Tag Archives: God

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

Ep33 The Relationship between Grit and Success

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:27 — 19.6MB)

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Father Len explores how grit helps us get through difficult times and succeed in life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len explains why he is grateful for the COVID 19 pandemic.
  • Father Len explains how the pandemic helps reveal the existence of God and why God allows suffering in the world.
  • Father Len introduces the spiritual virtue of grit and illustrates how and why it helps us mature as human beings and succeed in life.
  • Father Len explains the dangers of living life as a “perfect fragile.”
  • Father Len explodes the myth of “talent” as the primary predictor of success in life.
  • Grit in the religious world is fortitude. It’s one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
  • Grit is learned and earned through sacrifice, pain, and a little bit of suffering.
  • “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth
  • Life is sacrifice.
  • Father Len offers concrete ways to increase grit and determination.
  • Father Len shares the moving story of Adm. James Stockdale and how grit helped him and his fellow prisoners survive years in a Vietnam War concentration camp.
  • “The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero” by Timothy Egan
  • “Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined” by Scott Barry Kaufman

Ep31 What Death and Funerals Teach Us about Life

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:37 — 20.7MB)

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Father Len and Irish explore the life-changing benefits of death and funerals.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len shares his moving and powerful tradition for commemorating the victims and heroes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and what it reveals about life and death.
  • Father Len explains how funerals make us better human beings.
  • Father Len spells out the difference between a funeral and a “celebration of life.”
  • Father Len tells the story of how comedian Garry Shandling’s parent’s decision not to allow him to attend his older brother’s funeral screwed him up.
  • Father Len shares the story of what comedian Stephen Colbert learned from his mother at his father’s funeral.
  • Funerals are incredibly healthy because they provide closure, a sense of meaning, and a perspective on what’s really important and enduring in life.
  • “Something about death makes us wise—we suddenly become high-minded, forgiving and focused on the best in people. How can we do better at seeing living people through the “eulogy lens”? – Tim Urban Twitter: @waitbutwhy
  • Funerals reveal human connection and the value and importance of community.
  • Father Len tells the story of a funeral for a young father’s dad that revealed what kind of dad he wanted to be for his three boys.
  • Funerals are an essential tool for passing on important values from one generation to the next.
  • Funeral rituals have been around for 10,000 years as a means to say goodbye, mourn what has been lost and to forgive.

Ep29 Winning, Gratitude, Happiness, and Jesus

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:17 — 15.8MB)

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Father Len explores the relationship between gratitude, happiness, and finding the presence of God in everyday life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The custom of athletes and entertainers thanking Jesus after winning games and awards inspired this episode.
  • Father Len uses the ancient Jewish feast that celebrates the birthdays of trees to reveal the importance and value of gratitude.
  • Gratitude helps prevent narcissism and entitlement.
  • Gratitude helps us grow and mature as true human beings.
  • Gratitude makes us happy.
  • Gratitude improves our health.
  • Gratitude makes us more compassionate.
  • “It’s impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.” – Naomi Williams
  • Father Len introduces “The Daily Examen” gratitude exercise created by St. Ignatius.

Ep28 Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:47 — 23.6MB)

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Father Len and Irish grapple with the mystery of God’s intention for sickness and suffering in our lives.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Irish shares his gut wrenching experiences with his youngest son’s heart attack and multiple kidney failures.
  • Father Len tells the story of his father finding joy late in life after contracting ALS.
  • Health, wealth, and personal achievements aren’t necessarily what makes life beautiful.
  • Father Len shares neurosurgeon Eben Alexander’s revelations from a rare illness and near death experience that turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.
  • “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife” by Eben Alexander
  • Father Len shares the stories of suffering and sickness that caused St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Julian of Norwich to become great Saints.
  • “Revelations of Divine Love” by St. Julian of Norwich
  • We discover God in our difficulties.
  • “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed every day.” St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:16
  • Where did we get the idea that if we’re good, God is obligated to bring us health?
  • “There’s this fear that if we don’t have health and wealth and popularity, somehow our life is cursed. Maybe, like my dad, life becomes blessed because of sickness.” – Father Len
  • Sickness teaches us how precious and frail life really is.
  • When someone dies, even though we know life is temporary, it’s always a shock.
  • The fact that we’re shocked by death means there’s something in us that says life should be full and death is wrong. There’s something in us that says sickness is wrong because we are meant for a full life. Maybe we’re not going to have that life here. Heaven is where we’ll have the absolute fullness of life.
  • Joy can exist alongside sickness and suffering. Happiness can’t. Happiness is external. It depends on things like how we look, what kind of car we drive, and how much money we have. Joy is internal.
  • “In life, we have to trust in someone or something. We can’t go through life without trusting. Everybody has to trust in something, even in the midst of loss and suffering. I trust that the God of life will bring greater life.” – Father Len

Ep25 Tour of Hell

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:27 — 23.3MB)

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Father Len takes us on a tour of hell exploring its origin and history providing glimpses of heaven along the way.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Hell can be hot and cold.
  • Hell is complete separation from God.
  • Heaven is complete union with God.
  • God is the source of life, love, community, justice, and compassion.
  • Hell is being separated from life, love, and community.
  • God offers life and love to all people as a free gift, but that doesn’t mean all people accept the gift.
  • Hell is often associated with fire, but in the Bible it is also depicted as a cold and lonely place.
  • The image of fire is also connected to heaven in the Bible.
  • Could it be that the fire of heaven and hell is the same, the fire of God’s love?
  • Life is a matter of preparing to live in the fire of God’s love or forever rejecting it.
  • If you live your life with hatred and selfishness, maybe pure love is something that you can’t stand.
  • People can create their own hell right here on earth. It’s not just an imaginary place where we might end up.
  • You separate yourself from God when you fail to live a life of love.
  • God wants everybody united in heaven, but that doesn’t mean everybody will be in heaven.
  • “The gates of hell are locked from the inside” – CS Lewis
  • Hell is something we create by our own choices, not something created by God.
  • God permits those who reject community, justice, compassion, and love, which is God, to live in the hell they create.
  • The images of heaven and hell help point our lives in the right direction.
  • Hell is a choice of selfishness and cruelty over love.
  • The gates of heaven are always open for those who love.

