CA: Welcome, welcome one and all. Welcome to the 

Catholic Experience. I am your host, the Catholic Adventurer. Thank you very much for joining me. It is Tuesday, November 19th, in the year of our Lord, 2024. Sorry, I had to check what date it was. Thank you again for joining me. Just a couple of, this is going to be very quick, actually, and, uh, you’re welcome to those of you who don’t like hearing my voice.

And I’m sorry to those of you who are super [00:01:00] fans and just want to hear me ramble on and on and on and on and on and on. Let’s fade that music out.

So I have an announcement to make, , and a point to make. So this isn’t just going to be an announcement. I’m going to try to make some, I’m going to try to make it useful for you this episode.First, , why is this going to be so short? Well, I have some things lined up that I have to do. Some of them are podcast related or apostolate related.

Some of them are work and, and home related. And, I usually take the time to do a full episode on the weekends this past weekend. I used that time to produce an episode exclusively for paid locals members. If you are following my podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else, You’ll notice I dropped a clip from that episode.

And, , as I said, usually I take the time to, do the public podcast when I have the time to do it, but I had to provide something for my paid locals members because they are helping to keep the lights on proverbially speaking. They’re helping me to pay the bills. I don’t have many subscribers.

If you’re interested in becoming one of them, go to catholic experience dot locals. com. You can become a free member. Or you can become a paid member for five bucks a month and you can help me pay some of the, some of these bills and get the occasional, , exclusive podcast. Anyway, I had to provide something for them.

I don’t often use the time to provide something just to them. And I needed to do that this weekend. Anyway, I’m really talking the hell out of that one. So that’s, uh, that, that’s, that’s the main reason why there’s no long form podcast for the general public here. , right now. Maybe I’ll have time later in the week, who knows.

Special Announcement – Bible Podcasts

CA: Now on to the [00:02:00] announcement, And then I’m going to talk to you about why these scripture podcasts are so important, and that’s going to bring us to the point of this little mini episode why the scripture is so important for us as Catholics. I’m going to start working on a couple of podcasts based on scripture. And they’re basically going to go like this. One is going to be a short reading, a couple of verses, I’m going to drop a little bit of knowledge about what we see in that verse. There might be some historical context, there might be some historical factoids, right, in terms of biblical study or, you know, biblical theology, biblical history, I might drop a couple of factoids about that.

And then I’m going to give you my reflection and how we can apply what we have seen in the reading. . That’s going to be a short form podcast. Who knows what that means for me? Because every time I get in front of a microphone to just talk for 15 minutes, I’m on the microphone for an hour and a half.

So who knows? But, the plan is to keep that short. You know, even when I plan them out, which, for instance, with Meditations for Saints in the Making, that was highly, highly planned out, and they were always twice as long as what I intended for them to be. But, these are intended, To be short form podcasts Five to ten minutes, maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20, maybe maybe 20 I’m trying i’m trying to keep them short so that they’re easy to consume They’re easy to produce easy to consume Especially if they’re easy to produce and I know I can do it regularly because it’s not going to be I won’t be taking so much of a time hit doing them I think you’re going to really enjoy that the thing that I need you to know is this At least at first for the first Five or six episodes.

That is going to be newsletter exclusive content. You will only be able to get it if you are subscribed to my newsletter. Okay? , it won’t be available on iTunes. You’ll be able to play it in a standard podcast player.. But it won’t be available to the general public. You won’t be able to go on iTunes any place else and search for it.

It won’t be there. It is going to be a private podcast. [00:03:00] If you would like to get in on that gravy train, look for the link in this episode’s description. There’s a link there to sign up for the newsletter. All I need is your email address and ideally your first name, but even your first name is just optional.

Okay, it’s dead simple. Your email address, your first name, if you feel comfortable sharing that, you click send and you’re in. You’ll get my weekly newsletter, um, and you’ll get access to, um, newsletter exclusive podcasts, plural. There’s going to be more than one of those going forward, okay? The reason I’m making it a newsletter exclusive, first because I’m trialing this, I want to see if, if I can, , maintain that schedule.

Okay, before I released to the general public and I’m trying to build some incentive for people to sign up for the newsletter, but you see how honest I am. I tell you that I don’t try to swindle you. I tell you that. Okay, the second podcast and this one is really exciting. This one might not be so simple to produce long term again.

