Speaker 0 00:00:00 And the Eucharist. It is a ritual from a human perspective, because in the right we see bread and wine identified as the body and the blood of Christ. And so we take the body and blood of Christ into ourselves. Well, you are what you eat. So we are becoming the flesh and blood of Christ. So we're becoming the family of God by becoming the flesh and blood of his son.
Speaker 2 00:00:32 Welcome to the Catholic Theology Show, sponsored by Abria University. I'm your host, Michael Dnet. And today I am joined by, uh, longtime friend and an esteemed, uh, biblical scholar and theologian, uh, Dr. John Bergsma. Welcome to the
Speaker 0 00:00:47 Show. Thanks, Michael. It's great to be with
Speaker 2 00:00:49 You. Excellent. And, uh, Dr. Bergsma is, uh, what's your title at the St. Paul Center,
Speaker 0 00:00:54 Vice Vice President for, uh, mission and Biblical Theology
Speaker 2 00:00:57 At the St. Paul Center. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. Also a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, Dr. Bergsma has, uh, written many books on, uh, on the Bible. Uh, he's written some popular books, the, uh, new Testament Basics for Catholic, stunned by Scripture, how the Bible made me Catholic <laugh>, and also just a wonderful resource, uh, published by Ignatius Press, uh, an introduction I to
Speaker 0 00:01:23 Catholic, introduction to the
Speaker 2 00:01:23 Bible, old Testa Catholic introduction to the Old Testament, uh, which he and Brant Petri authored the entire Old Testament <laugh>. So it's a wonderful book, and I know a lot of our students have, uh, enjoyed it in their upper level classes. Uh, so, you know, we're doing a series on the Eucharistic revival that's been called for by, uh, the US Bishops and trying to grow in our understanding of the Eucharist and our devotion to the Eucharist. And so I thought let's kind of just begin with some real, I wanna focus today really on the Eucharist and scripture. So maybe just to begin provocatively, uh, with, you know, I think for a lot of people, maybe they would think that the, the Eucharist really, you know, I mean there are all these Bible churches. There are a lot of pro, you know, like, is it, don't you have the Bible? And then the church added the Eucharist. So this is the question, right? Is the Eucharist biblical
Speaker 0 00:02:15 <laugh>? Yes. The Eucharist Biblical? Well, the short answer is, uh, the Eucharist is what the entire bio points towards the wow. The Eucharist is the culmination of, of scripture. Uh, everything builds up to this great moment where Jesus says, this cup is the new covenant consisting of my blood. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, under really, you know, understanding that verse, that's Luke 2220, understanding the significance of our Lord saying, this cup, which is the Eucharistic cup, is the new covenant in my blood, which means consisting of my blood. And that's his sacramental blood, of course, in the cup. It's not, his physical blood didn't co open a vein and pour it in there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's, it's wine that still has the accidents of wine, still looks and tastes like wine, but it's actually the substance of his blood. Now he says, that's the new covenant. And then if you know your Bible, you know, there's this whole series of covenants beginning with Adam and Noah and Abraham, Moses, so on each of which is, uh, has been broken, but the promise of the prophets was a new and eternal one would come, and Gia says, well, this is the Eucharist. So, wow. Yeah. So it's, it's the culmination of the whole, it's
Speaker 2 00:03:24 The culmination. Right? So in a way, the, uh, the, the, the, it's more that the Bible is eucharistic. Right. Maybe we would put it that way. Right. Now, I think also maybe, and maybe sometimes Catholics, uh, may not even pay attention if they happen to, you know, be at mass and realizing that those key words of consecration that happen, right. This take this, all of you eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given for you. Take this all of you and drink from it. For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory. Right. Right. At the heart of that Yeah. Is not only, uh, the saying of Jesus Christ, right. But that that is, that is right from the Bible.
Speaker 2 00:04:08 Right. We have that, yeah. In First Corinthians, we have that same expression in Matthew, uh, mark and Luke. Uh, so maybe, you know, so again, it's that sense that Right, right in the heart of the mass is the Bible, and right at the heart of it is this new and eternal covenant. And so, one of the things I was really hoping for you to do, and I just love the way you answered that question, is you kind of just began to say that, wait a second, to understand what it means to say that, right. The Eucharist is Jesus' reality as instituting and passing on the new and eternal covenant. Just could you say a little bit about what the covenant is, and then maybe, you know, we could begin to kind of walk, you mentioned it's, it fulfills the covenants with Adam and Abraham and Moses and David. And so why don't we do a little walk through scripture together. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:04:57 Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:04:58 Just begin, maybe, I think, but the idea of covenants, probably, I think people hear
Speaker 0 00:05:01 It. Yeah. People hear it. Yeah. We hear
Speaker 2 00:05:03 Probably what it means.
