What Will 25,000 Commercials Do?

[Announcer]

“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life– what you shall eat or drink– or about your body– what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

“Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap. They gather nothing into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you, by worrying, add a single moment to your life span?

“Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will He not much more provide for you, oh you of little faith?

“So do not worry and say, what are we to eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what are we to wear? All these things the pagans seek. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

“But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

[THEME MUSIC]

This is mejanomics with a Friend of Medjugorje

[Friend of Medjugorje]

Back in 1990, we always had priests coming by, so many people in the United States knew that Our Lady, what She did in 1988 for 3 months.  We often had Mass in the Field when the visiting priests came by.  There was a documentary being shot in the Field and when I saw it, I said, “This is a commercial.”  And the priest has the Eucharist, and it is in slow motion.  He goes to a little girl and gives her the Eucharist, and another little girl receives the Eucharist.  It was beautiful.  I wrote a script to it.  We made a 30 second commercial out of it.  At that time, we had 1500 prayer groups, and they were active.  We gave them a special mailing every month.  I wrote to them and said we want to do a commercial nationwide, but I didn’t want to go to ABC, NBC, CBS, so I told each prayer group to go to the local affiliates.  I asked them to raise $2000 to $2500 a piece.  We sent them the commercial and almost every one of the prayer groups had these on television.  We had in one month, 25,000 commercials.  We had our phone number to get a cassette, back in those days, about the Eucharist.  We started getting bombarded from people across all over the United States, moved, hearts opened, conversion.  But the biggest thing, priests were calling us.  They said what is going on.  Because the commercial called to go to Confession.  The priests were saying they have never seen the lines of Confession of what they started seeing because you can’t see it on the radio what happens, the films as the priests, and in this 30 second segment, the priest was moving in slow motion.  And he gave the Eucharist to a little girl and to another one.  And it is very beautiful and very powerful.  So, what you are about to hear, 100,000s of people saw.

[Commercial]

Have you been away.

Refresh with the Sacrament of Confession.

Because the moment of Communion is the highest and most sacred moment of your life.

This is the moment when the Living God enters your heart.

[Friend of Medjugorje]

Our Lady said June 2, 2012:

“…confess regularly…receiving my Son in the Eucharist is the center of your life…you can do everything…”

The Protestants believe it is just a symbol, and it is just a symbol because they can’t consecrate the Eucharist.  It is only in the Church that God has established.

Before Our Lady came, I was helping Mother Angelica, EWTN.  I met many famous priests – Fr. Faricy.  He was a Jesuit.  He came over to the house often because they had so many people with them because they were like movie stars.  Another one was Fr. Ken Roberts.  He was very, very famous.  He was booked for three years.  His talks and his arguments for Catholicism was incredible.  Because he was coming to EWTN, Fr. Faricy and other priests would be coming over to our house.  They would come for some rest.  We would swim together in our swimming pool and with my kids, and they loved to come over.  That has been awhile back, you may not know that.  Fr. Mitch Pacwa, there are still runs on him.

I told Fr. Ken Roberts, one day he was swimming, we were talking about Medjugorje.  I said if you find a way to go to this Medjugorje place, don’t even call me.  Book me and I will send you a check and take my whole family.  Within a month, the Blue Army had their own plane.  So, we booked that with them, my family and me, went to Medjugorje with Fr. Ken Roberts.  It was a beautiful thing, very profound.  Even before that, I was marketing Fr. Ken Roberts, all his tapes, that was back in 1986.  But I was forming Caritas to promote Catholicism, and we became very, very close and traveled together.  He wrote a book called Playboy to Priest.  He was a flight attendant and then he got called to the priesthood.  He traveled all over the world, had a lot of girlfriends and everybody loved him.  He was part of our family.  He called my young son, candy boy.  When he came to our house, he always gave them candy and he was looking for it.

Fr. Roberts would have people out the door and the side doors.  There were no seats in the church.  He was in Birmingham, and I booked him at several churches every night.  And I taped what his talks were.  So, these mission nights, going across Birmingham and Alabama, he was incredible in challenging those who were against the Catholic Church and those in the Catholic Church.  Protestants would even come.  He was like a movie star.

After his talks, there would be 50 people around him.  So, what you are going to hear is a ramp up, challenging Protestants, Catholics, non-believers about the Eucharist.  He gives the arguments like an attorney, defending Jesus Christ for those who don’t accept Him, that are Christians and yet, don’t believe the real presence of Jesus.  This is a masterpiece, and he begins this knocking down everything that would argue against the Eucharist and for the Protestants, listen to it, even preachers, that became Catholic.

This is almost an hour, and he is going to start from the Bible and what he is going to end with it is incredible.  We have had this in our archives.  I have a lot of his talks.  And before he died, he called me and my wife, “Please come see me.”  He was out of state from Alabama.  Maybe it was Kentucky or a place like that.  He was so happy to see us.  He died about a month after we saw him.  A great man – a great priest.  If we had just ten of them, we would have the churches overflowing.  So, follow his points, all his arguments of this masterpiece. Here is Fr. Roberts.

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[Fr. Ken Roberts]

Know what shook we up a little bit when I came back from England, just after the Holy Father was here, I heard this survey that was done by the Gallup Poll, that said that 90% of American Catholics like the Pope, but 80% of you disagree with him.  Well, I have got news for you.  You know, what kind of Catholics are you then?  It is not an American Church.  It is not an English Church.  It is not a German Church or a Polish Church.  It is a Catholic Church.  That means international, worldwide.  It is not a democracy either.  It is a kingdom.