This is partly why I’m doing this as a private podcast first. The second podcast is also going to be about scripture, but it’s going to be, geared toward children. Well, children aren’t signing up for the newsletter. I know just follow me. It’s really going to be geared toward children It’s going to be a Bible story Short and sweet.

I’m gonna try to dress it up with some music or sound effects or do a couple of different voices where that’s Relevant I’m gonna make it nice, you know, like a story time kind of a thing I might even put on a character myself and then after that, I’m going to propose a few questions that adults can ask their, I will ask the question myself, but I’m basically prompting the adults [00:04:00] to enter into a conversation with their children about what we just covered in that Bible story.

 And then similar to the first podcast, I will offer my reflection, something that we definitely can take from that reading.

Not just ideas, you know, something that’s not just what we can think about it, ideas it gives us, but something solid that we definitely take from that reading, something objective and solid that we take from it. Now it’s geared toward children. But adults can get something from that too. The other thing is the adults who are getting it from the, you know, as a newsletter exclusive, you can, I think you’ll be able to download it and play it back for your own kids.

 Now I’m going to trial that as a newsletter exclusive. Probably I will make that public after, as I said, three or four episodes, I’m going to try it out and see how it goes. If it’s something that I decide I can’t maintain. Then it will continue to just be a newsletter exclusive, and maybe it’ll be seasonal.

I’ll do them three or four episodes per season. I’ll do three or four of them. And then, you know, for the next month or two, I’ll do a different newsletter exclusive podcast. Maybe I’ll go back to the original, , biblical one. So there’s the announcement. Two Bible, podcasts, newsletter exclusives.

One for the adults and [00:05:00] one for the kiddies. But even the adults will enjoy that one for the kiddies. I really, really strongly suggest that you sign up for the newsletter and get in on that gravy train. It’s more than just, article and podcast updates, it’s much more than that. It opens up certain features on my website for you, certain, you know, newsletter exclusive articles or newsletter exclusive,, features, newsletter exclusive videos, that sort of thing.

And it gives you access to newsletter exclusive podcasts that are coming this week, which is another reason why I don’t have time to do a standard public long form podcast. Okay. I really hope you consider it. Check the link in the description of this episode. Sign up for the newsletter.

It is free. I do not share your information. I do not sell your information. I do not abuse your information. Nothing funny going on here, okay?

Bible Matters 

CA: Now, why is scripture so important? This is going to seem like a no brainer, right? Why is scripture so important?

Scripture is more than just an instruction manual, far more than an instruction manual. It’s more than a history book. It is that, but it’s far more than that. It’s even, [00:06:00] let me temper my, how I put this here. It is God’s divine revelation, but it is even more than that. Because in divine revelation, God isn’t just revealing things.

He isn’t just revealing facts. He isn’t just revealing doctrine, morals, principles, history. Here is something that God is revealing that too many of us take for granted. God is revealing Himself. That’s the whole point of Revelation. God is revealing His, His personality, His character, His nature, who He is, What he is and how he is those are the three pillars that I always delineate who he is How he is what he is you understand and This is very important.

This is going to be something that [00:07:00] Will probably be part of one of the those exclusive podcasts. I’m going this one will be for the adults You know the in the biblical podcast. I’m going to talk about how God isn’t isn’t love And that’s going to be a lot of, very shocking for people to see that title.

I usually don’t like to shock people. I don’t do clickbait. But when I, when I put that title forward, I’m going to really mean it. It’s not just going to be a marketing gimmick or it’s not going to be a marketing gimmick at all. God isn’t love. What do I mean by that? Well, when we look at who God is. What God is, how God is, his character, his personality, his nature.

We see something very clearly. We see that God is a person. He’s not an automaton. He’s not a robot. He’s not an app. He’s not AI. He is a person. He thinks. And he [00:08:00] feels. Now, he doesn’t think and feel the way we do. His mind is perfect. His mind is eternal. He doesn’t have to figure things out. Right? But he does have thoughts.

Granted, his thoughts are different in character and kind than ours. Okay? But he does have thoughts. He does have feelings. Okay? He does not change his mind. Um, I would say it’s probably not accurate to say his heart can be broken, right? The way our hearts can be broken. But what God does is sort of similar to those things.

