like a magnet and makes us self-centered.

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When we're self-centered, we're glorifying ourselves. We can glorify God. In order to be able to get out of the self-centeredness, we need to deny ourselves

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so that we can bear fruit and glorify God.

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That's the crux of the matter. That's what has to change.

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We're not, and this is really important, we're not to serve the poor or the needy or the hungry

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for themselves.

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They're not the end. They are a mean to the end. We need to do those things to glorify the Father.

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The Father is the end. We're not the end of our actions. We're not the end of the purpose of our life. Neither our spouses nor our children nor the people around them, no one is because none of us is God.

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And sometimes you can see people subvert the social doctrine of the Catholic Church by making people become the end.

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But we're not. God is.

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So that is a very important parameter to always keep in mind.

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You're not supposed to look at the shadow that the sun cast on earth. You're supposed to keep your eyes on the sun. I'm talking figuratively. Please don't look at the sun. OK, that's kind of this is kind of complicated, but you get my meaning, right?

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In the same way, you're not doing anything here, whatever you're doing, you're not doing it for

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the people around you. At the end of the day, you're doing it for God. You see everyone through God. And and this is what if you've not heard of this expression, it's one that is worth looking into. It's called holy indifference. It's a counterintuitive notion, because indifference usually not a good thing, but holy indifference is a very good thing. So look it up.

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In this virtual life, holy indifference is a very important principle if you want to really develop holiness.

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In essence, what it means is that you do not love anything or anyone for themselves. You love them for God.

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And that creates a certain detachment.

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So you're able to better accept with greater, I would say, peace if you lose someone you love.

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Because they were only a means to loving God, and God is always there.

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So holy indifference allows you to accept what happens in your life, whatever it is, with more equanimity. That's one of the virtues being this equanimity, this idea of peace, rooted in justice. You just are more able to accept that. And that's what that's what focusing on the glory of God gives you.

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So then chapter 13, the hour has come. And then chapter 14, I'm not leaving you alone, because obviously, as soon as he does them, he's leaving, what do you think will happen to all the apostles and the disciples? They fold back and focus on themselves. What was going to happen to me?

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It's normal.

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is going to happen to me? I mean, they're not at the level of our lady, who no matter what, stay focused on our Lord. No matter what happens. She never takes her eyes away from our Lord.

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OK, but they're not there. So they immediately go, because remember, what is their frame of reference? Their frame of reference is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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The hero has come, is going to take out our enemies, set up his throne, set up the kingdom, and everything's going to be kosher.

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And he's saying, I'm leaving. So they've been with him for three years, invested all these times. What's going to happen to us?

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I'm not leaving you alone.

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Let not your heart be troubled.

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Let not your heart be troubled. That's a verse worth spending time meditating on.

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What do we have to do so that our heart is not troubled?

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If our heart is set on passing things, it will always be troubled.

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No matter what it is, if it's passing. So the only way for the heart not to be troubled is if it's set on eternal things, things that would not pass away.

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That's easier said than done.

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But that is the call,

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which is why God's glory is so important. Because it's never passing. It's never fading. It doesn't go away. It always retains its beauty.

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That's the only way the heart is not troubled.

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And then he tells them, I'm going to my father's house to prepare rooms for you.

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So this is not the end of the journey. You need to look up. You need to look up to the end of the journey. And this is very novel for them. We've heard it many, many times. But for them, this idea of the father's house and many rooms and his...

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In other words, the idea that now I need to look at

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my life, but I need to look beyond death. I need to root my hope in what will happen after death is literally earth shattering for them.

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Because for them, what comes after death? Sheol.

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The souls of the righteous go to Sheol. And the souls of the damned go to Gehenna.

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That's all there is to it.

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So to root your hope

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and all the time you invested into

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something will happen after death, when your image of death and what happens after it is so bleak.

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You can see why you're going to need the Holy Spirit for this.

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You need supernatural graces to come in and help you understand that because naturally you're not going to be able to.

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So you can relate to their sense of oppression that they felt when they heard this. And you bet that this moment Satan is trying his best to destroy the entire operation.

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But it's Jesus who is with them. It is God's presence and therefore he is the source of all graces and he's giving them all the accidental graces they need to be able to power through this. Because you see, you focus on the discourse, but the thing is you take out Jesus the equation, the whole thing falls apart. All the words fall apart. It's not the words themselves that are powerful. It's the fact that he's the one saying them. He's the one saying them today as he said them back then.

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So if I read these words as an atheist not believing in Jesus, they feel like dust. They're confusing and it makes no sense. But if I read these words in order to get to Jesus, now that's a completely different experience,

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which is why he says, he reminds them, "I am the way, the truth and the life." "I am." Not "here's the way, the truth." Not "you go, I am." What does that mean? What do you have to keep your eyes on?

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If you want the way, you want the truth, you want the life, what do you have to keep your eyes on? On the Lord. How do you keep your eyes on the Lord?