Speaker 0 00:05:04 Yeah. And if Gallup poll put pollsters at the back of Catholic churches and interviewed everybody going out and saying, Hey, what's a covenant? People had scratched their heads, I would say like, less than 5% could give an adequate definition of what a covenant is. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, even though we all know that the Eucharist is a source and summit of our Christian faith mm-hmm. <affirmative>, both the Bible and the liturgy call it a covenant. And we have no clue what a covenant is, and we can't define it. So let me give you a quick definition. A covenant is the extension of kinship by oath. Hmm. Okay. So it's a way of swearing what's
Speaker 2 00:05:36 Kinship maybe
Speaker 0 00:05:37 Kinship is family. Oh, right, okay. Right. Kinship is family. Right. So he's kin to me, maybe that's an older term. I don't know. I live in Appalachia and we use it up there, maybe in the modern world outside of, uh, the hollow. That's the hollers of the, of the Appalachians. People don't understand that. But, but yeah. Uh, extension of kinship. I also, uh, let's put another way, the extension of family by, oh, so a way of swearing someone into your family, you might ask, well, why does God wanna deal with us by covenants? And it's because by our nature, we're creatures sharing that with the other animals, et cetera. God is not content for us to remain creatures. He wants to elevate us to children, elevates us to sons and daughters. And so he extends to us, his covenant ultimately in like the, you know, the, the deep nature of reality. The covenant is the gift of the Holy Spirit, because it's the Holy Spirit that confers on us, or that makes us like God shares with us the divine nature, so we can really be sons and daughters.
Speaker 2 00:06:39 So the covenant then becomes really, in a way, is the oath sworn by God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that adopts us as his children. So people may not be familiar with that term covenant, but they, I think at least a lot of people would be familiar with the idea that we're called to become children of God. Right. Uh, that God is not only,
Speaker 0 00:06:56 It's unique to Christian faith.
Speaker 2 00:06:58 Interesting.
Speaker 0 00:06:59 Other world religions don't teach this. It's blasphemy in Islam to be a child of God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's a metaphor in Judaism. It's senseless in Buddhism because don't even believe, necessarily believe in a God in Buddhism. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so other world religions do not teach divine childhood. We tend to overgeneralize to all other world religions based on our Christian experience, think, oh, yeah, everybody says that we're children to God. No, they don't. Okay. Interesting. That's, and especially to Catholic faith, because even in Protestantism, being a child of God is often reduced to a metaphor similar to Judaism. Mm. But because we believe of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in his real activity in baptism. See, former Protestant, I didn't think baptism did anything to you mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but as Catholics, yes. It does something to you. It gives you the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 0 00:07:44 It makes you a child of God. Before that you were potentially a child. Now you're actually a child. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. So we believe in the real participation of believers in God's nature. So it's not just word language or, you know, hot religious rhetoric, but, uh, we we're really changed. Okay. Yeah. In a way, analogous to what happens with the transubstantiation of the Eucharist, you know, bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, not exactly like that, but analogously, when we're baptized, we become children of God. We're really not the same thing anymore. We're not the same being anymore.
Speaker 2 00:08:18 So because of the real presence in the Eucharist, because of the real activity of the Holy Spirit and baptism, we become really, really children of God. Of God. Yeah. And, uh, there's that beautiful line. I think it's what, uh, first John, right. Uh, three, two. Right. Beloved, uh, we are called children of God. And so you see what
Speaker 0 00:08:35 Love we father's given us, that we should be called the children of God. And so we
Speaker 2 00:08:39 Are, you know. Right. And that really is the good news, that when we see the world, when we see our own sins, when we see, I don't know, the chaos of just, you know, around the globe, the chaos around the centuries, uh, the chaos in a way across the eons even. Yeah. You know, just that the, but we can not only recognize that there's a creator that is intelligent and good, or has some source for things, but actually write this creator that wants us to call him Father. I love the fact that one of the few, um, Aramaic were, uh, there are only handful of Aramaic sayings of Jesus that got, uh, reported. And I think one of the only ones that shows up both in the gospels and in Paul, is Ababa. Yeah. Abba, father Papa, this intimate term of relationship, and that that's really hopeful. Yeah. Indeed. So that's really, so that sense of like defending then the reality of the Eucharist is not, and, but it's not just trying to be Right, so to speak for the sake of being. Right. But it's, it's the deepest meaning of our life Exactly. Is that we can truly call God father, right. In Christ. Right, right. Or through Christ in the Holy Spirit and truly become his children both in this life and in the life to come.
Speaker 0 00:09:54 Yeah. And, and, and the Eucharist is such a, you know, it is a ritual from a human perspective. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not just a ritual. Right. It's an act of God. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's a ritual. But the ritual perfectly illustrates the reality that's actually taking place. Because in the right we see bread and wine identified as the body and the blood of Christ. And so we take the body and blood of Christ into ourselves. Well, you are what you eat. So we are becoming the flesh in blood of Christ. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's, you know, we're becoming the family. Right. You know, because if you share who shares my flesh and blood, it's my children mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, or possibly my siblings, you know, so, uh, so we're becoming the family of God by becoming the flesh and blood of his son. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, and this is again, not just a, you know, fantasy world. This is not just, you know, a Disneyland weekend trip where we imagine that we're in some kind of alternate reality. No, this is actually more real than what's going on in social media than what's going on in the newspapers. This is the, this is the ground of reality. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is that in, in baptism, in the Eucharist, we're really becoming children of God entering this intimate relationship with him, which God has always wanted for us from all eternity.