Not changing his mind, but you know, having thoughts and, and, and having feelings. So what do I mean by God isn’t love? When we say, especially for average Catholics, for average Catholics, when we say God is love, we have this idea in our heads. That God’s love is just, [00:09:00] again, I have to temper my words here, that we tend to think that God’s love is just automatic, like a computer program is automatic.

That it just has an on switch, there is no, and there is no gradient. And true, there is no gradient, there is no off switch with God’s love, but he’s not AI. Let me illustrate it for you this way. If I write an AI system, now let’s say I’m using someone else’s AI engine, but I’m producing it to my parameters.

Where no matter what you ask this AI, it will always express affection for you. Doesn’t matter what you say, that it’s going to be programmed, always to express love for you. Let’s call it Brenda. Hey, Brenda. Am I lovable? You are the most lovable person I have ever known Hey, Brenda. Why am I so hateful?

You’re not hateful Everyone loves you, especially [00:10:00] me. Hey, Brenda. What time is it? I’m going to share this information with you because I love you It’s 12 o’clock. No matter what you say, Brenda, Expresses love and affection and care and concern for you. Because it’s AI, it can’t do anything else. It can only do what I tell it to do.

The programmer tells it to do. Well, how believable is it? If Brenda is always going to ever say that, how believable is Brenda? Forget that it’s AI and AI is not believable because AI is not fake. But you get the, you get what I’m saying? It’s not believable. Brenda’s programmed to say that. There’s no value to Brenda saying, I love you.

There’s no value to it, because that’s what Brenda does, and Brenda does that because that is what she is programmed or it is programmed to do. Often when we say God is love, we have, and I’m sure of this, we, we all have this idea that [00:11:00] God is love, and that is that. There’s no life to His love. There’s no purpose to His love.

There’s no point to His love. It’s just an on switch. It’s just always there. It’s AI. It’s always going to do that. And if it’s just automatic, and it’s always going to do that, then what value does it have? How believable is it? How that, how, how valuable is it? If, if it’s just an always an on switch, how valuable is it?

Reminds me of that line from that movie, Incredible. You know, where the mother is telling her son, you know, everybody is special, and the son says, well, that means nobody is. It’s like, damn, that’s deep. That’s true. If, at least in the context of the movie. If everyone is special, then no one is. Well, there’s a fair point there, right?

And if God’s love is automatic and it’s eternally an on switch, which, there is some truth to that, but just follow me. [00:12:00] If it’s an on switch and it’s eternally in the on position, then what value does it have that God loves us? If there’s no life behind it, if there’s no person behind it, and it’s just effectively A.

I. It has no life. It has no meaning. And I think that’s why often average Catholics, or even average Christians, Catholic or not, sometimes have trouble connecting to that love, the love of God. And what I’m What I’m going to do, what I’m planning to do, is show in scripture, I’m going to show, I’m going to read a scripture quote or two, maybe three, that show us that God’s love is not a I, there’s life behind it, there’s a mind behind it, there is a heart behind it, that God’s, and it shows us that God’s love is purposeful, that God’s love is deliberate, that God’s love is not by [00:13:00] accident, incidental, Or, it just is what it is.

There are things that God describes as abominable in his sight. There are moments in scripture where God is very, very angry. And he’s very, very angry about very specific things. There is a mind to the person of God. We’re going to see in scripture the tenderness of his personality, the softness of his heart, his compassion.

And we’re going to see that it is not automatic. It’s purposeful. It’s reasoned. It’s heartfelt. I’ll give you one example. I, I don’t, this one is too obvious. I probably won’t do obvious in that podcast when I do it, but just to illustrate the point. We see that God is love demonstrated by Jesus Christ. We [00:14:00] also see Jesus Christ cleanse the temple, right?

Righteous anger, as I said, I explained in, you know, a few episodes ago. Because the love of Jesus is not automatic. There’s a mind behind it, there’s a heart behind it, there’s purpose behind it. Not that he gets it, not a purpose in that he gets something from it, but I’m saying there’s a mind and purpose and will.

God wills to love us. To put it another way, God doesn’t love us because he created us, but he loves us because he created us. He created us because he loved us first. That’s very hard for finite human beings to understand. But if you pray on it a while, you’ll begin to understand it. God didn’t create us and then loved us.