Jesus didn’t say upon this rock I will build my democracy.  Upon this rock I will build my Church and be able to give the keys of the kingdom.  And the Kingdom has a King, Christ is their King.  You don’t tell the king what to do.  So, I was amazed, even you didn’t disagree with him, or if you did, I thought that that proportion was really high.  Until I realized that 50 % of Catholics don’t go to Mass in the United States.  That is also in the Harris Poll.  But even worse than that, 52 percent of Protestants don’t.  You see this country claims that 95% believe in God, but only 47% worship Him.  Think about that.  97% of the people in this country claim they believe in God.  There are very few atheists here.  Probably 1% atheist, the others would be agnostic, that is more percentage, people who don’t know.  There are hardly any atheists in the United States.

That means that practically everyone you meet in the street, stop anyone along the street, stop anyone you meet in Alabama, anyone in Missouri, anyone in Los Angeles, anyone anywhere, and say do you believe in God.  Ask any kid in school, and they are going to say yes.  It would be hard time to put, to find an atheist, yet they don’t go to church or worship Him.  How would you like to be ignored?

Think about it, even kids, teenagers.  How would you like people to say I know you are there, but I don’t talk to you.  How would you like to go home, husbands, and no one in your family talks to you?  Everyone shuns you, gave you the cold shoulder, no one said good evening dad, hi dad, how are you dad?  They just looked like you weren’t there.  How would you like that?  It’s called being ignored.  How would you wives like it?  How would mothers like it?  How would your children like it?  How do you like it, God?  How do you like it God when they say they believe in you, but they ignore You?

And just because we say we believe in God, it doesn’t mean we worship Him, does it? And that is a grave sin.  One of the Commandments, “I am the Lord, your God.  You shall not have strange gods before me.” “Thou shalt keep holy the Lord’s Day.” What about the 52%, 53% that don’t go to church, except Christmas and Easter.  Where do they worship God?  They believe in Him.  If they don’t worship Him on Sunday, when do you think they talk to Him?  On Monday?  When do you think these people worship this God they believe in, whom they ignore.

You know I work in Hollywood, doing “Heart of the Nation.”  Those programs you see, one of my programs is down here in Alabama, Catholic Beliefs and Practices.  The Heart of the Nation programs, a series I do down in Hollywood.  I go down there once a month to tape those shows.  I spend a week a month in Los Angeles.  And I work with the people in Hollywood and many of them are Jewish.  And you know something, they always let me know they are Jewish.

I was with a man director the other and he was directing the Mass for the T.V.  And I had to give him instructions of what shots to take.  “You know Father, I am not a Christian, I’m a Jew.”  I said, “Really, what synagogue do you go to?”  Well, he didn’t go to a synagogue.  “Oh, you don’t go to a synagogue?”  He said, “No.”  I said, “Do you read the Bible?”  “No.”  “Do you ever pray?”  “No.”  I said, “I noticed you are eating bacon too.”  I said, “What made you think you are a Jew?  What made you a Jew because you were born one?  Do you worship a Jewish God? Do you read a Jewish Bible?  Do you say Jewish prayers?  What do you do that is Jewish, except tell Jewish jokes?”  So, I would call that man a cultural Jew, wouldn’t you?

What about a cultural Catholic?  See, 50% of Catholics in this country say they are Catholic, but they don’t go to Mass.  They don’t receive the sacraments.  They don’t pray to their Catholic God.  So, what makes you Catholic then?  That is 50%.  So, I imagine they would disagree with the Pope, what do you think?  I am sure they found something to disagree with him in.  I am surprised they even know what he said.  But they are Catholic, like that Jew was Jewish.

What about the other 30%?  They must go to Church.  I thought about that until I realized that not everybody that goes to church prays.  Not everybody that goes to church has a relationship with God.  See, it is possible to go to church and not to talk to God.  It is possible to even say the prayers the other night, and not have prayed.  It is what Mary is talking about in Medjugorje, the apparitions.  She is telling you; we are not praying properly.  If you only say prayers and your mind and heart is not turned to God, then you are saying prayers, but you are not praying.  It is possible to go to church and have a relationship with religion, and still not pray, still not know God.

So, I call those Catholics who do that, habitual Catholics.  I am sure they would have a problem with God and the Pope, don’t you think?  So, if you don’t have a spiritual life, if you are not talking to God, if God isn’t talking to you, if you don’t have a relationship with the Lord, then of course you are going to have problems, any church would.  So, that group obviously has problems.  Those are the ones I call habitual Catholics.  And someone said last night, but you didn’t mention the third group, the third group is the ones who are committed, dedicated.  The ones who have a relationship with God.  The ones who know Jesus Christ.  You see they don’t have a problem with what the Pope is teaching, because they know he is listening to the Lord.  He is teaching what is in the Word.

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So, most of the people who have problems, maybe they have a problem with God themselves, because they judge everything from a human perspective.  That reminds me of a Scripture passage, one of my favorites I like to quote from St. Paul.  In 2 Corinthians 5:16, St. Paul said: “I know longer judge anything by a mere human standard.  If at one time I so judged Christ, I know longer know Him by that standard.”    If I one time so judged Christ, what did he mean by that?

See, when Paul was Saul, only knew Jesus as a man, then everything he said was human.  He said Christ was mere just a man.  So, he pictured a very human Jesus then, who are you.  I will be saying more about that on Friday, about 2 natures of Christ – God and man.  If you met Jesus, do you think you would know He was God?  See, we started back, when we came to know Jesus as God, and forgot He was a man.  So much a man that people didn’t believe He was God, that is why they crucified Him.  Because he hinted, he was God.  As soon as He hinted that, they were against Him.  Because He blasphemed.  Because they couldn’t see a Divine, they only saw human.  These were religious people who killed Him because they didn’t see the Divine.