Speaker 2 00:11:10 Yeah. I love that, that expression too, that you just mentioned of that, um, right. My own flesh and blood mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. We, you know, we hear that, we use that, we see it in literature, we see our, you know, this is, this is my own flesh and blood. And in a way, this is what, when we think about the, the Eucharist being the, the body and blood, the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, then right. When we receive that, then in a way, God is saying to us, you are my own flesh. Right. And blood, we receive in a way that I, I, I was kind of love the image. Uh, you know, that when, if, if we've had a, like, you know, you know, friends that maybe been in car accidents or friends that other things, all of a sudden they get blood transfusions.
Speaker 2 00:11:45 They're, they're sick, they don't have enough blood to live, but they get this blood transfusion and they live. And in a way, I think all of us as human beings, right, we were meant to kind of live mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the divine image, in the divine sonship. Right. But we lost that. And so what we need is to be right, not only adopted in terms of being like externally brought in, but we need to be internally renewed Yeah. With the very blood of Jesus. Right. The blood of the sun pumping in our veins mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:12:15 <affirmative>, the life is in the blood. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:17 So, well, that's wonderful. Yeah. So let's, uh, you know, could you just, uh, say just a, a word or two for maybe some, uh, listeners who, uh, aren't familiar, uh, with, you know, you or your story just, you know, in a, in a, in a minute or two? Uh, not, not too much, but just a little bit of, you know, your background, uh, where you came from, how you started studying the Bible, and how you became a Catholic.
Speaker 0 00:12:37 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So my dad was in a US Navy chaplain, and I wanted to fall in his footsteps and Okay. Went to our denominational school, which is in West Michigan, and did the whole pre seminary and seminary track. Yeah. And served a church in west Michigan, then decided to go on for an advanced degree in scripture and got accepted at University of Notre Dame. That's where we met. Yes. <laugh>, you play a big part of this story, uh, as, uh, as some folks will know. And, uh, so yeah, went to, went to the University of Notre Dame, met you, met some other people. We started entering, uh, you know, theological conversations. And, uh, I was very impressed where you had basically, uh, beat me at, uh, biblical martial arts, and I kept getting slammed to the mat in biblical, biblical apologetics by, by a Catholic.
Speaker 0 00:13:24 And, uh, so, uh, but eventually, um, you know, you got me to read the, uh, the Apostolic fathers, the earliest of the church fathers. And that was really the tipping point as I began to, to recognize that the early church was authentically Catholic, you know, Ignatius of Antioch's, uh, testimony to the real presence at the end of, uh, uh, his letter to Therians chapter six into seven, where he says, where he warns early Christians stay away from anyone who refuses to confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our savior, Jesus Christ. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which suffered for us since, and which the father, in his goodness raised for our salvation. And, um, seeing that early testimony only 10 years after the death of the Apostle John to the real presence, you know, the, the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus, which has suffered and which has been raised, um, made me realize that that was the authentic teaching of the church, and that Protestantism had later departed from that. And so I wanted to be reunited to authentic early Christianity, and that meant joining the Catholic church. So that happened in 2001, and then a few years later, uh, I moved to, uh, Stephenville to work with Dr. Scott Hahn, uh, for a year. And then, uh, got hired at the university while I was down there. So I've been teaching at Franciscan University since 2004.
Speaker 2 00:14:39 Wow. Wow. What a blessing. Yeah. For all those students to be able to learn from you and, and, uh, what a gift you've been to Catholic, uh, biblical theology and biblical scholarship. Uh, and I think, um, and also to just the, you know, uh, trying to disseminate this great wisdom of the church also in all varieties, writing both scholarly articles, popular books, as well as giving talks, uh, you know, many parishes. And I just think, uh, anyway, it's such a good, it's, it's such a good day. And, uh, we we should definitely give thanks to God, uh, for using, uh, you know, two knuckleheads, uh, to occasionally do some good in the world. Indeed. Uh, so maybe let's, let's then go back. Let's go back to the beginning. Sure. And let's kind of let, let's, let's go through some of those covenants that you were talking about. We know covenants now are about kind of sworn oaths that create kinship, that create family bonds that kind of make not only adopt us and make us to beat children of God. Let's go back to Adam.
Speaker 0 00:15:36 Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot we could say about Adam, but let's keep it super simple. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, in the ancient world, uh, you, you swore an oath by repeating a, a gesture or a, or a statement seven times in ancient Israel. Wow. And we see that in the seven days of creation. This is God forming an oath between himself and the world. Well, an oath makes a covenant. So he's swearing creation into a family relationship with himself, where, uh, Adam and Eve are the representative of the rest of creation. They're his son and daughter, and they, they meet, make his love for the rest of creation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So Adam and Eve are in this original covenant relationship where they're a child of God. This language of image and likeness made in the image and likeness, that's actually a language of sonship. If you compare Genesis 1 26 with Genesis five, three, you know, when Seth is born, he said, to be in the image and likeness of Adam is Father.
Speaker 0 00:16:27 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you take that back and you realize, oh, Adam being in the image of likeness of God means that God is his father by covenant. And that's what, of course, let, look at the last verse of Luke three identifies Adam as the son of God. So you got this original filial covenant broken by sin, things degenerate. God starts history over again with Noah. In the flood washes, everything clean starts over. The right most righteous man extends a covenant to him in, uh, Genesis, uh, at the end of Genesis eight and to Genesis nine. So sonship is restored. Not everything's perfect. There's been some damage to nature, but nonetheless, sonship restored. But then Noah sins getting drunk and messing things up with his family, things again, degenerate humanity, rebels against God of the Tower of Babel. He confuses their languages, but then everything's alienation.
