Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ep46 Interpreting and Understanding the Bible

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:05 — 25.7MB)

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Father Len reveals the obstacles to accurately interpreting and fully understanding the Bible and what it takes to overcome these hurdles.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len shares a fun study about how people rate their driving abilities to illustrate the effect of ego on how we see ourselves and view the world.
  • Human beings believe their opinions and decisions are rational, but studies reveal they are most often based on personal desires.
  • It takes great humility and freedom from ego for us to accurately see ourselves.
  • In spite of more than 400 detailed prophecies in the Bible about the coming of the Christ, very few people showed up for the birth of Jesus.
  • Father Len explains why shepherds and Zoroastrian priests were the only people to go to Bethlehem to honor and celebrate the birth of Christ.
  • For all eternity, God desired to take on human form to teach us how to be true human beings. Ironically, the great desire of human beings is to become godlike, chasing power and wealth and distance from the problems of fellow humans.
  • In spite of constant study of the Messiah prophecies and authoring a complicated compilation of these prophecies, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essene monks missed the coming of Christ because they were highly judgmental and filled with hate.
  • If you read the Bible through the lens of your own ego, prejudice and social position, you’re always going to come up with a wrong interpretation.
  • Hatred, selfishness, and ego blind us from finding God even if we memorize and are able to quote the Bible.
  • The Bible warns us of false prophets, those who interpret Scripture through their own agenda.
  • The “Left Behind” series of books by Tim LaHaye is an example of false prophecies.
  • Sincere desire to discover truth, humility, and love are essential to accurately interpreting the Bible.
  • It takes years to gain humility and the self-awareness to recognize how often we interpret the world from our own perspective and we’re not always right.
  • “Awareness” by Anthony De Mello

Ep45 Bible Symbols Revealed and Explained-Part 1 Water

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:43 — 14.4MB)

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Father Len reveals what water symbolizes and why it shows up so often in the Bible.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The Bible contains many symbols that God repeats over and over again.
  • The symbols help us understand what it means to be a human being.
  • Many symbols in the Bible end up becoming part of the way Christians worship.
  • In the Bible, water always symbolizes change, a change in consciousness as we are becoming who we’re meant to be.
  • There’s always some sort of death associated with each change as we give up something of our old selves in the process.
  • Father Len explains what Catholic Christian worship rituals involving water symbolize.

Ep43 The Satan and the Mission of The Satan

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:22 — 18.6MB)

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Father Len reveals the origin of The Satan and why The Satan constantly misrepresents the words of God and tempts us to sin.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len Introduces “The Great Chain of Being,” the theory that describes the hierarchy of creation and reveals that heaven is populated by more than human beings.
  • God created human beings to rule the earth and care for creation.
  • When God created humanity, God charged the Angels he created with the responsibility to guide humanity.
  • “The Satan” is a title given to angels who continue to worship God, but defy God and refuse to serve inferior humans.
  • The word Satan means accuser.
  • The Satan is bent on misguiding and destroying humanity.
  • Father Len tells the Garden of Eden story to illustrate how The Satan induced Adam and Eve to commit humanity’s original sin.
  • Following the sin of Adam and Eve, a recurring prophecy began predicting that a child of a woman would someday become “the snake crusher” to destroy evil and the Satan. That child turned out to be Jesus.
  • Father Len tells the story of King Nebuchadnezzar from the Bible Book of Daniel to illustrate the sin of pride and how the Satan is always trying to decrease our humanity.
  • “The Lord of the Rings” by R.R. Tolkien
  • The Satan, “the accuser,” is constantly pointing out our faults will trying to divide humanity and make us less human.
  • Father Len relates the story of Job who actually becomes more human and a better human through suffering inflicted by the Satan.
  • The Satan frequently tempts us to embrace evil in order to acquire power, glory, and the kingdom.
  • We can’t blame the Satan or the devil for succumbing to evil and becoming less human. We always have a choice.
  • Evil is present in the world, but a true human being is able to say no to it.

