Welcome to the Catholic Influencers podcast where we go deeper into Sunday's gospel reading to help you influence the world for Jesus. I'm Danii Sullivan.
and I'm father Rob Galea. And this podcast is presented to you by FRG ministry.
Welcome to the podcast, the Catholic Influencers Podcast live or not so live from the FRG ministry office, which today is pretty full.
It's like the opposite of live we're recording this, but it won't be published for a while and then you could listen to it at any point. But it's live in our lives. Yes, so I feel like it's live right now. So we're here in Bendigo, in Victoria, in Australia, Bendighetto. Bendighetto, but you know what Bendigo comes from? The word Abednego which is a scriptural , a guy in the Bible. There you go, fun fact. My town that I grew up in, it's a very small town.
It's called 'Undera' and according to Wikipedia it's an indigenous word for fat. There you go. And there are two families that live there and a thousand cows.
There's more cows than that.
More than a thousand cows. That's what you had. That's it . That's a dairy dairy town, yeah. And why was it called fat? I don't know . Just according to Wikipedia. I don't even know if that's legitimate, but the internet says so, so I'll believe it . It must be so, yeah. Anyway, how have you been father rob? I've been, well I'm just driven in from Melbourne to be here for this recording and then I have awedding here on a Friday afternoon.
And it's quite a warm day where like in spring, but spring in Australia is like, we jumped from the low twenties to mid thirties yeah, so it's pretty hot. It is gross. Even this morning I drove in from Melbourne, it was hot. I was thinking I need to wear sunblock. Even though I am in the car. I know in Australia our landscape is so bizarre where like Bendigo is quite dry heat, but then the further you go North, the more humid it gets.
But then Tasmania, I don't even know, does Tasmania have summer. Tasmania is cold. It's a cold place. I've never been, but I'll go one day and hopefully the sun shines. Yeah, and we don't really understand. I mean coming from Europe, I can't really grasp but as Europeans country , they grasp the aridness to use the word we were using last week. Two weeks ago on the podcast , where we talked about it being so dry, the dry heat.
When I first came here I just, I kept getting static shocks like yeah, you get so many static shocks. Like I touched the car handle, I get a shock. I get off the carpet to get a shock. The heat is so dry compared to Europe, which is sometimes like where I come from in Malta even 80 to a hundred percent humidity and so when it's 30, yeah it doesn't feel like 30. Or even with have to had a discussion with Chris, our german intern, about like reapplying sunscreen.
You can't just put sunscreen on once a day and hope that that survives. Like you have to keep putting it on or otherwise you get burned and there's a hole in the ozone layer here. It's just a mess . Which is healing I hear , which is yeah, it's closing. Anyway, that's what I read. Well I was speaking to someone from Europe that couldn't understand that I had never seen snow. You haven't seen snow? There's a photo of me in the snow when I was two. Okay, so you have some snow.
Well I can't remember it. Yeah. Wow. Okay. But there is snow not in Bendigo in our diocese, Mount Hotham. That's still four five hours away. Still our diocese. You make it sound like I just haven't left my house all winter . Well it's the up the mountain, probably more than four hours. If you get to the top of the mountain. Scripture, we need to get to the Bible. And as we're saying, so we're being watched by and laughed at and smiled at by people in the office.
So we have over here we have Janine , who is my assistant. We have Carol who's here helping with fundraising. And then we have also Neville say hello, but you have to shout. Heelloo! Neville comes from, I picked him up from the airport last night. He comes from Sydney . Okay. So I think we need to get to our scripture verse . We are four minutes, 27 seconds into our podcast and we have not yet gone in. So let's begin. So this week's gospel reading comes from Luke 21 verses five to 19:
Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived.
For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.” Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you.
They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.
Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.
That's , I must commend you on the way you read it. So devoted. And so it's such a devotion and it sounds so gentle, but it's such a violent scripture and you read it in a way that's so beautiful [laughing]. [gentle voice] And there will be nations against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms. Yes, exactly. And you will be persecuted. Oha...[laughing] this is some serious scripture here. This is prophetic. So there's a lot of scripture that is, that is a didactic in a sense teaching.
It teaches us a lot . So Jesus, the teacher, there's also the historical, so to speak, parts where we learn about the life of Jesus. But here now we have the prophetic where God, Jesus is a prophesying what is going to happen. And nothing new is being said here, but what Jesus is doing, nothing new as in the Jews knew exactly what was going to happen because it had been prophesied in the old Testament. But what Jesus is doing is putting it into the context. He's confirming it.