Speaker 0 00:17:16 They're alienated from each other. They don't understand each other. They're alienated from God. So what's God gonna do chooses Abraham to, as it were, infiltrate the human family. It's gonna start with Abraham, and then bless Abraham. And from Abraham. Blessings gonna go to all the nations. It already says that in Genesis 12, verse three. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in you shall all the nations of the Earth be blessed. So Abraham's our program for restoring blessing. God makes a covenant with him in stages, ultimately tests his faith by asking him to offer Isaac, his only begotten son, which Abraham is willing to do. God, of course, calls off that sacrifice. But that was kind of a dry run of calvary, an image of Calvary. And when, yes, when Abraham shows that love towards God, such that God has for us willing to even part with a beloved son, God bestows on Abraham, the privilege of being the instrument and the Father for, um, the eventual blessing of, of the nations through his descendants and gen Genesis 22, 15 through 18, in your seed, shall all the nations of the Earth be blessed?
Speaker 0 00:18:21 God swears an oath to Abraham. Of course, oath forms a covenant, forms a family bond, family bond with Abraham. All the nations are gonna be blessed. Okay. So what do we gotta do? Well, we gotta, you know, we gotta work with Abraham's descendants. So God brings Abraham's descendants down to Egypt. They, uh, they become great and populous when they're large enough to become a great nation, which is what God promised to Abraham. God sends a savior, Moses who brings them out to Sinai, gives them the law, which is another thing. They need to be formed into a great nation as was promised to Abraham. And then under Joshua, they enter into the land, but they can't keep God's law. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they keep having ups and downs until finally another savior figure comes David, who uniquely is filled with God's spirit, which we really haven't seen since.
Speaker 0 00:19:06 Adam. Remember how Adam had the breadth of life breathe into his nostrils when he was made in Genesis two, on first Samuel 16, David is anointed by the prophet Samuel as king over the people. And when that anointing oil hits him, the spirit rushes upon him. From that day forward, he's another spirit-filled man. He's a spirit-filled king like, like Adam was supposed to be. So kind of this, you know, this new chapter, A new leaf in the history of God's people, where we get this spirit filled king, and God makes a promise to David, uh, a covenant with David. You're, you're, you're gonna be my son, and your dissents are gonna be my son, and you're gonna rule over all the nations forever. Uh, and you're gonna build my house. And that works well for a couple generations through Solomon. But then after Solomon, David's sons are rascals.
Speaker 0 00:19:53 And so things decline until ultimately the people that God get kicked out of their land, just like Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. And so what's gonna happen at this point? It looks like everything has failed. Well, then the prophets come and say, no, God's gonna bring a new covenant, and this new covenant's gonna restore all the promises and the good things that were promised to David. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that brings us up to the new, the new Covenant and the New Testament, I should say. And when, when Jesus comes onto the scenes of the gospels, Matthew begins as gospel saying, this is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. The book of the genealogy of is a phrase from Genesis five verse one, which says, this is the book of the genealogy of Adam.
Speaker 0 00:20:35 So Matthew's setting up a parallel between Adam and Jesus. This is the book of genealogy of Jesus Christ. Jews reading that would be expecting Adam to drop at the end of the verse. Instead, Jesus Christ drops. So Jesus is the new Adam. So he is new Adam, he's also son of David's son of Abraham. That basically means he's the one to fulfill all those covenants that kind of flopped and left all their meaning on the, on the field. Uh, Jesus is gonna pick up that meaning. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> fulfill it. And then he does that through his whole ministry. But climaxing at impassion week, where in two steps he makes the new covenant. First in the upper room speaking over the Eucharistic Cup, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which means consisting of my blood. So you are gonna take this, and you're gonna become my flesh and blood.
Speaker 0 00:21:21 You're gonna become my family, which is what covenant's all about, becoming family of God. And then what he affects by sacrament in the upper room, he confirms by the physical gift of his body on the cross a few days later. And there in the cross, we see our Lord's side opened up John 1934, blood and water pouring forth from his side in the gospel. John Blood is sign of Eucharist water, sign of baptism. This is the river of Sac, of the sacraments. The sacraments are a river through space and time, which flows through the whole world and carries the Holy Spirit to us. The Holy Spirit is what we've been lacking since Adam lost the Holy Spirit in the garden. Yeah. We need like Adam to have the breath of life breathe into our nostrils. Thanks be to God. We can get that breath of life, breathe into our nostrils by partaking of the sacraments, which are available all through the world.
Speaker 0 00:22:13 Catholic parishes everywhere. Every Catholic parish is a, is a little garden of Eden. Now, there's many Edens on every continent. They say over 90% of the human family is within an hours drive of the nearest Catholic parish. So everybody can get to Eden, everybody can drink from the river of life and the tree, and eat from the tree of life, which are in the garden and receive the Holy Spirit and become, once again, sons and daughters of God. Like Adam and Eve. Were in the garden. We've come full circle. And that's, that's the pattern. And that's why the Eucharist is the culmination of the entire Bible.