Ep42 Only One Thing Will Unite Us

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:38 — 24.4MB)

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Father Len presents the solution to contention and division in our individual lives and in the world around us.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • “Secretaries rule the world. Never tick off a secretary because they control everything.” – Father Len
  • Unity comes through Christ.
  • The word Catholic means universal.
  • Father Len shares the hope for unity found in the two creation stories in the Bible.
  • We are meant to live in unity with other people, even when there is great diversity.
  • The word devil means divider. The devil is constantly tempting us to be divided against each other and God.
  • Humanity is forever attempting to come up with a source of unity outside of Christ.
  • We end up more divided when we develop external things to bring us together.
  • Ego will always tear us apart.
  • The Bible chronicles humanity’s quest for unity.
  • Father Len shares the Bible story of the Good Samaritan to reveal God’s most important laws.
  • We cannot possibly love God without loving one another.
  • The Catholic Church is the most ethnically diverse movement in human history.
  • Father Len tells the story of what CS Lewis learned about the effect other people and community have on our personalities.
  • Father Len explains why private personal relationships with God are not Christian and not spiritual.
  • God is perfect loving community.
  • The one thing God desires in the Bible is family; that all of us will look at each other as brothers and sisters.
  • Unity is not brought about by conformity.
  • Our relationship with other human beings should be founded on God.
  • The only path to unity is the self-sacrificing love Christ came into the world to model for us.

Ep41 The Real Christmas Story and Its True Meaning

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:51 — 20.0MB)

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Father Len reveals the real “reason for the season” is us.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • “When I look at the world upside down, that’s when it seems right to me.” – Jeret “Speedy” Peterson
  • Father Len tells a story about geese to illustrate why God became a human being.
  • Christmas is a revelation of who we are meant to be.
  • To be good is to become a true human being.
  • Our true humanity is to live like Christ.
  • “Christianity is the attitude of amazement at the dignity of the human person.” – Pope John Paul II
  • “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” – Irenaeus
  • “Paradise Lost” by John Milton
  • “Faust” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Sin is the temptation to stop being a true human being.
  • Evil is the no to human goodness. Evil is the no to all that is good.
  • Satan is not one who hates God. Satan is one who believes that God can’t love him or us.
  • The good news of Christmas is that God became one of us to show us how to become true human beings and discover the goodness of being a true human being.
  • Salvation is not the story of God rescuing us from an evil universe. Salvation is the story of God coming as one like us to teach us what true goodness looks like.
  • Absolute love will embrace death.
  • Absolute love cannot be contained by the tomb.
  • Sin is anything that deprives us of our full humanity.
  • Christmas is the beginning of the journey to our true humanity to love and to be connected.

Ep40 Doubt Can Be a Virtue

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:02 — 26.6MB)

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Father Len reveals how doubts and questions about how God works in the world lead to wisdom and faith.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len explains the difference between doubt that is healthy and holy and doubt that is not healthy or holy.
  • True faith is believing in a God of love and impossibilities.
  • Doubt can be a blessing or a curse. Doubt about how God is working in your life and why is a blessing. Doubt about God’s love and your relationship with God is a curse.
  • “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” – Paul Tillich
  • “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” – Francis Bacon
  • Doubt can be a great friend of the truth.
  • Real learning occurs when we allow doubts and questions to arise.
  • The Greek word for doubt means two separate views. So, doubt is being torn apart by seeing two opposite things and trying to reconcile them.
  • “Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.” – Khalil Gibran
  • Jesus allows and encourages people to challenge and question him throughout the Bible. Jesus is comfortable with questions because he wants them to lead to wisdom and certainty.
  • “People should question what’s going on in the world, question church authority, but not question that they’re in an unbreakable relationship with God.” – Father Len

Ep39 Commitment and Happiness

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:38 — 21.6MB)