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And I'll never cease to repeat that to you, not through prayers of petition,

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through a daily encounter by meditation.

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By truly coming to know him, know how he thinks, know what he wants.

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"I am the way, the truth and the life, and then I am going to send you the Holy Spirit."

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Now, again, I mean, I really feel for them. If I put myself in their shoes,

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That was not the deal that I signed up for. I mean, not at all. Not some mansion after I die, not some

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Holy Spirit I have nothing about. There is no experience of the Holy Spirit for them.

[00:25:41:28 - 00:25:53:17]
They've heard of the Spirit, the Shekinah, that was supposed to be in the temple. That was where? In the Holy of Holies, the curtain is closed. Only the high priest will go there once. There is no experience of that.

[00:25:53:17 - 00:25:56:04]
I mean, really, our Lord has his work cut out for him.

[00:25:56:04 - 00:26:01:17]
I mean, from a business plan standpoint, this is the worst way to start a business.

[00:26:01:17 - 00:26:10:29]
It's like you bring a bunch of people who don't have any education, barely high school, and you tell them, "We're going to build the quantum computer together."

[00:26:10:29 - 00:26:12:09]
This is even

[00:26:12:09 - 00:26:13:29]
grander than that.

[00:26:13:29 - 00:26:17:16]
The irony, the absurdity of the whole thing,

[00:26:17:16 - 00:26:23:26]
that is how you look at it and go, "He's God." There is no other explanation.

[00:26:23:26 - 00:26:34:22]
You know, as an institution, as a hierarchical institution, the Catholic Church is the only institution that has lasted 2000 years.

[00:26:34:22 - 00:26:42:06]
There is no other hierarchically structured institution that has lasted 2000 years.

[00:26:42:06 - 00:26:47:13]
With a bunch of people trying to destroy her from within.

[00:26:47:13 - 00:27:03:22]
Not with a bunch of people who are capable, holy, dedicated, doing everything right. No, no, no, no. With a bunch of people trying to destroy her from within for 2000 years.

[00:27:03:22 - 00:27:09:12]
I mean, if that doesn't tell you, she's divinely instituted. I don't know what will.

[00:27:09:12 - 00:27:19:08]
mean, that's what converted St. John Newman. You know, he was the prelate of the Church of England and set out to prove that the Catholics were wrong.

[00:27:20:25 - 00:27:30:00]
And then he was confronted with the historicity of the Catholic Church and enduring the absurdity of the Church continuing through ages.

[00:27:30:00 - 00:27:43:06]
It doesn't make any sense. No one else was able to manage to do this. Nothing else managed to do this. And so he realized, no, this is divinely instituted. This is the only explanation you can give to the fact that she endured for 2000 years.

[00:27:43:06 - 00:27:48:27]
Take Jesus out of the equation. None of that makes sense. So what do you focus on? Him.

[00:27:48:27 - 00:27:53:18]
Just as you focus on Him in a church, you focus on Him in your life.

[00:27:53:18 - 00:27:57:10]
If your life is like mine, it's a bundle of contradiction.

[00:27:57:10 - 00:28:05:16]
There are things that you're happy about, and probably those are the minority of stuff in your life. There's a lot of things in your life that you don't like

[00:28:05:16 - 00:28:09:26]
that you wish you didn't do or done to you or wish you didn't go through them.

[00:28:09:26 - 00:28:12:11]
And yet here you are.

[00:28:12:11 - 00:28:15:28]
In this Bible study, thinking about God.

[00:28:15:28 - 00:28:24:08]
If you told me when I was younger, one day I'll be giving a Bible study in English. You understand I was born in Lebanon, right?

[00:28:25:22 - 00:28:35:21]
If you told me when I was in Lebanon, 16 years old, if an angel showed up to me and said, "All right, I'm giving you a choice." One day you will be in America giving a Bible study in English,

[00:28:36:29 - 00:28:48:03]
or an alien is going to appear to you and take you in a spaceship. I'd pick up the alien. It sounds less crazy.

[00:28:48:03 - 00:28:52:01]
So just as with the church, same with our lives.

[00:28:52:01 - 00:29:03:21]
Everything he's saying to the church, he's saying to you individually, "Do not let heart be troubled. There's rooms in my father's house that I'm preparing for you. I am the way, the truth and the life.

[00:29:04:22 - 00:29:07:11]
I give you the Holy Spirit.

[00:29:07:11 - 00:29:18:19]
He will not leave you desolate." Now, desolate, I don't have time to spend, I don't have time, unfortunately, to really hone in or double click on that word, but it is loaded.

[00:29:18:19 - 00:29:27:06]
It is loaded. That is part of the curses, the worst curses, the word "desolate" is.

[00:29:27:06 - 00:29:35:07]
So when he says, "I will not leave you desolate," that's a shield that he's putting around you.