Speaker 2 00:22:44 Wow. Um, I I'm glad we recorded that. I, that was, that was an amazing, I think eight minute, uh, walkthrough all the key covenants and all the, the key moments in salvation history. And, and it's interesting once it's like, once you see that you can't unsee
Speaker 0 00:23:01 It, you can't unsee it.
Speaker 2 00:23:02 Like, once you see that, that's what Jesus is doing in the new Covenant. You see, he is the new album, the New Abraham. The new Moses, the new David, and he's restoring us. And again, not just to be David, which is why he is the Messiah, but he's more than the Davidic Messiah. Right. He's all that the Davidic Messiah was. Yeah. But so much more because his kingdom right. Will be an eternal kingdom. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, his peace that he brings will not just be an earthly peace, which is always fragile. And, and often even, even David Right. Can't build the temple, because of course, he had to establish peace, right. By blood. Yeah. Right Now, not his own blood, but the blood of others and, and, uh, and Right. All these different ways. And yet that's exactly what, right. What, what, what, what happens in mm-hmm. <affirmative> in, in the new covenant, in Jesus Christ, gift of the Holy Spirit, which does bring us back to Eden. Let's, uh, let's take a quick pause. Uh, we'll take a little break and then when we come back, uh, let's, let's, let's go back and kind of unpack a few of those moments. Definitely. And, uh, I look forward to that.
Speaker 3 00:24:09 You are listening to the Catholic Theology Show presented by Ave Maria University. If you'd like to support our mission, we invite you to prayerfully consider joining our Enunciation Circle, a monthly giving program aimed at supporting our staff, faculty, and Catholic faith formation. You can visit
[email protected] to learn more. Thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show.
Speaker 2 00:24:34 Welcome back to the show. And I'm here with a, a, a friend and a brilliant biblical scholar, theologian Catholic, uh, theologian, John Bergsma, who's, uh, the Vice President for Mission and Outreach at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and Professor of Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Uh, and, uh, Dr. Bergsma, uh, for those who, uh, have been, uh, listening, as you know, written many books on, uh, biblical theology and kind of both unfolding, uh, the meaning and understanding of the Bible, uh, in, in a theological, uh, manner. And so we were just talking about how right when this language of the new covenant, which Christ Instantiates fulfills all of the various stages throughout the entire salvation history, throughout the entire Old Testament, and in a way, right. The New Covenant, which is the New Testament, in a way, is simply that reality.
Speaker 2 00:25:32 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, right. That Christ has done that. And that I loved the way you described it. Therefore, now in the new Covenant, we have restored to us not only the forgiveness of sins, but the restoration of the Holy Spirit. Right? Yeah. Which is the means for either forgiveness of sin, and when we receive the spirit of God, when we receive the spirit of the Son, we become sons. And I love that image of, right. The tabernacle is Eden. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Yes. That place where God dwells, right. With his creation. Right? Yes. In the very eucharistic elements. And that when we, uh, you know, through our, of course, have, you know, repenting of our sins and believing and trusting in God's promises, right. Uh, that we in a way are restored to that right relationship. But I know when I teach, I think students, or talk to people, I think a lot of people have a lot of questions about Genesis.
Speaker 2 00:26:24 Right? Right. Genesis one, the seven Days of Creation, Genesis two, Adam and Eve, Genesis three, the fall, Genesis four, Cain, and Abel. Uh, uh, it's interesting, I think that, um, you know, uh, Jordan Peterson, uh, did some talks on, uh, the Genesis stories. And I, anyway, I looked at one time on YouTube, I think over like 12 million people have watched it. Oh my gosh. Which shows how, like, this is kind of like a fascinating question, right. For people, I think, like even people who may not know a lot about the Old Testament, they know the stories of Genesis, and I think often sometimes find them maybe a bit troubling. Right. And yet you've kind of, uh, begun to unfold maybe a way that we might be able to not only not have them trouble us, but perhaps find consolation in them.
Speaker 0 00:27:09 Indeed.
Speaker 2 00:27:10 You know, for me, that when, when you were talking about the sense of repeating something seven times, that sense of saying it was good. Yeah. It was good. And it was good, and it was good. Right. And it was, and it was very good. Yeah. Like, I don't, I mean, a lot of us, when we look at creation, it doesn't look very good <laugh>, as I mentioned earlier. Right. So this, yeah. So could you just talk a little bit more about the goodness of creation as something that, in a way that is revealed to us, that God promises to us, not only in scripture, but also as you mentioned, through like this sworn oath promise of the covenant,
Speaker 0 00:27:45 Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the, what we, what we see happening in the creation story, of course is, is God bringing order to that which he's called into being. And, uh, and building a temple. You know, in the ancient world, this is a common concept that the, uh, the creation is, is somehow the temple built for the worship of the gods. Of course, the gods is a mistake. There's just one God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But when we read the Seven Days of Creation, you know, in the first three days, God is forming everything. He creates the realm of time with the day and the night. In the first day, he creates the great spaces with the sky and the sea, you know, space is created. And then on the third day, he creates a habitat. So everything's formed after three days. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it's not filled.