St. Paul was religious.  St. Paul was never non-religious.  Even when he was Saul, he was a pharisee.  He knew the Bible from cover to cover, except there wasn’t a cover to cover then.  It was scroll to scroll.  He knew every word of the Bible.  He would have made a good fundamentalist.  He could have quoted you every word in Scripture and he still didn’t know Christ, because he judged it by human standards not by Divine.  Once he met Christ and came to know Him as God, that changed his life.  Then saw things not just by human ways, but the Divine.

That applies to everything I teach or anybody else teaches about God.  See, everything we do can be judged by a mere human standard.  You know, anyone who came in here tonight, without any faith, you don’t have a Catholic faith, you don’t know what we believe, you know see what we believe from God’s point of view.  What we do here is very human.  We get dressed up in funny clothes, I mean we look silly walking around the streets in these, wouldn’t we?  Now, I was at a Mass one day, when I went down, a little kid saw me at a barbecue the day before and I was wearing sports clothes, it was at a barbecue.

So, the next time I am all dressed up like this, he was in first grade, and I was walking down the aisle, preaching to the school.  It was in Kansas City.  He said, “Don’t I know you?”  I said, “Yes.”  He said, “Were you at my grandpa’s yesterday?”  I said, “Yes.” He said, “I thought so.  I didn’t recognize you with your dress on.”  See he was seeing it from a purely human point of view.  From a purely human point of view, we are dressed in dresses.  And that would make people laugh if they didn’t know what we were doing.  What are those guys dressed up in those funny clothes for?  But they are not funny clothes, are they?  They are priestly clothes.  But you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t know our faith.

So, anything we do, you know, non-Catholics make fun of lots of things Catholics do.  All that ritual they say, right?  But we all have rituals, it is just a different kind of ritual, that’s all.  What about the ritual of walking down an aisle, accepting Jesus and crying your eyes out.  Isn’t that a ritual?  It is if you only look at it from a human point of view.  But it isn’t if you see it from what God sees.  If you can see human beings accepting Jesus Christ, then that is not funny either.  Something is happening to those human beings, that walk down the aisle and accept Christ.  I don’t laugh at Protestant who do that.  So, I hope that Protestants don’t laugh at us when God works in our lives, in a different way, with a different ritual.

So, we can judge either one by a mere human standard.  Pouring water over somebody’s head.  It looks like you are giving them a shampoo, we call it baptism.  Protestants dunk you.  It looks funny too, from a mere human point of view, when you half drown somebody and tell them they are saved.  That from what is it from God’s point of view, is there something Divine happening there?  In those ordinary simple things that humans say, without faith, are silly.

So, the most human of all things we do, which is the most Divine, is what we do here at night.  It’s called the Eucharist. But without faith, without faith in this Eucharist, judging it by a mere human standard, is meaningless and it is boring.  Unless you see what God sees.  And that is why that verse in the Bible, that St. Paul says, is important to pretty much everything we do, not just the Catholics, but also the Protestants.  Because we can all judge each other, and we can all laugh at each other because we don’t understand each other.  Because each one is going to judge the other by a human standard.  And if we only judge by a human standard, we all look crazy.

I remember I was in New Orleans one time, doing a Charismatic Mass with a priest.  This priest with me, we are all con-celebrating like we are tonight, and the monsieur looked at me and in a very loud voice, everybody was praising the Lord, waving their arms, singing in tongues, doing this.  He said, what are they doing?  I said they are singing in tongues, monsieur.  He said, “They are doing what?”  I said, “They are singing in tongues.”  He said, “What are they waving their arms for?”  I said, “They are praising God.”  He said, “Well, I hope there is a God, otherwise we are a crazy bunch of you know whats.”

See, wouldn’t that look crazy.  I can imagine, you walk into an Assembly of God or a Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group, or any Charismatics, and you see hundreds of people going like this.  Now from a human point of view, they look like they should be locked up. But you don’t look at those things from a human point of view.  What if they really are praising God?  But that you would have to see from a Divine point of view.

I want to say…tonight, so we can open our minds to see what Catholics believe and why we believe it.  There may be non-Catholics here tonight.  I sure there must be in Alabama.  You can all be out there Catholic, can you?  So, you came, maybe, out of curiosity.  You may not believe what I believe, but at least know why I believe it.  You say, “Well I don’t understand.  I don’t do it, I don’t believe what he does, but at least we know why Catholics do.  At least I know what, I have learned something that way.  You see that we too may have some truth after all.  What I have been sharing the last few nights is based on this song by Dana.

Dana, as I told you before, was a habitual Catholic.  She was that middle category, the group that went to church out of habit.  She was the kind of Catholic that would have held up on a Saturday, if it was a holiday obligation, will this count for Sunday and Saturday?  You know those kind of Catholics?  Will this count for today and tomorrow, Father?  Habitual Catholics, not a relationship with God.  If you ever said that you know where you are at.  If you ask a priest, can you get to do a 2 for 1?  What is your relationship with God?  Be honest.  Are you trying to get out of it?  You don’t like the Mass.  It is so bad that you didn’t want to go twice.  Think about it.  There are a lot of Catholics like that, aren’t there?  What is their relationship with the Lord?

How does the Lord feel when He hears you ask it?  Do you think He might say, “Am I that boring?  Are you that far away from me that you couldn’t bear to come back again tomorrow?”  Well, Dana was in that category.  She admits it.  But in 1989, John Paul II went to Ireland, and she saw that little white figure among 3 million people, that little white shepherd.  We talked about that last night.  And his coat of arms was up there, a big banner, Totus Tous, Totally Yours.  Not partially yours, totally yours.  That is his motto.  He wants to be totally to God, not partially, not 90%, not 50%, not 50 – 50.  Totally!  And we have a Pope who is totally committed to God and to the Church and to his people.  And so, as she was seeing him there, she had a conversion experience.  She experienced the Holy Spirit.  She experienced God.  Jesus Christ became real at that moment in her life.  And she was a big star.  She felt very insignificant.  No one was getting her autograph that day.  No one was noticing her in the crowd.  Even though she was a big-time superstar, like Barbara Streisand.  She was lost in the crowd of 3 million.  She was a little face in the crowd and so she sings that in her song to the Holy Father.  Did you see my face in the crowd?  Did you know that I loved you?  Then she goes on with her verse.