[00:29:35:07 - 00:29:38:19]
"My peace I leave with you." What is the peace of the Lord?

[00:29:38:19 - 00:29:44:01]
What does it mean, "My peace I give to you?" Okay, I'm just going to double click for a second on this.

[00:29:44:01 - 00:29:48:27]
You see, peace is not what, again, we think of it in the human level.

[00:29:50:06 - 00:29:55:07]
How do we know that? We know that from the life of our lady and the life of St. Joseph, right?

[00:29:56:07 - 00:30:05:28]
Humanly speaking, they did not have peace. They were immigrants. They had to flee. They lived as refugees in Egypt.

[00:30:05:28 - 00:30:16:23]
Then they had to come back. They were not very rich. And then St. Joseph died, I'm sorry. And then our lady had to watch her son

[00:30:16:23 - 00:30:33:15]
be crucified. So from a human standpoint, it tells you right away that if you think of peace as security, as stability, as comfort, as order, as things are going to always be there the way you want them, that is not peace. That's not the peace he's talking about.

[00:30:34:28 - 00:30:48:05]
Okay, now that we set that aside, what is this peace that he's talking about? What is the peace of the Lord? The peace of the Lord is the sense that no matter what happens, no matter what happens,

[00:30:48:05 - 00:30:49:11]
will see you home.

[00:30:49:11 - 00:30:51:10]
No matter what happens, he will see you

[00:30:51:10 - 00:30:54:29]
it's a supernatural sense of hope,

[00:30:54:29 - 00:30:56:10]
united with charity,

[00:30:57:11 - 00:31:01:17]
that produced this peace. No matter what, he will see you home.

[00:31:01:17 - 00:31:10:04]
And in order to receive this peace, you have to go to the one who is the Prince of Peace, which is why you have to have this constant

[00:31:10:04 - 00:31:11:18]
dialogue with him.

[00:31:12:18 - 00:31:44:12]
Sort of a daily dialogue with our Lord. Not with the things that you need and you want and the prayers and the things that are worrying you. So sometimes we use the Lord as an engine of worry because we go with him on our list. We want to pray for my friend John. He's having cancer. I don't pray for my friend Mary. She's lost her job. And all we're doing is just stroking our worries and our anxieties because daily we're conditioning ourselves to think only about situations which are failing.

[00:31:44:12 - 00:31:49:23]
And most of these prayers, I would say 95% of these prayers are not answered the way we want.

[00:31:49:23 - 00:31:55:19]
So what kind of conditioning are we doing to ourselves when we say we actually believe in God?

[00:31:55:19 - 00:31:58:08]
Is that really what he wants? No.

[00:31:58:08 - 00:32:08:22]
So this is what we are like. We're like a couple who just met and supposed to be in love. And they go to a coffee shop

[00:32:08:22 - 00:32:10:11]
date.

[00:32:11:21 - 00:32:14:16]
And as soon as they sit down,

[00:32:14:16 - 00:32:17:04]
one of them whips up a list.

[00:32:17:04 - 00:32:18:13]
Here's what I want from you.

[00:32:18:13 - 00:32:20:20]
Every time they sit down,

[00:32:20:20 - 00:32:22:23]
one of them is whipping up a list.

[00:32:22:23 - 00:32:34:28]
If you were there and observing them day after day, what would you think about the one whipping up a list? Would you say, "Oh, this person is so much in love

[00:32:34:28 - 00:32:36:05]
with the other one."

[00:32:36:05 - 00:32:39:27]
Is that how you would... Is that the feeling you will get?

[00:32:39:27 - 00:32:41:22]
That's how we act towards

[00:32:41:22 - 00:32:48:21]
We go on a date with our Lord and weep up our list. And once we're done with our list, we leave.

[00:32:48:21 - 00:32:54:16]
How could you receive this peace when you're basically treating him like an ATM machine?

[00:32:54:16 - 00:33:00:21]
So please, set aside your worries. Don't worry about your petitions. Set them aside.

[00:33:00:21 - 00:33:28:08]
Open up the Bible. Read the passage. And then imagine you're there. Like imagine you're there with the disciples. And start to ask yourself basic, simple questions. "How would I react if I heard this?" "What would be my reaction?" And then the Holy Spirit will illuminate your intellect and you start to see situations in your own life where you may have acted one way or the other.

[00:33:28:08 - 00:33:31:29]
And then our Lord will speak to you through the Holy Spirit.

[00:33:31:29 - 00:33:35:09]
And now you're becoming what he wants you

[00:33:35:09 - 00:33:38:01]
That's the journey. That's the peace

[00:33:38:01 - 00:33:51:09]
consoled them, he now anchors them. "I am the vine and you're the branches." This image is so powerful because

[00:33:51:09 - 00:33:53:17]
it's extremely simple.

[00:33:54:23 - 00:33:56:10]
"I am the source of life.