Oh, I, it’s easy to love what you create. That’s easy! It’s automatic. It’s AI. It’s easy to love what you create, but God [00:15:00] didn’t love us because He created us. He loved us first, and therefore He created us. He brought us into being because He loved us, and He wanted us to happen. He wanted to make us happen because He loved us so much.

And if we understand that God’s love actually does have a standard, that’s why there’s the gospel, that’s why there are the commandments, and so on. God’s love is not Unconditional. It’s everlasting, but it is not unconditional. I’ll explain that in a later episode too. When we start to understand that there is a mind, a heart, a will, That there’s a person, that there is life to the love of God, behind the love of God and to the love of God.

We understand that God can be disappointed, that God can get angry, a little different from how we understand anger. Again, He’s eternal, we are not. But for the sake of making this [00:16:00] easy to talk about and easy to discuss, God can get angry. He can get disappointed. Even His anger and disappointment, they have degrees.

Right? They have degrees. Not everything that God is displeased with is called abominable in His sight. And so on, and so on, and so on. I mean, it’s very obvious there are things that displease God, but the things for instance in the Old Testament, the things that, here’s an example. Moses doubting God once at Meribah, or was that Massa?

Or are they the same place? I don’t remember. I think it was Meribah. When Moses struck the rock and no water came out so he struck it again. God was displeased with that moment of doubt. But he was way more displeased that the Jews were worshiping a golden calf. So even his displeasure, his disappointment, his anger, these things have degrees.

And here’s why that’s important to know. When we know that God’s love [00:17:00] is real and not AI, it has a whole new meaning for us. It has a whole new meaning for us, because if, if everybody is special, then nobody is. Well, if God’s love is just code, then there’s really nothing special about it. But God’s love is not code.

It’s flesh. It’s blood. It’s heart. It’s will. It’s intent. It’s desire. And it’s different and separate from his disappointment, from his heartbreak. From his righteous anger bringing this back to the point what we get from scripture is not just factoids in history And it’s not just a moral code everything in scripture Shows us the mind of God the heart of God the compassion of God the personality of God The character of God the [00:18:00] nature of God I mean it is I don’t really have a way of explaining this or describing this but it is You like a great, big, shining star that never blinds us, and it draws us closer and closer and closer and closer.

And the closer we get, the more clearly we see it, and the more clearly we understand it. And if we lived to be 200 years old, getting ever closer to that star and understanding it more and more deeply, we will never have scratched the surface. Of the true nature of that star. It’s like a well that never runs dry.

And every bucket of water we pull from it is a brand new bucket of brand new water.

And that’s why the Bible is so important. It draws us [00:19:00] into the person and being of God. Not just facts and figures. God is alive. His word is alive. And it has power. The power to compel. The power to draw. It draws nearer and has the power to divide. We see that all over the Gospels, right?

So again, I encourage you, in fact, I beg you, I beg thee, please sign up for my newsletter. The reason why I’m so on about this damn newsletter is because as long as, and this is true for anyone who’s in, in business or in, in, uh, media or in evangelization, when we rely on everybody else to carry the message forward.

I’m telling you, we orient ourselves to disaster. You know, I keep saying, I’ve said this over, for over two years. [00:20:00] If you’re relying on social media to show you everything that I’m doing, especially like the best stuff that I really want you to be attentive to, you’re seeing 98 to 90, 98 to 99 percent of what I’m putting out on socials, you are not seeing.

That’s, and that’s not metaphor. I’m being very literal. I’ve already tracked this. I’m a bitch. I’m a bitch. Most of my followers see hardly anything that I, that I put out there on socials. And that’s not just me, you know, even more successful people or brands or companies or whatever, it’s really the same thing for them, but they’re 1% or 2% reach when they have a million followers.

Well, of course they’re reaching more people, but it’s still one or 2%, right? So we cannot rely on socials. Imagine if St. Paul relied on social media to send his letter to, to the, to the Romans, or to the Corinthians. Imagine the disaster if he had to rely on an algorithm. So that’s one thing, that’s one, that’s one annoyance.[00:21:00]

The other thing is something like locals, which I had really high hopes for, and I pushed really hard to get those 50 members. Not for me, but so that I can, so that the network can be, or the community can be upgraded so that I can provide better features, , longer streams, and stuff like that for the people in the community.