In the second verse, she talks about how he preached justice, and that love was the key that would turn it.  And the last verse is about how she will follow him wherever he leads.  And the chorus was the thing she got first.  It was Totus Tous, totally yours.  The Rock, the Lamb, the Lord, the man.  And it is the words of the chorus that I have been preaching this week.  I have been preaching this mission all year since January.  Totally Yours, Totus Tous.  Now I want it to be that tomorrow, Friday night, in St. Paul’s, the Cathedral.  I want everybody in this diocese that comes to be Totally, Totally Gods, Totally Committed, totally turn your life over.  Surrender.  Accept Christ.  Be Totally His, not partially, not just Sundays, but seven days a week, 24 hours a day, your whole life.  Totus Tous, Totally Yours.

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And so, I have been going through that chorus, the Rock, we talked about that last night.  Jesus said, if you build on sand, your house will crumble, but the man who builds on a rock, the wind and the rain will beat against it, but it will stand.  We know that He made Peter the Rock.  You are a Rock and upon this Rock I will build my Church.  To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom.  And whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in Heaven.  Whatever you lose upon earth, will be loosed in Heaven.  And I told you that John Paul II is a 264 successor to St. Peter.  Anyone who wants to doubt that, go to your Public Library, here in Birmingham, Alabama, where it is only 2% Catholic, not like St. Louis, where the Baptists are 2%.  See St. Louis, we are Catholic, down here you are the other way around.

So go to a Baptist Library in a Baptist city and look in the book called the Reference Library, the History of the Popes.  It is in every public library, should be.  If it isn’t, order it and it will give you every pope from John Paul II back to Peter, 264 names in line.  In care they don’t have it in the library, and they won’t get it for you, you can get it from a Catholic library.  It names every pope from John Paul II back to Peter.  So, there is only one man on earth, claiming to be the successor of Peter.  There is one man on earth claiming that title and he can trace himself back in an unbroken line, just as Ronald Reagan can trace himself back to George Washington, just as the Queen of England can trace herself back to the first King of England.  We know that Ronald Reagan is the President of the United States.  There might be a lot of false people, crazy, who think they are the head of the United States, but there is only one president.  He is elected.  He is the one, until you kick him out.

So, there is only one head of the Church, and the world knows that.  There is only one man claiming on earth to be the head of the Church and claiming it for 2000 years.  John Paul II.  I spoke on that last night – the Rock.  And people that don’t listen to that Rock will crumble away because they are building on sand for listening to false prophets.  And tonight, I said I was going to talk about the second word in the song, which is the Lamb.  And Friday will be the Lord and the man, which will be of the two natures of Christ.

The Lamb tonight is to do with the Christ in the Eucharist, the Lamb.  I was also sharing with you about the different approaches Catholics have with fundamentalists.  See, there are two different approaches to the Church.  It is like two different cookbooks.  You know, if you have a Chinese Cookbook, it is not a Mexican Cookbook.  If you try to mix Chinese and Mexican, you will have a horrible meal. It won’t work out; you can’t have Chinese Mexican.  Sweet and Sour pork and Burritos?  It is a different cook and a different menu.

So too many Catholics, who try to become fundamentalists will not stay Catholic.  And if you do, you won’t be a happy Catholic.  If you are a fundamentalist who doesn’t believe in literal translations of the Bible, you won’t be a happy fundamentalist.  You are mixing your theologies.  There are two different approaches.  So, a fundamentalist approach is that this book and this book alone is the Word of God.  And that everything you need, everything you need, is in this book and it is all written out there in English, a good King James English.  If it is not in there, if it doesn’t mention it, then you mustn’t believe it.  And if it is in there, and it mentioned it, that is what you have to believe, just what it said.  That is their approach.

I have shown you this week that that approach doesn’t work.  There are many contradictions in the Bible if you take it literally.  And one of the things that amazes me, there is a new fundamentalist Bible out know, where they mark all the passages in red.  It is already lined; you know underlined when you put the liner in.  All the passages they want you to memorize and the interesting thing, there is not one single line lined in the 6 chapter of John.  I wonder why.  Cause the 6^th chapter of John is all about the Eucharist.  Sixth chapter of John, all that long chapter, read it when you get home.  Read what Jesus says, what Jesus says.  And there is not one single line underlined in this fundamentalist Bible.

Why?  You mean that is not the Bible?  All those things that Jesus said weren’t important.  I thought they had a full Gospel.  Why did they leave the whole 6^th chapter unlined.  Look and see if they unlined, 1 Corinthians 11 and see what St. Paul said about the Eucharist.  See if that is been lined with a liner.  It isn’t.  Why?  Because the Eucharist isn’t important to them.  It is so unimportant to them that they celebrate it rarely.  And when they do it is only symbolic.  And yet Jesus said, unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you cannot have my life.  Isn’t that funny, they don’t take that unless literally.  They took John 3:5 literally.  Nobody wants to quote John unless you are born again.  How come that “unless” counts and the “unless” you eat my body doesn’t?  I wouldn’t say that is the full Gospel.

So, you see there are two different approaches to this Bible.  I was sharing last night the arguments I have with the fundamentalists on the radio, I want to continue with that.  I already talked about the Immaculate Conception, showed you where that is in the Bible.  That is one of the things he had a problem with.  I have shown you that already in Scripture.  See one of the other problems I also showed you about – Purgatory.  But you see the thing is, they ask, he said, one of the problems he says to me was, ‘Where are these things in the Bible?”  That is what they are going to ask you and they mean it sincerely.  It doesn’t mean when they ask you, they are attacking you.  They may genuinely want an answer, especially if that is their theology.

