Tag Archives: Book of Genesis

Ep6 Trees, Food, Worship, and Eternal Life

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Father Len explains why trees are so prominent in the Bible and how they symbolize and reveal the path to eternal life including the choices we need to make and the food we need to eat along the way. He also clarifies what food we’re really praying for in the Lord’s Prayer. 

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The English translation of the Lord’s Prayer is incorrect. When we pray “give us each day our daily bread,” we are not praying for daily bread. What Jesus taught us to pray for is the bread of super substance, the bread of life, which is the Eucharist.
  • Trees are a big part of worship and the third most common symbol in the Bible.
  • Trees, in the Bible, symbolize and reveal the path to eternal life including the choices we need to make and the food we need to eat along the way.
  • From the very beginning of the Bible, there are two types of food. There’s ordinary food that keeps our bodies strong and divine food that feeds our souls. We need both.
  • Ordinary food comes from the earth and divine food comes from heaven and the tree of life.
  • The cross is the tree of life. When we eat the fruit from the tree of life, the Eucharist, we’re eating the presence of Christ and part of God’s spirit.
  • When human beings are cut off from being fed with God’s life, they’re cut off from the source of life.
  • Eternal life is connected to eating the fruit from the tree of life.
  • The tree of life is a place where humanity gathers to meet God and be fed on God’s life.
  • All of life is a choice between eating the fruit from the tree of life or eating the fruit from the tree of good and selfishness.
  • Eating the fruit from the tree of good and selfishness brings about a death. It kills the relationship between us and God.
  • To get to the tree of life, we have to walk past the tree of good and selfishness. We have to sacrifice our egos, obey the will of God, and see the world as God sees it in order to eat the divine food from the tree of life.
  • Eating from the tree of life demands a moral code. God is the only source of true morality. We don’t get to define goodness. We need to see and live as God does.
  • In every major moral event in the Bible there are trees present that symbolize the choice between going the way of the tree of life or the way of the tree of selfishness.
  • The tree Catholics gather around at every mass is the cross. We gather around that tree to make a commitment to follow the morality of Christ and see the world the way God does.
  • To eat from the tree of life is to accept self-sacrifice as our morality. Christ shows us the way by offering himself as a sacrifice. He accepts the cup of suffering. To receive the Eucharist is to accept the teachings of Christ.
  • The tree of life is this connection between us and God. Religion is this connection between us and God.
  • When we’re making the right moral choices, the Bible gives us a little glimpse of the tree of life. When we’re making the wrong choices, it gives us a glimpse of the tree of selfishness.
  • Biblical worship is all about eating the right food. Eating the divine meal from God that gives us eternal life.

Ep5 The Purpose of Worship

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Father Len explores the history of worship and reveals that all worship and its purpose come from the Bible.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The word liturgy means worship or how to worship.
  • We worship not to get something, but to become aware of something.
  • We worship and go to church to remember many things. The past, the present as it truly is, who we’re meant to be and what we’re supposed to become.
  • God tells us in the book of Genesis to keep the Sabbath, gather together as a community, and remember what it means to be a true human being.
  • Worship is not about keeping the status quo, but about remembering to become something.
  • Liturgy is a judge and a criterion on how we’re supposed to order our lives.
  • We go to Mass to see the future. The whole Mass is a liturgy of heaven and getting us ready for heaven.
  • “Today, more than ever, we need a framework for our lives. A pattern of holidays and rotating seasons. Without it, we’re like somebody in a speedboat over a trackless sea with nothing to indicate where we are. You’re moving fast, but you have no way of noticing what the changes are.” – Alan Toffler, author of “Future Shock”
  • God gives us symbols in the Bible as a way to study and understand the Bible and to use in worship and prayer to help us drink in wisdom and put the Bible into action.
  • We don’t worship symbols. We use symbols to worship God.
  • All worship comes from the Bible.
  • The Eucharist began before any of the Bible was written. The Eucharist didn’t rise in the Bible, the Bible rose from the Eucharist.
  • There’s a difference between being a spectator and biblical worship. Worship is not supposed to be entertaining.
  • The Eucharist is not about entertainment. It’s about conversion.
  • Liturgy is supposed to subvert the way the world works. Liturgy is supposed to subvert the way we think. Liturgy is about how we conquer the world by sacrificing ourselves in love for other people.
  • Many people in the United States confuse worship and entertainment. Worship is supposed to give us a vision of the kingdom of God, the order of heaven.
  • Liturgies are commitment ceremonies. The Eucharist is us making a commitment to be like Christ and sacrifice ourselves in love for other people.
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