President Trump survived an assassination attempt last night and we're all grateful for that . Glory to God . But there was a man behind him who was murdered , and two other men are in critical condition . Their lives have been changed forever , so our prayers go out to them . We hope that they survive this .
It's an amazing collision of two opposing forces that are happening today . This is part one . Today . On part one , I just want to talk about the scriptures because for today . So I'm Catholic and I go to Mass fairly often during the week , but certainly , of course , on Sundays .
But this is just the reading for today , for Sunday , and I want to make the point that God is unveiling this what's going on in the world constantly through Scriptures . If you read Scriptures every day , it's amazing how you start to catch on to the story . You can feel the rhythm of what's happening in this life .
In part two , I want to go deeper into this collision of these two opposing forces , because this is a force that affects all of us , because it starts in the individual human heart and then it's manifested in the world , either into good or evil .
So I'll do that right after this , but people in good faith are going to try to understand what is behind this incident and much more . What is this force in reality that despises President Trump and those who support him so much ?
We know for certain that when he came into office , he was surprised , and we're all surprised by the hatred that came up above to the surface . As we know now and we're learning more every day with the deep state and unfortunately , even we see it in the deep church there's a many-headed hydra of evil .
Hydra is a serpent with many heads , huh , and it's coming at us from so many different places . It could no longer be uh stay hidden .
When trump came into office , it seems like there was a force that uh forced not only the deep state to reveal itself some uh parts of the deep church revealed itself and being in in almost in partnership with the deep state but also the individual human hearts . You could see this in the trump derangement syndrome . That's that takes place today .
It's like the weeds in the weed are poking their heads up . It's like they could not stay under . You know , somehow this person of donald trump uh has forced people to choose to be on the side of the weed or the weeds , and it's an amazing phenomenon , very hard to describe to people , people that say how could you like Donald Trump ? How can you choose him ?
They don't understand that Donald Trump became the spokesman , in a way , as people wanted to choose free lives and live in a country with freedom . And to be free you have to be a moral country , and you know there seems to be no way then to talk to people that have trump interrangement syndrome . You know you think about the .
You know the women on the view say , or these late night tv hosts and and and your neighbors , how do you explain to them ? It's like there's a wall up right , there's something that happened . So I want to kind of unpack that a little bit . It's a phenomenon of people that are blinded to the force of good in the world . There's a reason for that .
This phenomenon makes clear the two opposing forces that are out there today a good and evil . In essence , evil is hard to understand in many ways . The Catholic Church would call it from the Latin mysterium in equitatis comes all the way from the Old Testament , but all the way through . St Paul speaks about this a lot .
It's a Latin phrase that's translated the mystery of evil that began to reveal itself at the dawn of history . You know , in that garden in Genesis 3 , where Satan tempts Eve , and you won't die . You know you'll be like gods who can choose good and evil .
And here it is a man who wants to be like God , wants the power to be like God and call evil good and good evil . And this is a battle and this is a mystery , isn't it ? St John Paul II had an address to World Peace Day .
He called it in 2002 , and he used that term , mysterium and equitatus , to describe the evil that the church and the world must fight against today . And John Paul , he understood this very well . He grew up when first Nazism , then communism , marxism and now neo-Marxism it made itself prevalent in the world .
You know , marxists , the socialists , the marxists , the communists killed 100 million of their own people . Besides all the wars and stuff that they started , we're seeing this unraveling of evil through history and it's getting worse . And there's a reason for that .
Uh , in the 20th and the 21st century , more people were killed in wars right in this , these later centuries , in all of the other centuries put together . It's amazing , and that doesn't even compare to the amount of children that we've killed ourselves in abortion and things like that . So the mass murder and destruction of human beings is crazy .
St Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 , so 2 Thessalonians 2 , verses 6 and 7 , displays this mystery of evil . First he says that there's a force restraining evil . St Paul says a mysterious power of good that holds back the man , he says , of lawlessness and delays his appearance in the world . This is a power .
This lawlessness , this evil is already in the world , but it's being restrained somehow . But there's going to be a point in history . St Paul says that force of good will step out of the way in the mysterium and equitatis . Also , the man of lawlessness will be unrestrained .
In verse 9 , he says the coming of the lawless one , by the activity of Satan , will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders , and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish because and here it is , here it is because they refuse to love the truth and be saved . It always comes down to truth .
What is truth versus the people that are lying to us ? What is good versus evil ? Therefore , god another mystery here sends upon them a strong delusion . These people that have chosen to walk away from God , to walk away from God , have chosen to walk away from his grace . Well , god allows them to fall into these falsehoods and actually makes it worse .