[00:33:56:10 - 00:33:58:03]
You're the one bearing fruits."

[00:33:58:03 - 00:34:28:13]
The vine is not the one bearing fruit. The branches of the vine bear the fruit. And this is how I want it to be. Why do I want it this way? Because this is what will glorify my Father. This gives glory to my Father. This is why I want it this way. The way that the Church has structured is to give God the Father the glory. Why? Because God is love and love is creative. Love creates.

[00:34:28:13 - 00:34:31:19]
And the fruits are the creation.

[00:34:33:07 - 00:34:39:17]
By the way, what are the fruits? When he says you have to bear fruits, what are the fruits?

[00:34:39:17 - 00:34:54:05]
Oftentimes people think fruits are actions, things you do. But that's not the case at all. Because if this was so, then our Lady and Saint Joseph bore no fruits.

[00:34:54:05 - 00:34:59:08]
If this was so, St. Teresa, little child Jesus, bore no fruits. What did she do?

[00:34:59:08 - 00:35:03:07]
What actions did she perform? Nothing.

[00:35:04:25 - 00:35:19:11]
In fact, when people came to the convent and asked the sisters, "Are you starting the process of canonization?" The sisters were shocked. And they said, "Why?" She came, she prayed, she got sick and died.

[00:35:19:11 - 00:35:23:02]
I mean, many of these other sisters do exactly the same thing. Why should we do that?

[00:35:23:02 - 00:35:30:05]
So you can see clearly these are not the fruits. If these are not the fruits, what are the fruits?

[00:35:30:05 - 00:35:37:18]
The fruits are all interior, not exterior. And they're called virtues.

[00:35:37:18 - 00:35:39:23]
Your fruits are your virtues.

[00:35:39:23 - 00:35:41:04]
So here's another homework.

[00:35:41:04 - 00:35:45:22]
Go home, sit down, write down your virtues.

[00:35:45:22 - 00:35:49:12]
Write down your vices. If you can't even name them.

[00:35:49:12 - 00:35:51:29]
If you can't even name your virtues and your

[00:35:51:29 - 00:35:56:25]
You'd be like somebody wanting to study math when you don't even know what numbers are.

[00:35:56:25 - 00:36:11:09]
So learn about the virtues and then figure out what are the ones that you do well and what are the ones where you need help. And then during that time when you want to date with the Lord, you talk to Him about your virtues and your vices.

[00:36:11:09 - 00:36:19:29]
Now you're really on a journey of becoming what He wants you to be. Now you stop being distracted.

[00:36:21:13 - 00:36:31:19]
Now you avoid the traps that the devil puts before you. "Oh, but Mary needs prayer and John is having cancer and your daughters and your son and the world." And

[00:36:31:19 - 00:36:33:24]
these are all distractions

[00:36:33:24 - 00:36:42:17]
that He uses to pull you away from your virtues and your vices. The work you need to do.

[00:36:42:17 - 00:36:50:23]
So often we're surprised and shocked when the Father comes and prunes us. It hurts.

[00:36:50:23 - 00:36:58:05]
But we're not even thinking that we need to be pruned because this is the only way to grow in virtue.

[00:36:58:05 - 00:37:01:14]
So we get hit sideways and we then

[00:37:01:14 - 00:37:04:23]
turn God into the enemy. Why is this happening to

[00:37:04:23 - 00:37:13:11]
if you want to be the servant, if you want to be the friend of Jesus, you need to treat Him like you treat a friend.

[00:37:14:24 - 00:37:19:16]
If you invite a friend over when the friend shows up, you don't give them a list of to-dos, do you now?

[00:37:19:16 - 00:37:24:05]
If you do, don't expect that they will stay your friends for very long.

[00:37:24:05 - 00:37:28:09]
Well then stop treating Jesus this way. Treat Him as a friend.

[00:37:28:09 - 00:37:36:22]
If you have a friend, invite them over, you don't open the door looking like a slob and your house is a total mess, do you now?

[00:37:36:22 - 00:37:40:01]
And certainly you don't hand them a broom and ask them to start cleaning.

[00:37:40:01 - 00:37:51:05]
But oftentimes this is how we treat our Lord because we don't know our vices, we don't know our virtues, we haven't done our homework to try to clean up the mess inside of us as much as we can. So He can come in

[00:37:51:05 - 00:38:02:14]
and see that we've done a little bit of an effort because we know at the end of the day we can't leave up the mess ourselves. This is the most humiliating part of it. He has to do it. But at least we've done a bit of effort.

[00:38:02:14 - 00:38:10:13]
This is why the world would hate anyone doing this because the world, meaning the flesh,

[00:38:10:13 - 00:38:13:03]
loves to slobber around.

[00:38:13:03 - 00:38:26:00]
Anyone who comes and reminds the world of the need of virtue is like someone poking a wound. They don't like that. And obviously they're going to turn against

[00:38:26:00 - 00:38:38:12]
You don't have to say anything, by the way, for the world to hate you. Just by the way you dress or what comes out of your mouth, the way you speak, what are you talking about?

