Tag Archives: Catholic Church

Ep23 Freedom is a Virtue

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:53 — 18.2MB)

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Father Len explains why freedom is a virtue and what it takes to achieve real freedom.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Real freedom is achieved when we become free to live a life of love and community, free from selfishness, ego, anger, hatred, and revenge.
  • Father Len tells the story of how Congressman John Lewis’s faith gave him the freedom to love his enemies.
  • Father Len illustrates the opposite of freedom with the story of a very wealthy and brilliant Englishman. He had all the money and time to do whatever he wanted to do in this world, but became imprisoned by his ego, selfishness, anger, and insecurity.
  • We all wear some sort of psychological mask at times to make us appear to be shiny and happy people able to do whatever we want.
  • Religion can free us from our psychological masks.
  • Father Len shares the story of a millionaire Hollywood producer who traded his huge mansion, fancy cars, and extremely unhappy life for a tiny house, a bike to ride to work, and a happy life.
  • The constant need to get whatever we want in this world is a type of slavery or idolatry.
  • An Idol is something that promises fulfillment, but leaves us empty.
  • Religion doesn’t satisfy all our wants. It frees us from them.
  • Real freedom requires sacrifice.
  • “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Chocolat – The movie
  • WALL-E – The movie

Ep22 Are the Bible and religion outdated?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:11 — 23.1MB)

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Father Len explains why the wisdom contained in the Bible about what makes for a good life is timeless.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

  • “There is nothing new under the sun” – Qoheleth, Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • People have forever struggled with the same problems, made the same mistakes, and needed the same solutions to solve their problems and the same remedies for their mistakes.
  • The Bible stories are always challenging our tribalism, addictions, use of money, our sense of justice, our compassion, and even our sense of religion.
  • “Faith and evidence are inseparable. Indeed, faith is a response to evidence, not a rejoicing in the absence of evidence.” – John C Lennox
  • Technology does not make us evolve. It adds conveniences to our lives. What really makes us evolve is religion.
  • We are hardwired for religion.
  • “Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief” by Andrew Newberg, Eugene D’Aquili, and Vince Rause
  • Every experiment in atheism has led to massive slaughter.
  • If we get rid of religion, we just replace it with something else. We always end up worshiping something.
  • “In the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff. It’s the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.” – David Foster Wallace
  • Religion is only outdated for those who are unconscious that they’re worshiping something.
  • Whatever controls your life is what you’re worshiping.
  • What people resist when they say the Bible is outdated, is not the Bible. It’s their interpretation of the Bible.
  • “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
  • “Great Expectations” a movie about “gods” that control us.

Ep21 “Crazy” and “Annoying” People

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:22 — 13.2MB)

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Father Len reveals how distancing yourself from “crazy” and “annoying” people in your life can separate you from parts of yourself that need attention.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • There are multiple stories in the Bible that reveal how distancing yourself from people in your life causes you to lose part of yourself.
  • Father Len explains the “sin of distancing” and how it affects us.
  • The problems we have with people in our lives often reveal problems we have within ourselves.
  • When we build walls around ourselves to avoid problems, we pay a price.
  • It’s easy to hate people from a distance.
  • Arguments and disagreements with people in our lives can be incredibly healthy because they can help us recognize and force us to deal with our own issues.
  • Life is supposed to break our hearts at times. When we experience pain and frustration we develop humility and the ability to love.
  • A whole heart is a broken heart. Distancing ourselves from “crazy” and “annoying” people will keep us safe, but we won’t have whole hearts.

Ep19 Why does God create us fragile and flawed?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:22 — 13.1MB)

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Father Len explains that we’re all born in the image and likeness of God with gifts, defects, and work to do to become mature human beings and find our way to Christ and each other.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The Hebrew word for image is the same word as Idol.
  • There was a time when a King was perceived to be the image of God.
  • We’re all made in the image of God regardless of the color of our skin.
  • God is pure loving community so the image of God is all of humanity not a singular human being.
  • Jews and Catholics believe we storm the Gates of heaven together, not alone.
  • Father Len explains the difference between the image of God and the likeness of God.
  • Every human is given gifts to make the world a better place.
  • God created us pure with work to do to become mature.
  • Father Len explains how and why God created man and woman.
  • Once we know self-sacrificing love, we become true human beings.
  • God creates every human being with a fault that is not a defect in the eyes of God. The defect helps us find our way to Christ and each other.
  • If we were all created perfect, we’d all be the same. We’d be just like every other human.
  • “Revelations of Divine Love” by Julian of Norwich

Ep15 What Is Prayer?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:23 — 8.6MB)

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Father Len shares his love of prayer. He explains what prayer is and isn’t and the purpose of prayer. He also offers some ideas for developing your own personal prayer life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • True prayer is listening. It’s about being totally mindful of God and being in the presence of God.
  • Prayer is not about providing God with frequent intelligence briefings about stuff we want because God is the “big candy machine.”
  • Father Len shares a fun story about a very kind and well-meaning minister and his wife that were concerned about the inadequacies of the car he was driving at the time and volunteered to “pray him up a new truck” to illustrate what prayer shouldn’t be.
  • Prayer is about being in the presence of love and wanting it to control you.
  • Father Len shares a favorite type of prayer he uses called “The Daily Examen” created by St. Ignatius 500 years ago.
  • Meditation on virtues like joy and love is an effective type of prayer that can help us find God in the fingerprints of our day while providing a sense of calm and peace.
  • Our whole life should be a love affair with the divine that inspires us to regularly spend time with God.
  • Some of us confuse entertainment that is self-gratifying with prayer. Father Len explains why golf is not prayer.

