Tag Archives: Protestants

Ep10 The Bread of Life

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Father Len dives into the sacred mystery of the food Jesus gives us to feed and fortify our souls on the journey to our heavenly home that he’s prepared for us.

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Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The biggest theme in the Bible is that of a meal.
  • Access to the divine happens through a meal.
  • Beginning in the Garden of Eden, God provides food for our souls and our physical bodies.
  • Bread and wine are huge themes in the Bible. Not just symbols, but food that has both physical and spiritual effects.
  • Jesus identifies himself as the “bread from heaven, the bread of life” saying, “you must eat my flesh and drink my blood or you have no life within you, for my body is true food and my blood is true drink.”
  • Jesus institutes a mysterious meal with food for eternal life. It looks like ordinary bread and wine, but he insists that it is his true flesh and blood.
  • Catholics take Jesus at his word and believe in the real presence of his body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

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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.

Ep4 What divides and unites us?

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Father Len takes a deep dive into what divides us and what unites us. He introduces us to Communio, the one thing that can unite us forever and where to find it.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

  • Communio is this invisible union between us and God. It’s also the thing that makes us united with each other.
  • Communio celebrates the mystical communion that makes us one community.
  • Father Len illustrates the effect of Communio by telling the story of a former Nazi who became friends with a former member of the French Resistance that fought against the Nazis.
  • Communio is never based on externals like religion, race, politics, ideology or even superficial morality.
  • Real community at its very heart is spiritual. It’s a deep belief that we’re inextricably connected to each other by something greater than us. It’s rooted in love and compassion and can never be severed, even by death.
  • Facebook is a hollow substitute for real community.
  • The Book of Revelation in the Bible describes Heaven as ultimate communion. Like a city where everyone is wearing a wedding dress because they’re all in love. That’s true Communio.
  • We came from community, the Trinity. We are meant to live in community, the body of Christ. We end in perfect community, heaven.
  • The really big issue of life is God.
  • More and more people these days are sorting themselves into ideological bunkers. Nine times out of ten, the only thing these people have in common is they hate the same people.
  • If Christ is Communio, Satan is the opposite. The word devil means divider. Satan is always offering us a substitute communion based on who we reject.
  • Christ came to knock down the dividing walls that keep us separated.
  • At the end of our life, we’ll be judged on what we did to others and what we did for others. How united we were with other people. In the final judgment we’ll be judged on how strong our community was.
  • Perfect worship is done together because it’s in a community where our egos are always challenged. Community challenges us to be more loving.
  • Ego keeps us separated from each other and from our true selves.
  • The Bible tells us God will destroy our enemies because God will form us into a community of brothers and sisters.
  • Religion is supposed to be about community, but often times, people confuse conformity with community. The opposite of community is social conforming. There’s a difference between belonging and fitting in. Conformity is just the appearance of community. In conformity, there’s no communion. You just have to act and dress in a way that’s pleasing to the group.
  • Our deepest need is to be in community and be loved.
  • In the Bible, God is always working to save a community, not just an individual.
  • The book of Proverbs says, in a community we’ll develop new eyes. We’ll see the world differently by living in a community.
  • The Catholic Church celebrates Communio.
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