[00:38:38:12 - 00:38:51:27]
Just your conduct alone will be enough. It's very interesting to me how the world loves to laugh about young men and women who are virgins. They think of them as losers

[00:38:51:27 - 00:38:55:15]
because these are young men and women who are practicing a virtue.

[00:38:55:15 - 00:39:04:09]
was always, always surprising to me how people were surprised when I told them I was never drunk in my life.

[00:39:04:09 - 00:39:09:27]
They look at me like I'm in a mathematical impossibility. If something is wrong,

[00:39:09:27 - 00:39:15:00]
this is how the world functions. The world functions by glorifying vice.

[00:39:15:00 - 00:39:17:13]
And therefore, obviously the world is going to hate you.

[00:39:17:13 - 00:39:19:12]
joy. Joy will return.

[00:39:20:18 - 00:39:24:23]
There'll be persecution, which is really interesting. And then

[00:39:24:23 - 00:39:29:11]
you will be in sorrow, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

[00:39:29:11 - 00:39:40:01]
Sorrow will turn into joy. Notice most of us will never say that. If we lose someone we love, we don't say afterwards, "Oh, I'm now happy."

[00:39:40:01 - 00:39:52:18]
Sorrow, human sorrow doesn't turn into joy. It might turn into some sort of an indifference, or it might quiet down, or it might not bother you as much. It doesn't turn into joy.

[00:39:54:02 - 00:39:57:20]
It's contradictory. It's paradoxical. It doesn't make sense

[00:39:57:20 - 00:40:00:16]
you realize that whatever you lost

[00:40:00:16 - 00:40:02:27]
was nothing compared to what you're getting.

[00:40:02:27 - 00:40:09:27]
Unless you realize it was actually a blessing in disguise. This is the expression that we use. Then you can be joyful.

[00:40:09:27 - 00:40:26:27]
Why will sorrow turn into joy? Because I have overcome the world. Meaning that no matter what the world will do, no matter your failings, no matter the number of times you fall, I will see you home. And then your sorrow will turn into joy.

[00:40:26:27 - 00:40:33:11]
So you notice how he is reassuring them. He's strengthening them. He anchored them.

[00:40:34:22 - 00:40:43:08]
In telling them, "I am divine. You're the branches. Stay tight and you will produce fruits. Stay close to me, you'll produce fruits."

[00:40:44:10 - 00:40:52:07]
And then, even though the world around you will stir up a storm,

[00:40:52:07 - 00:40:54:17]
I will see you home.

[00:40:54:17 - 00:41:07:07]
And then he finishes his testament with something absolutely striking, which we don't see in traditional covenantal testaments with a prayer.

[00:41:07:07 - 00:41:08:24]
We don't see that no more.

[00:41:10:04 - 00:41:14:04]
And that sets this testament aside from any other one that we know of.

[00:41:14:04 - 00:41:27:04]
Typically, I told you a testament is about blessings and curses. And in these chapters, there are curses. They're present. But he really ends it with blessings

[00:41:27:04 - 00:41:30:01]
for his disciple, for the ones who love him.

[00:41:32:03 - 00:41:56:18]
So these are the structures of these chapters put together, where you can see Jesus is really working very, very hard to tell people, to tell his disciples, "I'm not leaving you alone. I will care for you. Do not worry." So in times of grief, in times of sorrow, in times of despair, in times of loneliness, reread these chapters as if he's not talking to his disciples, but he's talking just to you.

[00:41:56:18 - 00:42:03:20]
And remember, Jesus would have done all that and said all of these things if you were the only person alive on this planet.

[00:42:03:20 - 00:42:06:26]
let's look at the major theme through all these chapters.

[00:42:06:26 - 00:42:21:27]
Everything in these chapters answers one question. What will become of Jesus' disciple when he is no longer visibly walking beside them? That's essentially the whole theme of these chapters. Jesus is leaving, but he's forming a people in whom he will remain.

[00:42:21:27 - 00:42:25:13]
So he's basically preparing his church for his visible departure.

[00:42:25:13 - 00:42:28:23]
The disciples are not ready, like I said before,

[00:42:28:23 - 00:42:31:25]
because they're weak.

[00:42:32:26 - 00:42:44:28]
Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him. Thomas doesn't know the way. Philip doesn't understand Jesus is. They are confused, sorrowful, and about to scatter, and the world will hate them. It's a recipe for disaster.

[00:42:44:28 - 00:42:48:28]
That was the church back then. This is the church today.

[00:42:48:28 - 00:42:50:20]
That's reality.

[00:42:50:20 - 00:42:59:15]
So please stop, stop wishing, hoping, wanting a church where things are in order.

[00:42:59:15 - 00:43:03:08]
If that's what Jesus wanted, he would have already done it. It's been 2,000 years.