He's going to allow this evil to be unleashed in the world . This is how he makes it worse . He gets out of the way and that force of evil really attacks the human heart , and so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness .
And don't we see that again , you know , when you see the attack on marriage , the family , a child in the womb , if a child escapes the womb . Today we see these gender ideologies that want to render them sterile , even mutilate their own bodies . I mean , how do we make sense of this ? It doesn't .
A man can become a woman and if you go against this , you can be taken out , you could be censured . Parents are put in jail . Today . It's amazing , because they won't affirm their child's delusion about these things . You can't make this up right , this mystery of evil .
I love the way tucker , carlson and russell a brand have are just caught out calling a spade a spade . Today , it's really good to see , you know , when they say look at there's , we just see that there's . This is a force . Uh , these two opposing forces between good and evil , between truth and lies .
I would add to that , just between you know , to add to that beauty , we're taking the beauty out and profaning everything that's beauty , even to the point of burning down churches . It's really something . What's going on ? And I would add also love versus lust and selfishness .
You know , when we see these things like pornography and evil and the violence when you shoot somebody , I mean amazing . What's going on today , right ? So ? A body and a soul . Body and a soul , human body and a soul without grace . The default position is going back to Genesis 3 . It's sin and death . This is just the reality of it , right ?
Mysterium and Equitatis , this mystery , defeated , of course , only by a stronger force . What's that stronger force ? Mysterium Pietatus , the mystery of Jesus' passion , death and resurrection . That's why guys like Tucker , carlson , russell Brand , even if they don't understand everything nobody does understands everything Because , again , these are mysteries , these forces .
But a mystery doesn't mean you don't understand anything about it . A mystery just means there's always more to it . You know , but they're feeling that . You know . Russell Brand is calling himself a Christian now was baptized and I hope he comes in , because the only way to start to understand this evil that's in our own hearts .
That we feel in our own hearts and it manifested in the world , is when you accept Jesus Christ , when you have that opposing power and then everything starts to become clearer because you stepped into the truth . I am the way , the truth and the life For most Americans today . Unfortunately , we've normalized the truth .
I am the way , the truth and the life For most Americans today . Unfortunately , we've normalized the fall . We've normalized sin . You saw that in COVID , the amount of people that were so afraid of catching COVID and dying , who never really wanted to think about any of those things before . In other words , who am I ?
What is the meaning and purpose of this life ? You know , as Christians , we think about the end , because we aim for that right . We're going someplace . We all know we're going to die and I think that's why we didn't react the same way . We sat back and said what is going on here ? We didn't fall for all this right , these strong delusions .
And so what are these delusions ? You know , and if you start to think about it , isn't it true ? Think about . You know all the things that we've fallen for the man-made climate hoax instilling fear , and it's outliving the world's predictions of the end of the world since I was a kid . Isn't it the same stuff ? It's old , boring stories .
The more recent COVID vaccine hoax . The lockdown , the churches hoax . The never ending war hoax . The abortion it's not really a human being hoax . The same sex marriage is no different than any other marriage hoax . The open border hoax . The socialists passing out freebies and fear for voters hoax . The justice for all while locking up a political opponent's hoax .
The man can become a woman hoax . The pornography doesn't hurt anybody hoax . I mean , we could go on and on and on , and I'm just getting started . But you won't see the lies and destructive forces going on unless you step into faith . And so this is where we're at today .
So I just want to read in this first part , the scriptures just from today , just from Sunday's Mass , because God's been warning about this for a long time and he's appealing to us , our individual human hearts . This is the God of truth , of goodness , of beauty himself , the person of love . God is love .
So when you reject the force of what's true , good and beautiful , especially the beauty of love , you're rejecting everything that makes us human beings different than just the rest of creation . Right , we stepped into a love story .
It's such an opposing difference that when you see it that's why I said , when you accept Jesus Christ into your life you start to see these things and then you really start to see how beauty has been profaned , how lies have taken over the truth , how evil has really taken over goodness , and you go no , no , no , no , no .
And this is the person of Donald Trump . When we talk about Trump , it's not . This is a flawed man . We all know this . He's not a perfect human being .
There's no such thing as a perfect human being except for Jesus Christ and our blessed mother , who was brought into the world , and actually her fiat , her yes to God was so profound and so beautiful that she became impregnated with God . Well , we're all called to be impregnated with God , right , we're all called to be temples of the Holy Spirit .