See, look at it from the point of view of a fundamentalist.  Put yourself inside their skin.  I am asking them to put themselves inside of ours.  See, I studied the fundamentalist in college.  I majored in Protestant theology so that I could answer them.  I know everyone of their arguments.  I know everyone of their excused.  There is not one single thing they can ask me that I don’t know the answer to.  That is why I wrote a book called Fr. Roberts answers Jimmy Swaggart.  So, I know every one of the fundamentalists’ questions.  There is nothing new.  You better learn some new ones if you want to catch me.

And one of the things they come out with, they say where is the pope in the Bible.  Where is the mass in the Bible?  Where is the Immaculate Conception in the Bible?  Where are the sacraments in the Bible?  And you know what I say to them, none of those words are in the Bible.  They say, “see, he gave in.  He has admitted it.”  That’s right, they are not.  Then my next question is to them, “Does every word have to be in the Bible?”  They say, “Of course if it is not in the Bible, I don’t believe it.  If it is in the Bible, I’ll believe it.”  So great, so where is the Trinity in the Bible?

I would challenge any minister in this town, in the whole state of Alabama, in the whole Bible South, show me where the word ‘Trinity’ is in the Bible.  There is no such word in the Bible, from beginning to end.  No where in the Bible will you find the words, there are three persons in one God.  They are all one and the same God.  Yet, every one of us believes in the Trinity, except the Jehovah Witnesses.  When I told that to the gentleman who called on the phone, he said why don’t they believe in it.  I said because it is not in the Bible.  He said, “Well where do we get it from?  I said from the same Church that gave you the Immaculate Conception, the 7 Sacraments, the Mass, and the Pope.  It was given to you by a Counsel of the Church.  We talked about those last night.

But something that really blows their minds, the word Bible is not in the Bible.  No where in the Bible will you find the word Bible.  Isn’t that strange?  And they always saying it is in the Bible.  It gets complicated, doesn’t it?  And if everybody who reads the Bible, gets infallible truth, without a teaching Church, how come there are so many Bible religions?  What I would like to do would take a Church of Christ minister, a Pentecostal minister, a United Church of Christ minister, a Methodist minister, a Lutheran minister, and put them all together in a room with a Bible and see how much they agree on.  Yet they are all taking it literally.  If it was that simple, they would already be one, wouldn’t they?  They wouldn’t have separate churches, would they?  So why are they in separate churches?  Because they disagree what the Bible means.  That is why they are separate.

So, if they can disagree, why can’t we.  We were here first.  It is not that simple.  So, you see, the word Trinity is not in the Bible, but the truth of the Trinity is.  The truth of that Trinity was taught by a Counsel of the Church, 300 years after Christ died.  And every Catholic and Protestant has accepted it.  Even though it is not literally stated in the Bible.  The Church has even changed the day of the Lord.  No where in the Bible does it say you have to go to church on Sunday, does it?  That is why the Unitarians don’t believe in the Trinity, by the way.  And it is also why the Seventh Day Adventist goes on Saturday.  Because it doesn’t say the Lord’s Day is on Sunday.  So why do all the Protestants and the Pentecostals go on Sunday?  Because the Catholic Church changed the day.  It was the Church that changed the Lord’s Day.  It was the Church that gave us these teachings.  Down through the ages, through the Counsels.  But nothing the Church teaches is against the Bible.  That is the point.  Nothing the Church teaches is against the Word of God.  Everything the Church teaches can be substantiated by the Bible.

So tonight, I want to give you a teaching on the Mass.  Because one of the things they are going to say is, well, where is the word ‘Mass’ in the Bible.  You won’t find the word Mass in the Bible.  It is like that with the Immaculate Conception, it’s not there.  But the truth of the Immaculate Conception is in the Bible.  I showed you that the other night.  And so is the Truth of the Mass.  The word Mass isn’t though.  That is the name we give it, to that truth, like the Trinity.  The Truth of the Trinity is in the Bible, not the name.  The Truth of the Mass is in the Bible, not the name.  But it contains many truths.

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So, I would say the different approach we have as Catholics, and with Catholics I would include Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalians, and many Lutherans, who believe in a Sacramental Church. For us, the Bible is not a jigsaw puzzle you memorize piece by piece, like a broken jigsaw puzzle. My experience with most people that go to Bible studies who are not Catholics and some Catholics, too, take that approach. They get little tracks, and they memorize certain passages. They probably have 200 verses they’ve memorized at most. They learn them so they can attack us. Like, “Call no man on earth your father.” Heard that one?  You must have heard that down here. That’s why they all call me brother. Do they memorize these little verses out of context?

Let me answer that since I raised it, by the way. It says call no man, not no priest. What do they call the man married to their mother if they don’t call him father? So, if we are breaking it, so are they. But they disregard what St. Paul says in the first Corinthians 4^th chapter. St. Paul says, “I am your father in Christ.” St. Paul says that. Was he disregarding the words of Jesus? Paul says, “I am your father in Christ.” Paul didn’t think you couldn’t use the word, did he? So, you see, it can’t be that simple, then, can it? It must be a little bit more complicated than what people make out it to be.

So, our approach is not to take the Bible and learn broken pieces, separated from each other. Our idea is to take pieces of the puzzle and put it together. We understand the Bible as a whole, not its pieces. When I do a jigsaw puzzle and say to these kids here too, so you get interested, you probably have done a jigsaw puzzle. I don’t know what you do when you do one. I get all the straight pieces first, get all my straight pieces, that’s going to be easy. And I find all the corner pieces, especially if it’s a square. And I get my corner pieces in, and then I attach my straight pieces, then I fill in some fillers and as I fill it in, suddenly the picture comes alive. But while I look at the pieces I can’t see a picture probably, I just see colors and shapes. It’s not til I put it in that suddenly that piece takes a whole different meaning when I place it there.