[00:43:03:08 - 00:43:31:10]
it is in this weakness that he demonstrates his strength. Because if I tell you, "Oh, I have a company where one of the senior C-suite betrayed the company, the CEO denies everything about the company, the chief technology officer is completely confused, and the financial officer has no clue what's going on." Would you invest in that company?

[00:43:31:10 - 00:43:34:15]
Yeah. Welcome to the Catholic Church.

[00:43:34:15 - 00:43:55:25]
You see, this is the why in the creed we say, "I believe in the Catholic." Believe. Why do you believe in something if that thing was completely understood? You believe in the mystery. So the church will always be a mystery.

[00:43:55:25 - 00:43:59:12]
Not to be solved, but to be contemplated.

[00:43:59:12 - 00:44:05:15]
these are the men who must carry Christ's revelation to the world. I mean, it is.

[00:44:06:25 - 00:44:14:28]
Anybody in marketing would have looked at Jesus and say, "I think we need to revise your approach here. This is not the way you go about being successful." That's not going to work.

[00:44:16:09 - 00:44:23:14]
And humanly speaking, that would be right. But that's not what's going on because I am the way I

[00:44:23:14 - 00:44:25:24]
Jesus, we have to keep your eyes locked on him.

[00:44:25:24 - 00:44:31:00]
So the church begins not with apostolic strength,

[00:44:31:00 - 00:44:33:12]
but with Christ's grace.

[00:44:35:14 - 00:44:36:25]
Everything is grace.

[00:44:36:25 - 00:44:38:02]
Where is Jesus going?

[00:44:38:02 - 00:44:47:16]
He's not vanishing. He's not becoming absent. He returns to the Father. He prepares a place for his disciples. His destination becomes their destiny.

[00:44:48:16 - 00:45:12:17]
The way is not a map. It is the Son Himself. Like I told you before, when Jesus walked on the water, they were rowing for a whole night, got three miles away from shore, didn't get anywhere. He steps in the boat. As soon as he does that, they're what they need to be. Why? Because they're with him. That's it. If you're with Jesus, you are where you're supposed to be. Stop fretting.

[00:45:12:17 - 00:45:15:12]
Then how can they remain united to him if he's not there?

[00:45:15:12 - 00:45:21:17]
They will no longer walk beside him as before. So now they must abide in

[00:45:21:17 - 00:45:26:25]
How do you abide in him? They're the branches. The way the branches abide in the vine.

[00:45:28:02 - 00:45:33:19]
So they stay connected to the vine. They receive their life from the vine. They don't stray.

[00:45:33:19 - 00:45:39:08]
His word remains in them, which means there's a frequent meditation on the Word of God.

[00:45:39:08 - 00:45:46:10]
Not only frequent meditation on the Word of God, but there's the ability to look at the world through the Word of God.

[00:45:47:19 - 00:45:50:06]
So I look at the world covenantally all the time.

[00:45:50:06 - 00:45:57:04]
My guide is the covenant. I look at the world and I compare it to what happens in the scripture.

[00:45:58:11 - 00:45:59:20]
And I know God is in control.

[00:45:59:20 - 00:46:05:17]
If you live life where you're divorced, the scripture,

[00:46:05:17 - 00:46:14:00]
from your understanding of the world, then it's a sad place to be. Because the world breeds despair.

[00:46:17:03 - 00:46:24:26]
And you won't be able to understand the world or make sense of what's going on if that's what you're doing.

[00:46:24:26 - 00:46:39:26]
But if you understand it covenantally, you've seen it in the Book of Isaiah. You've seen it with the prophet Zephaniah. You've seen it. You've seen the pattern before. You look at it as, oh yeah, this is a continuation where the Lord has told us he will do. He's doing it right now. And you can be at peace.

[00:46:39:26 - 00:46:47:07]
Apart from me, you can do nothing. Think about your own life. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that apart from Jesus, you can do nothing?

[00:46:47:07 - 00:46:52:18]
And I'll tell you right now, if you say yes, you're a hypocrite. Join the club.

[00:46:52:18 - 00:47:06:19]
Yes, intellectually, we would agree. Yeah, I agree. Apart from Jesus, I can do nothing. But actually, in my action, plenty of time, doing stuff without Jesus even present. Don't even think about him. He's out of the picture. I'm the boss.

[00:47:06:19 - 00:47:09:19]
That's my constant struggle. That's my struggle. Daily.

[00:47:09:19 - 00:47:12:19]
So we have to go back to him. Apart from me, you can do nothing.

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Which is why we need the failures. Which is why we need not to succeed all the time. Which is why we need all those areas in our lives where we didn't do the way we thought we would do. Because if we were perfectly successful with everything, if I was the greatest looking guy in the world, if I had the most beautiful woman in the world, the perfect children, the perfect job, the perfect person, the perfect life, I am the most accursed person on this planet because I don't need Jesus.