So here a reading from the book of the prophet Amos . This is one of my favorite readings of all time . It just happens to be today . This is chapter 7 of Amos , verses 12 to 15 . Now , just to set this up a little bit , amos has been sent by God to go into these different cities and just say hey , there's a lot of evil going on here .
You better turn . God will not protect you anymore . He's protected . The's protected these .
You know the Israelites , and you see this all the way through when he took them out of Egypt , and all through the whole history of the Old Testament is this of God protecting them , bringing them in , giving them these gifts , and then they would walk away and he'd allow them , you know , to say okay , you know , if that's what you're choosing , and you'd see
that they'd start to lose battles , they'd be taken over , they'd be dispersed , and we see this throughout history . So it's kind of like a wave huh , god calls his people . Sometimes they take it , you know , for a while . Then they get , just like we do in the United States , we've become apathetic to all these gifts and you start to walk away from God .
Who needs God ? Because we have all these gifts already . You don't realize they came from God . So he's been doing that . And now Amaziah is the priest of Bethel , says to Amos so he's an opposing priest , that belongs in this area , where Amos is , and he's pushing back on Amos .
And he says to Amos off with you , visionary , flee to the land of Judah there , earn your bread by prophesying , but never again prophesize in Bethel , for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple , for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple . Amos answering back to Amaziah . He goes I was no prophet , nor have I belonged to a company of prophets .
I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees . The Lord took me from following the flock and said to me go , prophesize to my people , israel , the word of God . So here he is , he goes . Hey , I didn't make my living doing this , I didn't want to do this . He goes . I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees .
And here's what's so beautiful about this as he's shepherding , watching the sheep , right , like a shepherd should be doing , like our church shepherds should be doing , which many of them aren't , which our politicians should be doing , which many of them aren't right . We've become selfish and twisted and distorted the mystery of evil in their hearts , huh .
So what does a dresser of sycamore trees ? Well , while he's out there shepherding , he's out watching over the sheep . There's sycamore trees there and their fruit is very bitter to eat unless you dress them . And what they do is they have a curved knife .
It's a curved , sharp knife and they go into each piece of fruit and at a certain point they cut , just put a slice at the bottom of that fruit . It drains from the inside and while it's draining it ripens inside . So it starts to ripen it and makes it edible . This is the gospel . The gospel presupposes a culture .
It goes into the culture of any culture , of any nation , of any people . It presupposes that they have a culture , a certain way , that they're living , certain things that they do . The gospel goes in and never destroys what's good about that culture . It just goes in and it ripens the culture .
It brings goodness , it brings what's true good and beauty into the culture . And you see that throughout Western civilization , with the buildup of Western civilization . And then now we have the Psalms Lord , let me see your kindness and grant us your salvation . This is again Old Testament , many , many years before Jesus came .
Lord , let me see your kindness , grant us your salvation . We're feeling this already in our hearts . Huh , I will hear the Psalm . It says I will hear what God proclaims the Lord , for . He proclaims peace . Near indeed is his salvation for those who fear him . Glory dwelling in our land . God's protecting us . He proclaims peace .
He brings us into our hearts Kindness and truth from God shall meet . Justice and peace shall kiss Justice and peace shall kiss True justice . You see what I said in the opening here , that this is a hoax . Now that there's a justice in the world where you can throw political prisoners like Trump , try to throw him in prison .
You know the people that backed him up , the people praying at abortion clinics , et cetera , et cetera , all the January 6th people and just throw them in prison . Well , here , kindness , where's the kindness ? Huh , and truth shall meet . Justice and peace shall kiss .
Truth shall spring out of the earth and justice shall look down from the heavens , and then the Lord himself will give his benefits . Our land shall yield its increase . This is what the United States was . It was built on Judeo-Christian principles . Justice shall walk before him and prepare the way of his steps .
So it's getting back to all these things that we see In the second reading . It's a letter of St Paul to the Ephesians . This is chapter 1 , starting at verse 3 . Blessed be the God and Father . So here's the answer . What's the solution to this evil ? Of course it's Jesus Christ .
And so he's saying blessed be the God and Father of our Lord , jesus Christ , who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens , as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world . He already knew who we were from the foundation of the world . Why , how ? Now ? This is Vatican II call to universal , call to holiness .
That we're all to stand up because we know the evil starts in our own hearts . You cannot expect a politician , even somebody like Donald Trump , if they don't assassinate him before he gets a chance to come in , he's still not the savior of the world . Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and we all have to step up .