So, tonight, I want to talk about at least a couple of the corners of the jigsaw puzzle. I haven’t got time to put all four corners in, but I’ll let you know I could. And in the first corner I want to put in the priesthood, the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. You’ll find that in the 12^th chapter of Genesis, the 18^th verse. Its prophetic. It’s the first corner piece of our jigsaw puzzle.

See, God has all these pieces together. God knows where they all go, and it takes a lifetime to put them altogether and the Church is still putting them altogether sometimes. That’s why She keeps going on having councils and discovering new truths, it takes years and years to get this jigsaw puzzle altogether.

And so, in that first corner piece it talks about a priest by the name of Melchizedek, who is also a king. And what’s so strange about that? Because in the entire Old Testament, it’s the only man in the whole Bible of the Old Testament who is a king and a priest. That’s unique. I don’t think it’s by an accident. It’s by God’s design. It names who he is, Melchizedek.

What’s he doing in this story? He comes out of nowhere and goes back there. We don’t even ??? in that one verse. What’s he dragged into the story with Abram for, before he is even Abraham? Let’s go back to that verse. “Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine and being a priest of God most high, he blessed Abram with these words,” and he gives the priestly blessing and goes.

What does all that mean? It’s a prophetic verse, that’s what it means. What does prophecy mean in the Bible? It means that something is placed there because it is going to have a greater meaning later on. That’s what the prophets are there for, so that those prophecies can be fulfilled. So, what’s prophetic about this?

First of all, he’s a king and a priest. That’s unique. And he’s king of Salem. Salem means peace. So, he’s king of peace. The town he was king of is Salem. You’ve probably seen Salem Lutheran Church. That means peace Lutheran. So, he is king of this little, tiny village called Salem. Later on that little village will become a great big city, known all over the world. It will be come Jeru—salem. City of Peace. See, its prophetic for Jesus Christ.

There’s our first corner piece. He’s a king of the one true God who is also a priest and his name is Melchizedek. And he offers God a spotless sacrifice, an unbloodied sacrifice of bread and wine.

Now, let us put a straight piece in there. You find that in the first chapter of Malachi, the prophet, the 11^th verse. When I ask any fundamentalist who takes the Bible literally, if a prophet had his prophecy not fulfilled, what kind of prophet would he be? A false prophet. So, would there be someone claiming to be a real prophet in the Bible who is false?

Malachi is also in the Protestant Bible. And what did he prophesy? “My name will be great among the gentiles for a spotless sacrifice will be offered from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.” Now ask any of the other Christians in this town if they are offering sacrifice. And they’ll tell you they’re not. Ask any other gentiles you know of that are offering sacrifice to God, a spotless one of bread and wine, and if they’re not claiming to offer a sacrifice of bread and wine, then the prophecy of Malachi has not been fulfilled and Malachi is a false prophet. What’s he doing in the Bible? Take him out, tear the page out. Another piece of the Bible. Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

We’ll also move to Hebrews. We’ll go to Psalm 110 before that. In Psalm 110 verse 4. It refers to the Messiah, going back straight onto that corner piece. “The Lord has sworn, and He will not repent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” In Hebrews, which most fundamentalists love to quote to Catholics, in the 5^th chapter, “Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. And he is able to deal patiently with erring sinners for he, himself, is beset by weakness and so must make sin offerings for himself as well as well as for the people. One does not take this honor on his own initiative, but only when called by God as Aaron was. Even Christ did not glorify himself with the office of high priest. He received it…” What? The office of high priest, “…from the one who said to him, you are my Son the day I begotten you. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” In Hebrews 5. Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek? Not just a preacher, he’s a priest. He’s taken on a priesthood. What did Melchizedek offer in sacrifice? Bread and wine. Was it a bloody sacrifice? No. It, therefore, was a sacrifice according to the prophet Malachi “which must be offered continually from the rising of the sun till the going down thereof, an eternal sacrifice.”

Oh, the fundamentalists say to me when they read on in Hebrews, but it also says Jesus did it once in once only. But you Catholics are doing it every day. That’s right. It’s an eternal sacrifice. Then how can it be done again and again and again? They are videotaping me right now. Long after I’ve left Alabama, you can put that back on and play it. I won’t be doing this all over again. But every time you play it, I will be present again. And every time you play it all those who weren’t present will be present again. And so, each time that’s played, what I’m doing now will be done again and again and again. But I’m not doing it again. I did it once. Christ did it once as the priest in the video tape. So that those of us who weren’t there can be present again and again and again and again at that one eternal sacrifice that fulfills the prophecy of Malachi. In the first chapter the 11^th verse.

Let’s move on now to our story tonight which is the Lamb. In the 14^th chapter of Abraham, or the 22^nd chapter of Abraham. In the 22^nd chapter of Abraham, there is the testing of Abraham. You had the Scripture just two Sundays ago through the Sunday liturgy, so your familiar with it. God says, “give me your son Abraham.” And so, God takes it, Abraham, with his son up a mountain and there they are walking up a mountain and who is carrying the wood of the sacrifice on his back? Isaac. See, it’s a prophetic scene here. A piece of the jigsaw puzzle. It even mentions that Isaac is his only son. See, originally, he was not. He had another son called Ismael, who was illegitimate. So, his only recognized son, Isaac. It stipulates here, the only son carrying the wood of the sacrifice on his back up the hill. Do you think God saw a picture of Jesus there who carried his cross to calvary?