One, and also putting it into the context of himself as the Messiah, as though the encourager, also the one who is to come. And so this , um, this scripture verses is when people would have heard it, when they had Jesus talking about it, they would have left with such heavy hearts. You know, because it confirmed the tough stuff. You know, we want to hear good stuff, ay. We want to hear that God is going to be with us.
God is going to show us mercy, that God is going to show us grace in which he does. But there's also consequences . There's also judgment. There's also , the fact that we need to heed to the laws of Christ, the laws, otherwise we're going to suffer the consequences, but also the consequences that are inevitable. Even those who are faithful. And this is what Jesus is talking about here.
Thank you for that nice little summary because like father rob and I we study separately for the podcast and then we come together and go over the notes. And I think the first thing I said this week was: Oh , father rob, I've got nothing. That was very difficult. I don't know what to take away.
So thank you for that summary and yeah, like it is, you know, they would've left with heavy hearts, but I also like, my heart is heavy cause I'm like, well like, you know, and Jesus talks about the second coming of Christ and that hasn't happened. So we're still in this... We are still waiting... still in this time of suffering and persecution all around the world. You used the word we used a few weeks ago, travail.
We're still in travail. We're still waiting like a mum, like a a pregnant woman waiting for the to be born. That's in suffering and in pain, but knowing as well, the second coming of Christ is not something bad. It's something beautiful. Something that we should be excited about, but it's not only the second coming that Jesus talks about here, he talks about, he talks about a thing known in Jewish culture as the day of the Lord.
Now the Jews believed that the world, as many of us would believe in, many Christians would say today hear in American politics, you hear American preachers , you hear all around the world that this even again to use Kanye West who in his album, in his songs, he talks about being overcome by evil at time, which is we're surrounded by evil. Everywhere you look there is evil. There are Wars, there are rumors of war, there are greedy politicians.
There are corrupt church people, you know, and it's just a so much evil in this world. And this is what they talk about, the conception, the conception of the day of the Lord being into ages. One is the age, the present age, which is still hasn't changed 2000 years later, still a time being overcome by evil. So much evil. But they also believed in the age to come, which is Jesus, what Jesus is referring to here.
And this is done in different stages and this is the time of terror a time when there's transition, you know, from the evil , which is again, the world is pregnant with evil . All of a sudden it's going to give birth to terror and this is going to happen suddenly. And this was scary because this is what the Jews believed and they feared that would happen in their lifetime. And we too fear that it would happen in our lifetime a time where Terror is unleashed. And for some people it is.
And people who've experienced Wars and things like that. Okay, so let's talk about it in the context of Jesus. So Jesus is standing there and he's confirming these prophecies and it's confirming this diamond. It's also relevant to us today. But think about it in the context of history. Okay, now we know what happened after Jesus died. Jesus died in what year? You think? Like AD...
33? 33 if he was born in AD zero. Yeah. Like if he was born, but we think, let's say it's between AD 33 and AD 50 and then the scriptures continued to be written, but Jesus was prophesying this time of terror , which actually happened in AD 70 something terrible happened in AD 70 and that was when the, you know, Jerusalem had Roman law. Okay. It was the Romans and the Jews lived happily together, you know, and that's how we have the story of the scriptures.
You know, the tax collectors helping the Romans and then Herod and pilot and all of that. But at some point the Romans invade Jerusalem. They take over Jerusalem, they burned the temple. And basically over 1 million, 100,000 people died during this great siege and then 97,000 survivors were taken into captive. But it was a terrible time of starvation to the point where the historians write that the Jews even resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
It would have been just an incredibly difficult time. And this is what he talks about, with the Jewish nation being obliterated and the time of terrorists . In a sense he was prophesying this moment, which was to happen just a few years later. But again, Jesus didn't finish off with just this prophecy . He finished off with it with a promise as well.
Yeah. So Jesus like talks about this, you know, the temple , the destruction of the temple and I don't know, I have these stories told in three of the gospels. It's in Matthew, Mark and Luke. And in all three times it kind of starts with a disciple or someone admiring the temple, admiring its for its beauty and its , you know, adornment and jewels . And it would have been a beautiful building. And then Jesus kind of like, here's that. And straight away talks about the destruction.