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I am a rock.

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I'm perfect.

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So Jesus loves you

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and reminds you, apart from me, you can do nothing.

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If you understand those things, your sorrow will turn into joy

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because that, in those failures, our Lord saved you from hell.

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And making you weak and showing you have no control and you're not able to do what you want and the world is bigger than you.

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He's saving you from hell.

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And the day you will stand and he shows you everything he's done for you and how he saves you from hell, your sorrow will absolutely turn into joy.

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How will he remain present to them? His visible departure becomes a deeper presence. He's no longer physically present, he's interiorly present through the Holy Spirit who dwells in them. The Spirit will teach and remind them. The Spirit will guide them into all truth. The Spirit will glorify Christ in the church. Why is it important for the Spirit to come? Precisely because the journey is not external. It is internal.

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If

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what Christ wanted was success in external activities, we would not need the Holy Spirit.

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The Holy Spirit is your guide to the internal journey, the one each one of us must undertake. The one that leads to our heart, to our virtues, to our vices, the one that illuminates us and help us understand how we can grow in holiness, how we can be fruitful. That's why we need the Holy Spirit. It's an interior journey.

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It's the interiority of the Christian life that matters, not what you do outside. That you do for others.

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I go and the Spirit will make me present within you.

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will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. You can see all the interiority. This is why Christ wants to lean. As long as he's among them, their eyes are focused on him exteriorly and they're focused on all the activities he's doing. Raising the dead and feeding the poor and all those things. The problem with any of this is that it doesn't focus them on the area where they need to work. The hardest thing they have to do, which is look interiorly.

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Which is why the Holy Spirit is so essential for our Christian life.

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How must they live together?

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they don't get generic kindness or mere fellowship or natural sympathy.

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Christ's own self-giving love becomes the law of the apostolic community. It is all interior. You cannot love your brother or your sister the way Christ loves you unless you look inwardly. You cannot do it. Don't try. Well, try.

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Love one another as I have loved you. It starts in the heart. It starts from the heart. You can love someone without ever seeing them. You can love someone without ever talking to them. You don't need to.

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It's all in the heart. You love them through Christ.

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So, if you're separated from children or if you have children who are not talking to you or any other situation that broke up and you have these failures, whatever the case may be.

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Remember, you love them through Christ. Love Jesus, he will do the rest. Do not despair. Do not fear. Trust, he will do the rest.

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What mission will they receive? Now that they're comforted, they will be sent. And Christ reminds them, "I chose you, you didn't choose me."

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So, what does that mean? "I chose you, didn't choose me." It means do not worry about being successful. Do not worry about your results. Do not worry about whether you are capable or not. I chose you. Believe in me, not in you.

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He appointed them to bear fruit. And the Spirit then will bear witness.

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And the Apostles will bear witness. It's a double witnessing. It's vertical and horizontal. The Spirit will bear witness. The Apostles will bear witness. What are they bearing witness for? For judgment. So, I told you the Covenant is there. It's always there. The witness that the Spirit is going to bear

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witness that the Apostles will bear is for judgment.

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And the future believers will come through their word. You are chosen, appointed, and sent.

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How will they survive persecution? The world hatred is not a surprise. The word hated Christ. He will hate them as well. Because the servant is no greater than his master. Their peace will not come from safety. Their courage will come from Christ's victory.

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It's his victory that gives them peace, not safety.

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Be a cheer I have overcome the world. And finally, what is their final destiny?

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Everything is in the Father's hand. To keep them, to sanctify them, to send them in the world, to make them perfectly one, to bring them into glory. That they may be one and behold my glory. That's our final destiny. It's that unity that will be fulfilled in heaven.

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So, those are, this is why I wanted to show you these chapters put together, the Testament of Christ. I encourage you to go back and read them for your own self, reflecting on your own life. And bring the light of the Spirit to show you how Christ is working in your life. If you haven't started that interior journey, I really, really strongly encourage you. You do start 10 minutes, 15 minutes every day. Pick up the Bible, start reading the gospel and then all you're going to do, let's say you start reading the nativity. You put the book down and you think about it. Was our lady sitting once St. Gabriel appeared? Was he standing? Was he kneeling?

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Ask those questions. What did she feel like?

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Am I able to say the words that St. Gabriel said? What did he mean by them? How does an angel think about those things? Ask those questions. Put yourself in the scene. Ask very basic practical questions, not mystical questions, practical questions. If I'm at the foot of the cross, where am I? Am I standing with St. John and Our Lady? Am I with a centurion?

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Am I with a guy jeering? Or am I too busy walking around with my phone and social life and I don't have time even to look and see that he's on the cross? Where am I? Let the Holy Spirit show you where you are.

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And then that will lead you to

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interact with Jesus. Now you're starting to take him seriously. Now you show him you're on a date. You really want to know more about him.