He can't do this alone anyways , donald Trump . We all have to stand up and we have to take the power of Jesus Christ in order to accomplish this , and we're all called to do this individually . So here's St Paul again .
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord , jesus Christ , who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens , as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him In love .
He destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ , in accord with the favor of his will , for the praise and glory of his grace that he granted to us and the beloved . This is the grace again . So body and soul without grace that the fault position is sin and death . Your body and the soul weren't made like that In the beginning , before the fall .
You know God Ruah , genesis 2 , verse 7 , he blew into it . He took the clay , the same stuff that all of creation is made of , and he blows in himself the essence of his spirit , the essence of who he is , into us , everything that's true , good and beautiful , especially the beauty of love . It fills us .
This is the way we're supposed to be living the body and the soul that has taken this grace back in through Jesus Christ , who comes in after the fall to restore this . When you do that now , you have the potential for human flourishing , you have the potential for human freedom , and we know this . But then we have to act to make it efficacious .
We are spiritual and bodily creatures which mean we don't just live inside our hearts that we have to manifest that love that's true , the good and the beautiful into the world . If we don't , then evil fills that vacuum . And then let me go to the last reading , which is the gospel according to Mark , and here's the finale .
Here , and this is all today's readings . This is what we're going to hear when you go to Mass today . Jesus summoned the 12 , his 12 apostles , and began to send them out two by two , to give them authority over unclean spirits . He instructed them to take nothing for the journey , but a walking stick , no food , no sack , no money in their belts .
They were , however , to wear sandals , but not a second tunic . So what is God saying ? What is Jesus saying to them ? Look , I'm going to take care of you . I don't want you to prepare stuff for this . This is like the prophet Amos Just go out . You're a shepherd and a dresser , a sick marcher . What am I supposed to say ? God , I will give you the words .
He wants us to rely on him . This is for all of us again to step up to the plate right now . These are evil times right now . And how do you change it ? You have to accept Christ , you have to take that grace , and then you have to proclaim it . And he said to them wherever you enter a house , stay there until you leave .
Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you , and this goes for all of us leave there , shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them . You know , when we come up against the Trump derangement syndrome , there's nothing you can do . Just shake the . You know , I mean these are our brothers and sisters , so we pray for them .
I pray for Joe Biden , I mean , sometimes it's hard to do . I pray for Pope Francis . Sometimes it's hard to do , but we're called to do that . The difference between Jesus Christ and everything else is we have to pray for our enemies . You know , I mean it's not easy to do . Because why ?
Because we know that at the end of the day , a human being's not our enemy . The enemy is the enemy and it's this opposing force . But mankind , men and women , accept that opposing force , reject God and they manifest this evil in the world . They team up with Satan . Sometimes it's a mystery of how that happens , but it does . Slowly , over time it does happen .
So he's saying to them rely on me , but go in and out . Don't fight with these people . If they won't listen to you , just shake off your feet and testimony against them . Why ? It's not that Jesus doesn't love them , it's not that he wouldn't want them to come in . He just knows their hearts and he knows they're not going to change .
Really a mystery , isn't it ? So they went off and preached repentance , repentance . What is repentance right ? To turn back , to repent of your sins , to repent of the evil , to repent of the lies , the evil that we've all committed . We're all part of this , we've all sinned .
I'm no different than the person that has Trump derangement syndrome , probably , except that at some point in my life I said no , it can't go on . This is the Tucker Carlson , the Russell Brand examples .
At some point you see the evil and you just say I have to search for the truth , I have to search for goodness , I have to search for beauty in the world , I have to become a person of love . And you do , but you need the power to do that . And so that's the difference , that's the difference and it's a big deal .
So the 12 went off and preached repentance . The 12 drove out many demons and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them , the gospel of the Lord . So they drove out many demons . And we think , well , they're just , they're not really demons , you know , they just thought they're no , no , no .
You know , the force of lawlessness was already in the world . It was just being restrained . And over time in history , st Paul said that man of goodness , right that the power of good will allow , will step back and allow that force of evil . That's what we're feeling today . This force of evil is being unleashed . Where it all ends we don't know .
But it's a win-win situation . When you accept Christ , of course , because you win today you bring the true , the good and the beautiful into this world , but you bring it into your own heart . When you bring it into your own heart , you are now creating a path for eternal life with God , forever . Hey , good to be with you . God bless you .
Watch for part two where I unpack this a little bit deeper . Talk to you soon , everybody , bye-bye .