Speaker 0 00:28:31 And then in the remaining days, he fills these different aspects, fills the day and night with the sun and the moon and the stars. He fills the sea in the sky with the birds and the fish. He fills the habitat with the animals, a man. So you see, there's a logic to what's going on there. And, and in those six days, he's building up this cosmos as a temple. And it culminates in the seventh day, which is the day of worship, cuz that was what everything was ordered to, was mm-hmm. <affirmative> was worship is worship for the aggrandizement of God. Well, partly, but, uh, but God doesn't need his creation to aggrandize him. What worship is at, at its heart is communion between the creation and the creator. Um, and, and more so between his sons and daughters and himself. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So worship is family time, <laugh>, as it were.
Speaker 0 00:29:19 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it, it's time to, to enjoy each other's presence as children and as father. And that's what all of creation is ordered to. So that's a deeper meaning of the creation story. It's not primarily about chronologically how long did these things come about mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but, but explaining to us what the purpose was for creation. Wow. It was a temple for the worship of God. And then within that, uh, temple, mankind are, were were placed there to function as priests. So Adam is placed in the garden to work and to guard the garden. In Genesis two 15, people don't realize it, but that's priestly terminology. Later in the book of numbers, the preser instructed to work the work and guard the guardianship in the tabernacle. And that meant working. The work was celebrating the liturgy guardian, the guardianship was keeping the sanctuary clean. Adam was supposed to do that.
Speaker 0 00:30:11 He was the first priest. Uh, Eve joins him in that role. And yet, when we get to Genesis three in the fall, we find out that this unclean animal, this serpent has gotten into the garden who has not been doing his guard duty, it's Adam. And so he fails to perform his priestly duty of guarding that temple sanctuary of the Garden of Eden. And why does he fail to do that? Probably out of fear of suffering. Fear of what combat with this lethal creature might mean to him. And so he, he fails the responsibility to defend his bride and to defend the sanctuary against the threat of evil, probably out of fear of death and suffering that might be involved in contesting with that, uh, that serpent. And this brings in why Christ undoes and how Christ done does Adam, because, uh, our Lord confronts, uh, the evil of the serpent. It's an image of Satan and accepts the suffering and death in order to defend his bride. And his bride is also his temple. It is the church. And so this a deeper meaning, I know we're going through, through that quickly. Yeah. But this is a deeper meaning of, of, uh,
Speaker 2 00:31:22 Ation. And maybe if we go back just a little bit again, unpacking that sense of, in, in a way, because we live in a fallen world. Right. Uh, we don't experience the, the,
Speaker 0 00:31:32 The full goodness, the
Speaker 2 00:31:33 World Yeah. The, the whole world as a temple mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, so we have to kind of somewhat set aside temples. Right. There was a temple in Israel, there was a tabernacle in, uh, with Israel, uh, as they were wandering in the desert Wilder. Yeah. And eventually coming forward, and, and even today we have, well, tabernacles and, and churches, and we know that somehow as God is everywhere, but we also know God is more there. Like Right. God is definitely more in the Ukraine makes
Speaker 0 00:32:01 His presence felt.
Speaker 2 00:32:02 Yeah. An experienced. And so, but I think if we go back then, so in some ways, when we think about this idea of like, God creating the world for worship, we almost might have like an inadequate, or we have a limited understanding of worship. And you were talking about the idea of guarding and keeping it, it occurs to me in some ways, it's also interesting. Right. In the middle of that, you have Adam and Eve, so to speak, getting married, <laugh>. Yeah. Basically. Right. In Genesis two, it's a little wedding ceremony. They get married, the man leaves his right. Father and mother and cleaves to his wife. Right. Right. Uh, they become one flesh, and that one flesh becomes more flesh Right. As the flesh and blood becomes multiplied. Uh, and they also have the capacity then to use their reason and their will to order creation. Right. Right. So if we take then these realities of, well, basically work and family life. Yeah. Work and family life are almost the matter of worship.
Speaker 0 00:32:59 Indeed.
Speaker 2 00:33:00 Yes. Right. We're in Genesis, we could actually, you you like that we would take all of the, the work of the day and the, and our family life, our relationships. Right. And all of those would become in a way the matter for our worship of God. So there would be, I guess what I say there, there, there's no separation in a way between like the secular and the sacred, or, I mean, I don't know how to put it. It's not like every, every home would be a tabernacle in, in indeed. In, in this, you know, created as we were created with this order. Yeah. Uh, and so now we in a way need to recover that. And I think it's interesting. People sometimes even like, you know, you sometimes get that there's a, well, I mean like, hey, I, I, I, I commune with God and nature <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:33:43 Um, you know, I, like, I, I, I feel more aware of God's presence on a long walk, uh, than at church. And, and, and of course, to a certain extent, right. It's more pleasant, often to be by yourself alone, <laugh> in the mouths Right. Than with a bunch of other people. Right. And, uh, all those sorts of things. But, but I think like in a way, there is kind of a hunger and a thirst for the fact that we should be able to walk with God everywhere. Yeah. But maybe if you could talk a little bit more about how do we somehow recognize in a way today that all of our family life, our work, our recreation can somehow be means of dwelling Yeah. With God Right. Of walking with God. And yet somehow that's only made possible because of, and it's not just like, because of the Eucharist. It's because that the Eucharist is the entire life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How is it that, yeah. Right? Yeah. That, that communion with God that we kind of seek, uh, you know, people like Wordsworth thought they would have it when they would be walking out and seeing a beautiful sunset or seeing a little child and, and, and, and maybe, you know, there are echoes of that that are not wrong. No. Uh, but I don't know. You, you just unpack that a little bit
Speaker 0 00:34:51 For us. Yeah, yeah. Well, like a, you know, I like to tell my students, look, when you look at Genesis two 15, again, Adam is placed in the garden. E even that term, placing is an ancient term that was used for placing the image of a deity in an ancient temple. You know, they make a sculpture of Zeus Oh, wow. And then place it in the temple. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So word studies have been done, like point out, it's the same, same verbal form. So in, in the true religion, you know, the God is not imaged by something of silver and gold. But in the human being, we are made in the image and likeness of God, which also refers to our, our divine sonship and daughter hood, you know. So anyway, he's placed in the garden. And then furthermore, uh, to work and to guard, as I mentioned before, that's priestly terminology.