And then by the time I reached 50, they changed the rules, and now it has to be 50 paid members, not just 50 members, period, paid or free. Again, relying on locals? I’m orienting myself to disaster because they can just change the rules, and they do. Social media can just change the rules, and they do. The algorithm can get more stringent, and it is.

Facebook, for instance, has been flagging my videos for the past several days, and the videos are just my voice. You know, the video clips that I produce for social media, it’s just my voice. [00:22:00] The few times that I do use music, I’m using music that I license. But only one of the videos that Facebook has found problematic, only one, includes music, and again, it’s music that I license, so I have a right to use it.

The others, which I think we’re up to 11 or 12 now, only feature my voice. Well, how can, how can Facebook copyright flag something that’s your voice? That’s exactly what I would like to know. Again, when we’re relying on social media, we are orienting ourselves to disaster. Well, what’s the worst that can happen?

They’ll take down the videos. Well, maybe they’ll take down the clips. Well, Or maybe someone is making money every time my clip is played. Because someone, because Facebook thinks someone has a copyright to my voice. That’s the world we live in now. So we can’t rely on socials. And the point I was about to make is, um, yeah, maybe they just take the videos down.

[00:23:00] Maybe someone is making money every time the video gets played. Or maybe Facebook says, you know what? You have 15 copyright strikes. We’re de platforming you from Facebook. Hey, when you rely on the socials, you ha you, you really have no recourse. Same thing with something like locals, which is a nice place.

But again, I’m relying on somebody else with someone else’s rules. And with someone else’s changing mind, it’s 50, you know, get 50 members and we’ll upgrade your, your community up. Now it has to be 50 paid members. Someone changed their minds. Okay. With the newsletter, there’s no middleman. It’s me and it’s you.

And that’s it. I sent something out like St. Paul sends a letter to the Corinthians and it just gets there. There is no middleman. And a hundred percent of the things that I want to call your attention to you get, it’s not like social media where I post and post and post and you only get 98%. Maybe of what of what i’m actually [00:24:00] producing

Might not be 98%. It might be a little bit better than that, but it’s not much. I did this calculation in the past. So I know it’s at least in the 90s. Even now, it’s still in the 90s. But you know that in the 90s percent. Of the stuff that I produce, you’re not seeing. With the newsletter, there is no middleman, there is no nonsense.

There is no changing mind. Because I make the rules, and you make the rules. Right? The rule you make is, you want to see the content. And if you change your mind, that mind change is basically, you unsubscribe from the newsletter. You’re not interested in what I’m producing anymore, which is totally okay.

But at least it’s you deciding. Instead of somebody else deciding for you. So I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million, billion, trillion times. Thank you very much. The internet happens on social media now, it’s just the way it is. And social media has way, way, way too much power to say nothing of the search engines, which have even more power.

And the newsletter enables [00:25:00] me and you, not just me alone, me and you, it enables you and me to take that power away from them. You have the power to say, I don’t want you interfering with content I’m interested in, or with information I’m interested in. This is your opportunity to say, I’m taking that power because it belongs to me.

This is your opportunity to do that. So if you please go to catholicadventurer. com and you will see a pop up inviting you to sign up for the newsletter, or even easier, look for the link in the description of this episode and sign up for that newsletter. I do not hammer your inbox. I do one newsletter a week, maybe two if there’s something, you know, important or special, maybe two, but usually one a week.

I don’t share your information, I don’t sell your information, your information is secured, and I don’t abuse your information. But as I said in a previous clipped episode, I will probably send your [00:26:00]information to Santa Claus and I will ask him to keep you on the nice list. And not on the naughty list.

Sign up for the newsletter, folks. Get on board this truth train. This has been a really quick episode of the Catholic Experience. I’ve been your host, the Catholic Adventurer. Follow me all over socials, if you dare. You’ll find, uh, links to my socials, to the podcast networks, to recent, um, recent content that I’ve published.

You’ll find all that stuff in my bio link and you’ll find my bio link in my social media bios. And you’ll also find it in the description of this episode, signing out of here. God bless you. God be with you all. Bye bye.