When they get to the top of the hill, there are some prophetic words again, a great big piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Because Isaac, seeing the wood for the sacrifice and seeing the altar, says to his father, where is, where is the lamb? And Abraham answers prophetically, “God Himself will supply the lamb.” You’ll find that in the 22^nd chapter of Abraham. “God himself will supply the lamb.” And he will. Jesus is the Lamb of God.

Let’s look at that Lamb of God, now, because there are some very important words in Jewish religion. There is no way you can understand the Christian church if you don’t understand our Jewish background. That’s why it started off with a Jewish story. See, we’re fulfilled Jews. If we don’t know what the Jews did all those years, how are we going to understand what we are doing here? What did they do?

And you’ll find all that if you read Leviticus, read the early chapters of Leviticus and I would say read, start reading at the 12^th chapter of Exodus up to the 16^th. I haven’t got time to read all that, but you can do that for homework. If I was given a complete mission for the whole week, I’d go through it bit by bit each night, but I’m trying to capsulize. In there, you’ll hear all about the Lamb of God.

You see, Moses tells God, rather God tells Moses the kind of sacrifice He wants. Moses tells Him to select a lamb, a male lamb, a lamb without blemish and they will sacrifice that lamb for the last drop of his blood. In fact, what they are going to do, they’re going to string it up like that, like Christ on the Cross. When you look at a crucifix, with the arms out like a lamb like this, a little lamb hangs over the altar, like Jesus on the Cross. And the high priest will pierce the heart of the lamb and the lamb would drip blood onto the altar till the last drop until water comes out and then when water comes out with the blood, then the high priest will take the lamb down.

And then they are to eat the body of the lamb in a holy meal. They don’t just kill the lamb. They are not just washing clean in the blood of the lamb, they have to eat the lamb in a meal, otherwise they haven’t completed the sacrifice. That you’ll find in Exodus. You’ll find all the instructions about sacrifice in Levities, all dealing with the lamb. Well there are many chapters all through the Bible about the Lamb and the Blood of the Lamb and the power of the Blood of the Lamb.

And so how is Jesus introduced by John the Baptist? We read that in the first chapter of John, in the beginning where John introduces Christ. It’s in the first chapter of John, the 29^th verse. “The next day when John caught sight of Jesus coming toward him, he exclaimed, ‘Look there’s the Lamb of God.’” Now, he wasn’t saying that to 20^th century Alabamians or Missourians who said show me. He was saying it to Jews. What is a lamb of God to a Jew? It’s the lamb, a male lamb without blemish, a man without sin who they sacrificed at Passover, whose blood washes them clean to the last drop, whose body they eat in a holy meal.

See I’ve given you quite a bit of the jigsaw puzzle and I’m just dealing with the Lamb. There’s a lot more about the Mass besides the priest and the Lamb. I’ll show you that you must have a priest and a victim. Christ is the priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, and so he offered himself at the Last Supper, like a priest of Melchizedek. You see, He’s doing it at the Passover where the Jews offered the Lamb, where they eat the Lamb in the holy meal. What do they do at that meal? The Jews also eat unleavened bread and drink a cup of wine. When they eat the bread they remind themselves that when they were in the desert, they were fed with the bread of heaven. And they still do that. And they drink from a cup of wine to sign the covenant. See, if I had time and was going to go further, we’re not, I could go into the other corners about the meal and about the covenant because there is a covenant here too. So, we call those four corners, when we put it altogether, the Mass. The priest, the Lamb, the Covenant, and the Meal were offered in sacrifice. That’s what we call the Mass. It’s all in the Bible, isn’t it.

Everything we do here tonight is in the Bible, everything. Why is it that the Protestants disregard, Evangelical Protestants who don’t believe in the Real Presence, why do they disregard the whole 6^th chapter of John? It’s the longest teaching of Jesus in the Bible. Read it when you go home, word for word, from beginning to end. And John writes that Bible passage, that chapter, that whole gospel when he’s an old, old man.

I told you last night some theologians believed he dictated it, because he was too old to write. We thought he was like Fr. Peyton from EWTN. And so, he dictated it. I don’t care if he dictated it or what he did. It’s in the Bible, it’s part of the gospels, John. And it’s at the end of the first century.

There are 70 years of Christianity now. And Christians know their secret symbols. You know, whenever I see someone do that (make the Sign of the Cross), I know they’re not Baptists. I know they are Catholics. If they do it backwards, they are Eastern Orthodox. See, I know, we recognize each other by that, we do that.

And so, the early Christians would have recognized each other by a fish because a fish stood for Jesus Christ. Whenever they heard “fish”, whenever they saw fish, it meant Jesus. And what happened in that miracle of the sixth chapter, what did they multiply? Bread and fish, bread and fish. Fish is what? Jesus.

Do you think it’s by accident that the apostle uses the exact words of the Mass in that miracle. He says Jesus took the bread and he blessed it, and he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying. And he multiplied it, not in his hands, in the hands of the apostles. Do you think John did that by accident in that story? Do you think John was getting a message across? Do you think all those believers who had been going to Eucharist for 70 years didn’t know what he meant? He wasn’t writing the gospel to convert people. He was writing a gospel for believers.

There is a lot of hidden mystery in John. That’s why John’s gospel is so sacramental because he lived the sacraments. It’s John who talks about baptism. It’s John who talks about having sins forgiven and reconciliation. It’s John who talks about Eucharist. And so then there’s that long monologue, which part of which was read to you tonight in the gospel where Jesus says you’ve eaten this bread and you’ll die. But the bread that I’m going to give you is my own flesh.

And as soon as he started talking about eating his body and drinking his blood, they rebelled against him, like a lot of Catholics have done today. Even here in Alabama, there are Catholics who have left the Church. You’ve left the Church. You’ve walked out and gone somewhere else because you’ve turned your back on the Eucharist.