And then after that he talks about this second coming. How does that all fit into the destruction of a temple that happened in 70 AD?
Well, again, this is one of the things that he talks about. He talks about the time of terror and the time of difficulty. But he also talks and says, Hey, hold on because I'm coming again. You know, I'm going to die. At that point, they didn't know that he was going to die, but he alludes and we know now it's through the eyes of the Holy spirit that he was referring also to the second coming of Christ. And the early church waited for this second coming.
But he said before Christ comes again, before this time of terror is over, they're going to be false prophets. They are going to be people who claim to be Christ, that are not Christ. There are going to be people that that claim to have the solution and to claim to have the peace that I promise, but they're going to be all around you. But be careful. Be careful. Keep your eyes through the terror, keep your eyes on me on Christ.
And this is something so difficult, especially through the persecution and then you, we know that the persecution of the Christians began and so people he knew would find it difficult to hold onto him. He knew they would find it difficult to be faithful to him through the terror because it's so much easier sometimes just the runaway, so much easier to give up, but he just isn't encouraging his people just to hold on, hold on because I'm going to come again and I'm going to have the final say.
I'm going to have the final victory. But the victory is for not for everyone. It is for those many or those few who stay faithful to me, who stay on the narrow road, even through the persecution. And then another thing he does emphasize this, it emphasizes this persecution that will happen, that Christians will suffer, that people will go through hell and back, but to remain faithful.
And I think that I'm just thinking back to the beatitudes like he's already promised that, you know, blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Like he just keeps repeating like, yes, there's persecution and suffering and terrible, terrible things. But there is hope in all of that because Jesus has the victory that's already won .
Yes. And this is how this passage concludes. And then you see, it doesn't end in desperation. It ends in a beautiful hope in a beautiful light where Jesus reads the signs of history. And this is why I think just to bring up three points here, or maybe even two points actually.
We'll see how we go . But the first thing is that Jesus sort of read the signs of the times. He was aware of what was happening and he wasn't afraid to speak out about this . You know, it's so easy even for me as a priest to talk about mercy all the time, to talk about grace and to tell people that following Jesus is fun. You know, I work in youth ministry.
What better marketing tool, what better marketing approach than to tell these young people you follow Jesus and you'll never go through difficulty. You'll never go to a persecution , but you know who have been following Jesus for a while. I know that have been following Jesus for a while and terrorists still follows us. Difficulties still follows us, but at the end of the day, this is the second point.
Even though Jesus talks explicitly and says that there will be difficulty, but he also promises his disciples that you would, that they would never meet that tribulations alone they'd never be alone. Even through the persecution that there's this talk, he talks about the safety that overpasses, the threats of the earth. And just to think about that verse.
I can't remember where it is in the Bible that he says, and not one hair of your head and we'll be harmed, but it's not talking about the physical hair on your head because they , people were burned alive. People were tortured, people were crucified, people like some of the saints and the martyrs were killed in such a brutal, absolutely brutal, brutal, torturous ways. And people go through brutal and torturous , difficulties and struggles in life.
But the thing is that he's promises us that, Hey, if we remain faithful, we're not going to lose our soul. We're not going to lose our hope. You can see that, and this is, I think, something so beautiful, that God is with us. God's never going to forsake us. He's never going to abandon us.
This is just a thought that I've had. Now that you know, yes, Jesus has won the victory and we know that. And there is a second coming. And that is something to look forward to with hope as well because of what that means and all of that. But while we're here on earth, they're like, you know, there will be suffering and there will be trials and we all experienced in them in different ways. And Jesus hasn't left us alone for that. He has given us, you know, the church has given us the sacraments.
But another beautiful thing is just the supernatural world of our guardian angels and archangels immediately like Saint Michael . I love the st Michael. You know, the prayer to him of just asking for protection because there's going to be, you know, sufferings and that might be worldly from other people, but we're also under the attack of the devil because the closer we get to Jesus and the more people we bring to Jesus, the more the devil is going to try to hold us down.
So, you know, we have, we have these, these angels and these saints in heaven that are just there to protect us and carry us towards that victory, which is in Jesus.
Yes. And the guardian angels, they are real. You know, they are send there to protect us and we all have a guardian angel. Have you ever named your guardian angel? That's your guardian angel have a name?
No, I mean, I assume, but like a God given name. I don't know how I feel about that because I know a lot of people that have, but then I also know a lot of people that are like, well no , it's already got a name from God. So you can't name it again. What do you think?