Ep14 Finding Lost Faith

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:31 — 25.2MB)

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Father Len explains what causes a loss of faith and gives listener Jennifer some ideas for finding her lost faith.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len explains the difference between faith and belief.
  • Faith is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it will atrophy and you’ll lose it.
  • Faith is like a seed. It’s a gift from God. We must prepare the soil in which it grows. The soil is our hearts. The best means for preparing the soil is prayer and reflection.
  • Faith is like water. It needs a path to flow. Prayer and reflection dig the “trench” that allows faith to flow.
  • Prayer and reflection are habits that give birth to faith.
  • Father Len introduces one of his favorite tools for feeding and deepening his faith, “The Daily Examen” created by St. Ignatius.
  • The daily practice of gratitude will make you a happier person and deepen your faith.
  • “Feeling Good: the New Mood Therapy” by David D Burns M.D.
  • Life is a matter of negotiating problems.
  • Troubles in life do not cause faith to evaporate. Quite the opposite. We can find the presence of Christ in all of our problems.
  • “God whispers to us in our good times, but shouts to us in our pain.” – CS Lewis

Ep13 Understanding Human Evil

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:40 — 23.5MB)

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Father Len reveals two primary impulses God gives us and how we can use them for good or evil. This episode was recorded before the murder of George Floyd, but it couldn’t be more relevant.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Human evil is the most difficult kind of evil to grapple with because it’s what we do to ourselves.
  • Human evil is never part of God’s plan.
  • God created human beings with two primary impulses. One is rooted in self-interest or self-protection. The other an inner sense that alerts us when we’re violating God’s law and urges us to live lives of generous care for other people.
  • “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Ep9 What is the Bible and why does it matter?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:06 — 17.5MB)

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Father Len explains what the Bible is, where it came from, why it matters and how to use it.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The Bible is a collection of books of sacred stories that span thousands of years.
  • The Bible is not a rule book. There are rules in the Bible, but they only make sense in the context of the stories in which they are contained.
  • The stories in the Bible give meaning to why we’re here and help us understand the purpose of our lives.
  • Bible stories are stories of a community written by a community explaining sacred reality from many viewpoints, different viewpoints, and even opposing viewpoints.
    • The wisdom contained in the “Book of Proverbs” is innocent and sweet like a young teenage girl.
    • The “Book of Ecclesiastes” critiques everything in the “Book of Proverbs.” Imagine a 40-year-old guy with a cigarette in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey in the other sitting down to share his perspective on life with the innocent and sweet teenage girl.
  • The Bible tests our ideas about life and reveals truth from many different angles. It offers the wisdom of generations and generations.
  • Wisdom grows over time. Wisdom at one part of your life may not work at another. Your truth at age 18 might be true, but it’s a limited truth. Your truth at 50 is another type of truth and it might be true. When you get to 90, you’ll see the world much differently than you did at 18 or 50.
  • The Bible uses many genres to reveal truth. It contains large amounts of poetry, historical facts, myths, and fiction. All are sacred stories.
  • The Bible is inspired by God and directed by God, but written by human beings for human beings.
  • The Bible should be used as stories. Complete stories. Isolating and quoting individual chapters and verses from Bible stories can be problematic. Even though the words are correct, their meaning can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted when removed from the context of the overall story and its meaning.
  • The Bible disagrees with itself at certain points, and it’s meant to, because then you have to change your thinking.
  • If you’re going to study the Bible, read it regularly in a community with a community’s perspective. Read it slow. Let it challenge you.

Ep8 How do we know God is real?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:28 — 15.1MB)

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Father Len reveals that evidence of God is always present in us and around us, in all aspects of our lives. He explains why some of us recognize and accept this evidence and others don’t.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom 

  • What evidence are you looking for? What evidence are you willing to accept?
  • CS Lewis was head of the atheists in England until a walk through nature made him begin to realize he did believe in God. He then came to recognize lots of other evidence of God in his life that he hadn’t permitted to affect him.
  • People see only what they want to see. They don’t see the world as it is. They see the world as they are.
  • All of life is evidence of God. There’s something quantitatively different about life itself versus inanimate life.
  • Love, joy, pain, suffering, it’s all evidence of God.
  • Father Len uses a monopoly game analogy to explain the difficulty people have recognizing and accepting evidence of the presence of God.
  • “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis S Collins
  • Dorothy Day was a confirmed atheist until she held her baby daughter for the first time and instantaneously felt an overpowering sense of love and joy.

Ep6 Wrestling with Money

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:49 — 10.8MB)

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Father Len helps listener Sarah grapple with her relationship with her money and how much of it to give to charity.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len introduces the biblical concept of “poor in spirit” from the Gospel of Matthew 5:3.
  • “Poor in spirit” doesn’t mean that you’re actually poor. It does mean money has no control over you and it’s not your primary source of joy and self-worth.
  • Father Len shares the story of an elderly couple with a net worth of $50 million to illustrate the effect of being “poor in spirit.”
  • Father Len describes the relationship Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates have with their money and their charitable giving to help listener Sarah grapple with how much she should give to charity.
  • Father Len explains why he loves the image he saw as a kid of a tiny box containing all of Mahatma Gandhi’s material possessions when he died.
  • It’s irresponsible not to save money for retirement. Otherwise, you can become a burden to other people. Morally, you don’t have that right.
  • Assessing your real relationship with money is about honestly recognizing why you do what you do with it.
  • There isn’t a mathematical formula for how much money to give to charity. It’s living a life of “poverty in spirit.” It’s balancing the responsibilities we have of taking care of ourselves and making the world a better place.