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Not according to your own desires and wills, but according to his. He will show you things about himself that he wants you to know. Now you're making time for him. Now you're glorifying the Father. Now you're bringing joy into his heart.

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Now you're becoming Christian.

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The only point I'm going to focus on because I'm over time is this one.

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Okay, sorrow turned into joy.

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What is joy?

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We oftentimes don't understand what joy is, so I just want to give you a primer on this. I can spend three hours just talking about this, but I'm going to try to make it in like five minutes. God help us. All right. One, joy is not the same as pleasure. Just get that out of your head right away. Okay. Two, joy is not mere cheerfulness.

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There is a big difference between joy and being cheerful.

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A cheerful temperament is not the same as supernatural joy. A naturally melancholic saint may possess more Christian joy than an exuberant sinner.

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Joy does not mean smiling continuously, suppressing grief, pretending everything is fine, feeling emotionally bewound, denying tragedy, suffering or evil. Not at all. It's not joy.

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The passions are part of human nature, but feelings alone are not reliable measure of holiness. Feelings alone, not feeling alone. Feelings alone are not reliable measures of holiness. Christ himself experienced grief, anguish, indignation and sorrow. Christian joy is not make-belief happiness. It is truth wearing the garments of hope. Joy is truth wearing the garments of hope.

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Joy is the fruit of virtue.

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You cannot be joyful if you're not virtuous or to the degree that you're virtuous, to that degree you're joyful.

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Joy is the fruit of virtue.

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Particularly, joy is the fruit of love, of charity.

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So you don't make yourself joyful. No more so than you can make a branch just sprout out of fruit.

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You work on your virtues, you become joyful.

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So likewise,

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depression and many of the psychosomatic problems that we have are fundamentally the fruit of

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I'm not saying guilt, I'm saying

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This is why it's so important to be able to work on the virtues.

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Joy follows charity because love unites the soul to the good it loves. Joy can be in your life when you obtain the good you want. And the good of the soul is God. What the soul desires is God. And when the soul receives the good it wants, joy is present.

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So there is no joy without interiority. There is no joy apart from the interior

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When the soul possesses God through grace and loves him through infused charity, joy arises as a fruit of that communion.

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That's why you have the sequence in the Gospel of St. John chapter 15. Abide in me, abide in my love, keep my commandments, love on another, my joy will be in you.

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So you abide in me, you abide in my love, this is all interior. You keep my commandments, what is keeping the commandments? The virtues. That's how you show you're keeping the commandments. So grow in virtue.

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As a result of growing in virtue, you're able to love someone.

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Therefore now the holiness is communicated to others through you. Not glorifies God. And my joy will be in you.

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So these are not unrelated teachings, they form one movement. He explains interior life through these principles.

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Joy, communion produces charity, charity expresses itself through obedience. Charity lived in obedience bears the fruit of joy.

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We do not manufacture it. We do not, I can't make myself joyful. Joy is received from the union with God. That's the only way I can be joyful.

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So joy is really a participation in Christ's own joy. It can definitely coexist with sorrow.

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Because you have this interior life in you, you're not there to God, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have sorrow in your life. You can. So the two can be present at the same time. Just as our lady was joyful, why suffering agony at the foot of the cross?

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Joy rests upon hope.

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It is a foretaste of the beatific vision and joy is covenantal. It requires the covenant because it roots you into a proper understanding of what God expects from you.

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I have quite a bit of notes in the deck. So if you ever grab the deck when I publish this, I really encourage you to read those notes on joy and reflect on joy. And again, when you are thinking, when you're sitting and meditating, ask yourself this question,

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am I in the joy of God? And why am I not in the joy of God? And try to distinguish between the fact that maybe you're cranky, you're tired, you may be even depressed, you may have suffered trauma, you may have all these issues.

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None of that deny joy.

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That's what I'm trying to tell you. It doesn't deny joy.

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And sometimes joy may not be, you may not feel it in your body, you may not feel it in your emotions because so much of it is suppressed by what you've lived, what you've gone through. That's understandable. These things need to be taken care of, but it doesn't mean you're not joyful.

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So Christian joy is truth wearing the garment of hope. When the soul possesses God through grace and loves him through infused charity, joy arises as a fruit of that communion. All right. So I'm going to stop here. We'll end with a word of prayer and we'll take a break. And then afterwards we can come back for

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Please stand in the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear Lord Jesus, we want to thank you and praise you and glorify you for every good inspiration, every good thought you've given us tonight. We thank you, Lord, for your presence in our lives. And we ask you to send your Holy Spirit upon us to help us put these inspirations and thoughts into effect. So we come to know you, love you better every day and grow in your love and joy every day. We ask this through the intercession of Our Lady Mary Most Holy as we pray. Hail Mary, full of praise. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and in the hour of our death, Amen. Saint Joseph, Saint John, all the angels and saints, in the name of the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit,

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