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Father Len explains the relationship between commitment and happiness.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len shares the story of NFL football player Bo Eason and what he learned about commitment from fellow Pro Jerry Rice.
  • “There’s No Plan B for You’re A-Game” by Bo Eason
  • Commitment breeds commitment. Indifference breeds indifference.
  • There are two types of commitment: “even if” and “as long as.” Even if commitment never wavers even when there is trouble, hardship, sickness, sacrifice, and suffering. As long as commitment is always conditional on finding something easier and more pleasurable to do than keeping the commitment, like watching a favorite television show or going to a party.
  • Father Len shares a favorite “even if” commitment story from the Book of Ruth in the Bible.
  • Commitment leads simultaneously to suffering and happiness. Uncommitted people don’t suffer much pain, but surprisingly, it’s the committed people who are willing to suffer that end up happier.
  • TED Talk: “The Surprising Science of Happiness” by Dan Gilbert
  • Irish explains how commitment saved his marriage.
  • Father Len embarrassingly explains how watching the Oprah Winfrey show helped him understand why couples who live together before marriage have double the divorce rate of those who don’t.
  • “If you chase two rabbits… You will not catch either one.” – Russian proverb
  • People who are low on commitment are also low on control over their egos.
  • Bible symbolism: the number seven shows up frequently and is code for complete commitment.
  • Happiness and suffering go together.

Ep38 Why is There Nothing about Dinosaurs in the Bible?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:13 — 17.6MB)

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Father Len explains the relationship between science, history and the Bible and why dinosaurs aren’t present in the Bible.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len reveals that some Christians and members of a group known as “young earth creationists” believe that dinosaurs aren’t present in the Bible because they didn’t exist. They fear science is driving God out of the human experience and therefore they deny rigorous scientific evidence of such things as the age of the earth and the existence of dinosaurs.
  • Demanding that belief in God requires rejecting scientific facts is committing intellectual suicide and damaging to religion and the image of God.
  • When science challenges us, we should be grateful, discerning, and welcoming of scientific truths.
  • There is an ancient belief in Catholicism that God gave us two books of Revelation. The Bible and the book of nature.
  • Thomas Aquinas believed that if nature and scientific facts prove your interpretation of something in Scripture is wrong then clearly your interpretation of the Bible is wrong.
  • The Catholic view is that religion supports science and science supports religion.
  • “Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.” – Albert Einstein
  • Galileo believed that scientific exploration is a noble endeavor of faith saying, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
  • The first book of the Bible is not Genesis. It is the back story for the first book of the Bible which is Exodus. The purpose of Genesis is to explain that God created everything to be good.
  • The Bible is not a science or history book. Its purpose is to explain what it means to be a human being. There is no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible because they are not relevant to becoming a free and loving human being.

Ep37 Fear of God

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:42 — 23.5MB)

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Father Len reveals what fear of God really means and why it’s awesome.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len uses a story about Avalon the lion from the CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia collection of books to begin to illustrate what fear of God is and isn’t.
  • Fear of the Lord is one of the top seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
  • Father Len explains the difference between terror and Fear of the Lord.
  • Fear of the Lord is actually about awe and respect.
  • Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
  • Father Len shares a fun personal story about swimming with Dolphins to illustrate what awe feels like.
  • “Be not afraid” is a common greeting from Jesus because he does not take pleasure in people fearing him.
  • God is definitely not a tyrant.
  • Father Len exposes what narcissists fear to explain the difference between healthy and unhealthy fear.
  • Father Len reveals how awe and intrigue helped famous scientists and philosophers like Albert Einstein and Socrates discover the existence of God.
  • The book of Deuteronomy connects the Fear of God to the observance of morality.
  • The real experience of God is unnameable because there is no thing in creation that is like God.
  • Mystic Meister Eckhart would often pray, “God cleanse me of God,” which meant cleanse me of false notions of God.