Well, I address my guardian angels . So I say I'm like, you know, my guardian angel, just has been so much by my side and I'm aware of this angel and some that I have dialogue with this angel. But I did name my guardian angel. Maybe it's a temporary name, but I don't know whether I should say the name, but I named my guardian angel. It's sort of a Latin name.
And that what I do is I address the angel and sometimes, you know, even just the protection and knowing that this angel is with me , through the struggle, but also , has gotten me out of certain situations. I remember once I was on the boat with my parents and I went out on the tender on the dingy. And as I'm there on the tender, the engine stopped and I was in the middle of nowhere and no one could see me. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to do it .
I could've stayed there for days on this tender. And so what I did was I called my guardian angel, I said, the guardian angel, can you please tell my mom? Cause my mom I think is more aware of God and listening to the voice of God. Go and tell my mom's angel to come and get someone to look for me. And, and you know that it was at a certain time , let's say 12, 24, whatever. I looked at my watch and I said, go and tell him mom's guardian angel.
And my mom tells me at that point she just like got up and she felt that there was something edging her to look out for me. And she got onto the boat and she looked out for me and even though there was no real reason to get worried about me , she got worried. And so she got the neighboring bolt to send out a tender to look for me and they found me. It's just amazing. I think the guardian angel is there to help us, not in the physical as well as the spiritual.
When we need, so I think that was a beautiful learning moment of the presence of this guardian angel with me, but also the fighting angel . It's like you said , Rafaela and Archangel Michael and Gabriel.
Yeah. I think that my guardian angel might just be like face palming a lot of the time . Like Danielle, you've done it again.
Same hear, same hear. Yeah, where like Saint Michael , I think that is just often my go to prayer. Like as a family, our travel prayer was always a prayer to our guardian angels to protect us in the car and protect everyone else on the road. But then just me personally, I always okay, I'm scared or I am , you know, in a situation I don't want to be in, st Michael helped me out the Archangel just I need you right now.
And yes , so many times in my life I just think of the protection that I've, you know, received.
And this is the thing that these angels as well as Mary as well fights our battles as well. I'd say I see Mary as a warrior mama and she fights our battles and fights in ways that we don't even realize we need fighting. And this is one of the, another powerful thing to do is to pray the rosary, you know? Because especially at times when I cannot pray or times where I feel there's a something I need prayer for, but I don't know quite what to pray for.
I tend to the rosary because I think it's also such a powerful prayer. And to have mama Mary fight our battles for us.
Yeah. So like, yes, there is, you know, this second coming of Jesus that will happen and there will be trial and persecution and suffering in the meantime. But we have so many, I guess, yeah. Aids just ready and willing to fight with us and help us through those sufferings so that we can see the hope at the end.
Yeah. So this is a scripture, even though it is a scripture of desperation and, and terror, but it's also one of hope. And that's what , even though the disciples would have been upset because it confirmed something they hoped wasn't true, but all of a sudden Jesus says, but Hey, wait, hold on, hold on. I'm coming again. And those who do remain faithful and I will be with you as you do try to remain faithful and there's going to be joy. There's going to be eternal joy for you.
So Danny, I'm wondering if we could finish off maybe with the prayer of Archangel Michael and we'll pray this to together and for our listeners , um, and for this protection. And some people might feel in their lives that they're going through terror. Other people might feel, Hey, they're terrified that they're going to go through terror, but there's nothing to be afraid of. 365 times through the scripture Jesus tells us, do not be afraid.
And it's not that we don't have reason to be afraid, but the thing is God is going to be with us as we experienced the difficulties.
All right , so we'll pray now. Um, I know there's variations, so pray your own variation, whatever that might be of this particular prayer. Um, if you don't know it now, might be a good time to pause and go get the words in funny so you can read them and hear them at the same time because it really is a beautiful and powerful prayer. So in the name of the father and the son and Holy spirit.
Amen. St Michael, the Archangel. Defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. And may God rebuke him. We humbly pray and do thou a Prince of the heavenly host by the power of God cast into hell, Satan and all the other evil spirits you throughout the world seeking the ruin souls . Amen. Amen. In the name of the Father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen. So we reach to the end of this podcast and we do ask you, please do stay in touch with us.
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We love you guys and thank you so much for listening and may God bless you.