Speaker 0 00:35:34 Those verbs are used together in the Old Testament, only when describing the duties of the priest. So people say, well, you know, what did, what did, what was Adam actually supposed to do in the garden? You know, what, you know, uh, wasn't he supposed to attend the plants? And so on? And yes, of course, you know, he was supposed to care for the garden, but there was no division in Adam's life between his work and his worship. The two were one. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there was no pronation of his labor. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, labor and liturgy work and worship were completely unified. And what splits work from worship labor from liturgy is sin. And so when he sins, then that profane his labor. And, and then there is this division. But what Christ has come to do, among many other things, is to restore, to reintegrate. And so, um, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to sanctify the work of our hands.
Speaker 0 00:36:31 It enables us to, to perform in a holy way. And, and to perform as an act worship, and an as a active sacrifice. Changing diapers, writing checks, doing the laundry, you know, managing the household, in my case, doing my teaching, or for others, it's, you know, at the, at the contracting site, you know, at the building site or at the bank or wherever it may be, <affirmative>, whatever our labor is provided, our labor is honest, and that it's ethical. It can be raised to a higher level. It can be infused with God's presence, and it can be made a holy sacrifice because in Christ that we are reintegrated like Adam was. And Yeah. So when we think, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:37:12 So when we think a little bit about creation being good, we're not just looking outside. Yeah. That actually means somehow our very created lives are good. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, disfigured by sin Yes. But, but capable of being restored. Right. So Right. My work, my family life, uh, and it's, it's beautiful to see that that's right there in a way, in the heart of the Eucharist and in the heart of, you know, Genesis. Indeed. Uh, right, right. This good news. And, uh, you know, there's a great, um, 20th century Saint San Jose, Maria Riva. Right. Who, who emphasized that sense that we could have that unity of life uhhuh, right. That we could live and we could offer our work and our family life, our priestly soul with a priestly soul being very contemplatives in the midst of the world. And yeah. Anyways, I just think that's really just a beautiful, you know, image and, uh, and and how meaningful
Speaker 0 00:38:03 Feast day that passage from Genesis is read on his feast day. Wow. You know, Adam was placed in the garden to work into guard and just work so beautifully with his whole, uh, understanding of the ability to sanctify daily life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, and we gotta avoid as, as Christians, as Catholics, we gotta avoid like putting a division between six days of the week and then the day of worship. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, as if, you know, we're involved in all this profane, sinful, dirty stuff, you know, for six days, and then we kind of clean up and go to church, and that's holy, holy time. And then mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then we go back to the muck. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, no, uh, what we're called is kings, priests and prophets to be re-energized and to have the Holy Spirit renewed in us through, uh, through worship, through the liturgy, through the Eucharist, and then go back to our daily lives empowered to sanctify it, empowered to spread the garden. A lot of biblical theologians think that Adam and Eves original mission was to take that beautifully well or well-ordered Garden of Eden and expand it until the whole earth was one big garden. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:39:07 Right. Fill and multiply that
Speaker 0 00:39:09 Fill and multiple Indeed. And in, in a sense, we can see how the church has begun to do that, because as I said, every Catholic mm-hmm. <affirmative> sanctuary is a little Eden that are spread on every continent, uh, all through. And so we we're begun to gardenize, you know, the earth, but to the degree that we as Catholics bring the light of our faith to our banking, our teaching, uh, our contracting, and whatever it might be, we're bringing the peace of the garden. You know, we're, we're, we're making god's, we're, we're bringing God's creation to a higher level of order, uh, where it leads to human flourishing. And it leads to, you know, fraternity among God's children who are, because we're all God's children, at least potentially, you know, we all have that potential because we are the image of God. Even those who have not received baptism or the potential become child of Gods who always have to treat them as children of God. So they be invited in and receive the fullness of, of divine affiliation through receiving the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2 00:40:08 Yeah. And, and when we think about it like that, then the Eucharist doesn't become one other thing in our life. It becomes Right. The source and summit of the Christian life, because we receive our strength
Speaker 0 00:40:20 From
Speaker 2 00:40:20 It, from it, and therefore can do our work and our, and our friendships and our recreation, and then we can take all of that and offer it back to God through the Eucharist. Now, just one other thing. I really wanted to, you mentioned a little bit how Adam somehow may have fallen, at least in part through an unwillingness to suffer. Yeah. And we certainly see Jesus as the new Adam who takes on suffering, you know, and, and you, and you spoke about the prophets speaking of a new kingdom, right. A new covenant. Yes. Um, that there would be a restoration of peace, a covenant of peace. Yeah. Uh, there'd be right. A mountain where we'd worship God and write, the lion would lie down with the lamb and all sorts of, you know, peace. There'd be lots of food. I mean, all, all these sorts of beautiful images, and I know you didn't skip over this, but there is of course the, the unpleasant part of Isaiah's prophecies that I think some people are familiar with, right.