I met a lady the other day in St. Louis, Italian. She used to be a devout Catholic, she goes to a nondenominational church now because she found Jesus. I said where do you get the Eucharist from? She said, I must say I miss it. Miss it? YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT? What do you mean, you miss it? “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you cannot have my life.” Read it in the Bible. In the King James version if you’d like. Then you tell me why they walked away if it were only a symbol.

And if it were only a symbol, why didn’t Christ call them back? Why didn’t he say you misunderstood me? What did the Jews have? Didn’t they every Jew eat bread at Passover. Doesn’t every Jew drink wine? What would be so fantastic about doing that then? You know on one of my shows, I was doing in Hollywood, I had a little obnoxious little girl one night, she was one of these rich yuppy types from one of those rich schools. She was in the audience, and she started off saying, I know that little wafer is supposed to be a symbol of Jesus but its awfully boring. I said a symbol of Jesus? She said, you heard me. I said a symbol of Jesus? She said, yes. I said, aren’t you going to a Catholic school? She turned to the rest of them and said don’t you think it’s a symbol, they all agreed. I said it’s not a symbol, IT IS JESUS, IT IS JESUS. And she laughed.

But you see they laughed in the gospel too. They found it a hard saying and walked away too. And Jesus didn’t call them back. Jesus just let them go. And he turned to the apostles and said, “Will you leave me also?” He gave them an ultimatum. Read it. What does it mean. What was Christ saying to Peter? Do you want to go too? Then Christ must have meant what he said. But do you know why they can’t accept it?

Because they’re judging it by a mere human judgement, like Paul said. In second Corinthians in 5:16. They only see bread, they only see wine. So, from a human point of view that’s all it is. But what does God see? After all, when you looked at Jesus did you see God, or do you see a Man? How do you know He’s God? Because ??? another human.

Flesh and blood have not revealed this to me. Bread and wine don’t reveal it to you. Faith does. Faith does. It’s amazing how we pick and choose. You ask the Jews, do you believe in a God, an all-powerful God? Yes. Do you believe God opened up the Red Sea? Yes. Do you have any problem with that? No, because He’s a great God. God can open up the sea. God could open up the Atlantic if He wanted to. Do you really believe that? Yes.

Do you believe God can make water come out of a rock? Yes. Do you believe God gave you pancakes in the desert? Yes. Do you believe He fed you there for 40 years? Yes. Why do you believe that pancakes came down from heaven and there was no pancake house there. How do you think you got all that food every year for 40 years, 40 years? Nobody had any problems with that. Nobody questions that.

Say why? Because He was a great God, our God is God. Do you believe God became a man? Well, they have a problem with that. That’s why they stay Jew. They couldn’t accept it. Their faith didn’t go that far. They wouldn’t let God love them that much. So, you say to people, they accepted Jesus Christ, we share with all our Protestant brothers and sisters, everybody in Alabama, everybody out there, the Pentecostals, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Seven Day Adventists, all of us believe that Jesus is Lord. Let’s say Amen to that. Do we have any problems with that?

Then if God can become man, why can’t He become bread? And why can’t they accept it? They wouldn’t let Him love Him that much. Because HE SAID SO. He said, “THIS IS MY BODY, THIS IS MY BLOOD.” He said, “Unless you eat my body, unless you drink my blood you cannot have my life.” What’s the big deal then? What’s the problem if He’s God? Stop picking and choosing with the Bible. If you’re going to have the Bible, take the whole Bible, not part of the Bible. If you’re going to have the Bible, listen to what Jesus says as well as what Paul says.

And what does Paul say? In first Corinthians 11, St. Paul says, “Is not the bread we bless the Body of Christ? Is not the cup we bless the blood of Christ? So let a man come and eat of this bread and drink from this cup that he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself.”

How could you get damnation from eating bread? That would be a hard God. You’re going to damm him because you ate a piece of bread? Because you drank some wine if you were lucky? He said, “He who eats this break and drinks this cup eats and drinks damnation to himself because he has not recognized the body and blood of Christ.” That’s St. Paul not Pope Paul. That’s the Bible not Canon Law.

So how do evangelicals answer that one? Can you underline that with your liner? “Is not the bread we bless the body of Christ? Is not cup we bless the blood of Christ? So let a man come and eat of this bread and drink from this cup. But he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself because he has not recognized the body and blood of Christ.” And it’s all prophesized in the Old Testament, starting with our whole story of Melchizedek in Genesis 14, the priest according to the order of Melchizedek who offered bread and wine. The prophet Malachi, 1:10-11. Psalm 110, a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 5.

See, I can quote the Bible too. See, there’s more than one way of looking at the Bible, now isn’t there. And if we Catholics may be right about this, we might be right about some other things you misunderstood. I wish I had more time to teach you everything.

[A Friend of Medjugorje]

Father Ken Roberts was dynamic. People converted. People at his talks came into the Church. I brought Protestants. They loved him. But just like it always is, somebody like him, so powerful, he was silenced. Do you know what happened? His bishop made him cancel his whole schedule of three years of talks and sent him to be underneath the priest in another church. It was a large church. He was obedient and he had Mass. The Church had three Masses on Sunday and on Saturday and everybody stopped going to the other Masses. They always went to Father Ken’s Mass and the other priest got jealous. And he was not allowed to do public Masses anymore. That’s what happens to saints. His persecution was horrible. He was so hurt, they even made accusations against him and he ended up where we went to see a retirement home for priests. He was so happy to see us. And we were so happy to see him. And I’m going to be so happy to see him in Heaven. This is a great man. And what you just heard and what he just said is worthy for you to listen to again. Your children, your friends, make copies of it, spread it. I pray to him every night for years. I suggest you do the same. We wish you Our Lady, we love you, goodnight.

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