Ep24 Hell is a choice

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:08 — 15.7MB)

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Father Len explains why God doesn’t send anybody to hell.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len answers the question why a loving God creates human beings he knows will go to hell.
  • Free will is one of God’s greatest gifts to each of us.
  • Free will defines human beings.
  • We are free to choose heaven or hell.
  • Heaven’s gate is always open for us to walk in.
  • “The Great Divorce” by CS Lewis tells the story of people in hell who have the opportunity to look into heaven and choose not to walk in.
  • Father Len shares the Bible story of the rich man and Lazarus to illustrate how and why some people surprisingly choose hell over the love, unity, and community that is heaven.
  • Heaven is a place where everybody loves everybody else. Even Minnesota Vikings fans love Green Bay Packers fans.
  • God’s not going to force anybody into heaven. He’ll beg, he’ll plead, but if you want hell, you can choose it. God will respect your choice.
  • Father Len explains the big difference between God knowing someone will go to hell and causing someone to go to hell.

Ep20 Good and Evil Are Hard to Define and Fully Understand

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:48 — 21.8MB)

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Father Len explains why defining and fully understanding good and evil is pretty much beyond our ability as humans.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The only wise reaction to evil is faith in God.
  • The mystery of what seems like evil to us may actually be something used by God for our good.
  • Father Len explains why we shouldn’t settle for cheap and easy answers for why evil and suffering exist in the world and instead humbly ask questions and more questions.
  • We will not understand evil until we can have the same perspective as God.
  • There might not be answers about good and evil that we can see and understand until we get to heaven and can look back in time.
  • Real wisdom is acquired through intimate experience with suffering.
  • What we proclaim as good may actually be bad for us.
  • What we proclaim as evil may actually be good for us.

Ep17 Race, Culture, and Jesus

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:22 — 15.9MB)

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Father Len reveals why Jesus came into the world as a Jew and why God created multiple races and cultures.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • God chose an enslaved, weak, and hated people to show God’s strength and bring love into the world.
  • Father Len reveals his joke about every Jewish feast.
  • The Bible constantly wrestles with racism.
  • There is just one race in the Bible. That’s humanity. There are many different nations, but they’re all part of one family.
  • Humanity is united by the language of love not rules, regulations, politics and technology.
  • Father Len tells his favorite racism story where God’s punishment for a Middle Eastern woman’s racism is to make her skin white as snow.
  • The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, has made dozens of appearances around the world over time. Always appearing as a person of the nation in which she appears. This to signify that Christ is present in all of us no matter what the color of our skin or our country of origin.
  • If Jesus came into the world today he might well have black skin and be of African descent.

Ep16 What is forgiveness and why do it?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:33 — 25.2MB)

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Father Len explains what forgiveness is and isn’t and the powerful positive effects it has on us and those around us.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • We live in an age of anger. It defines our politics, the way we drive, our Facebook posts, and even our religion.
  • A lot of religious people baptize anger and make excuses for it by calling it righteous.
  • Nowhere in the Bible does it mention God’s having righteous anger. There is no righteous anger. Anger is anger.
  • There is a joke about Irish Alzheimer’s. It’s when you forget everything, but those you’re mad at.
  • People often confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Forgiveness doesn’t require reconciliation.
  • Everything is forgivable, but not all things can be reconciled.
  • Forgiveness means you’re not going to be trapped in a prison of anger, bitterness, and resentment. It’s a source of freedom.
  • Attempts to reconcile with the sociopath can be problematic. An invitation to get hurt again and again.
  • Forgiveness that skips over justice and doesn’t hold the offender accountable is fake forgiveness. Its amnesty and submission to the wrong. It turns forgiveness into the way of the weak and not the strong.
  • Why should we forgive? First and foremost because God said so.
  • Father Len describes how forgiveness gave Nelson Mandela freedom.
  • Father Len tells the amazing story of a young actress whose career was ruined by Alfred Hitchcock, but she was able to forgive him and later attend his funeral free of anger, bitterness, and resentment.
  • Bitterness has a long-term effect on the brain. It makes you dumber.
  • Anger contributes to bad decision-making.
  • Wounded people wound others. If you hold on to anger and a really deep hurt, you’re likely to hurt other people.
  • Forgiveness silences the voice of the offender that keeps telling you you’re a victim and you have no dignity.
  • Forgiveness contributes to better health and a longer life.
  • Dr. Robert Enright’s “International Forgiveness Institute”
  • “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” – CS Lewis
  • The book, “A 1000 Acres” by Jane Smiley is a great story about the power of forgiveness.
  • People who’ve been able to forgive a deep hurt have a much greater capacity to love.