Speaker 2 00:41:15 Isaiah 52 and 53, the suffering servant. Right. Uh, he has, I think, four prophecies of this messiah, this figure who will come to say, but he will be a servant. You know, my spirit will rest upon him. I, you know, all these different things, but there's an element of suffering that shows up. Right. Even right in Isaiah 53, right. By his wounds, we are healed. That gets, so could you just say a little bit more about Yeah. Right. Why suffering? Why is suffering is somehow suffering part of the prophecy, right. Of the restoration of Eden? Why does it, why does it have to go through the path of suffering? Maybe both a little bit in Isaiah, and then of course, obviously as we Yeah. As, as, as, as we kind of, it's so obvious in front of us, we almost don't even, you know, we, we often just walk by a crucifix and don't even kind of sh startle with the amount of immense suffering that Christ went through for us. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:42:07 Yeah. Well, you know, on a deep level, we have to understand suffering is the purification of love. Okay? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> love only reveals itself truly as love when it suffers. Because until suffering is involved, one can always suppose that the one who, uh, is presumed to love is in, in it for some kind of ulterior motive. Like maybe they're just enjoying this and so on. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But when, when you actually suffer for love, uh, when there's no benefit to you, uh, for the act of love, it becomes apparent to all, and even to ourselves that we actually are in love because we're not doing this for our self-benefit. So, you know, somebody, somebody once said that, um, in this world, suffering without love is intolerable, but love without suffering is impossible. Okay? Hmm. Because again, love never is fully revealed as love until it's suffers.
Speaker 0 00:43:07 So this is on a deep level. And then in the, in the story of salvation, we see with Adam this unwillingness to suffer in order to defend his bride and the sanctuary. And that creates the conditions of possibility for, uh, the fallen into sin in Genesis three. And then throughout salvation history, various other figures as well, uh, refuse to suffer, um, in order to maintain that relationship with God. And they capitulate in various ways to their pleasures or their comfort and so on. And this is all, this is our tendency as well. We don't wanna suffer mm-hmm. <affirmative>, in order to maintain our relationship with God, we have a tendency towards comfort, pleasure, et cetera. So getting to Isaiah, Isaiah Prophesize, a new David, a new Adam who's gonna come, this servant to the Lord, who's going to embrace the suffering that was, say, avoided by Adam, avoided by Solomon, these other great leaders of God's people through salvation history.
Speaker 0 00:44:04 We see that in Isaiah 50. We see it in Isaiah 53 as well. So he is going to embrace that suffering. He is going to be like Isaac, uh, the son of Abraham who willingly laid himself down in the altar and became not just priest, but also victim in that priestly act. And that's a, that's another dimension of Isaiah 53, is the suffering servant who's described there as very much a priestly figure whose sacrifice is himself, you know? And, and you never see that in Israel's liturgy until Christ comes. And he is the one in the upper room, he is already already saying this when he says, this is my body, this is my blood. Well, when body and blood are separated, they're only separated at death. So that already implies his death. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which he's giving, giving for the nourishment of his disciples. Okay. So he's both priest and victim there in the upper room. Yeah. And likewise on the cross.
Speaker 2 00:45:01 Uh, wow. That's, uh, that's just, uh, really amazing then, cuz now you can kind of see like, we have this whole sense of like, work, family, life, all that we do well. Right. All that we do all of our works and our, even our prayers, all of our efforts, all of that can go back to God through the Eucharist. And yet also on the other side, not only what we do, but what we suffer. Right. Right. That all of our suffering, we suffer all of our brokenness, all of our, the har the just really, you know, the often the terrorism horrors of life. Yeah. Yeah. Those also find meaning because Yeah. Uh, those are in a way what we can customer love. Right. And, and that in some ways goes back to that, um, you know, that kind of simple thing that, uh, I think a lot of Catholics talk about. We're just offering it up, offering up our work and offering up are things, but recognizing that we're not offering our suffering on our strength, it's that we offer it with the same, um, kind of, we, we ask Christ in us to offer it for us. Right. Uh, I wanted to, as, as, as we close, I wanna just ask you the three questions. Uh, so, uh, first, what's a book you've been reading?
Speaker 0 00:46:07 Uh, I've been working, uh, through a book called, uh, through Wind and Waves, which is a book on, uh, spiritual direction and what kind of qualities you need to develop in order to guide others. Wow.
Speaker 2 00:46:18 Little wind and
Speaker 0 00:46:19 Waves through wind and waves. Yeah. You know, I'm placed in this role of, you know, trying to form, uh, students at the university and yeah. Spiritual disciplines and, uh, reading scripture. And so, uh, I'm constantly concerned that, uh, I actually be the kind of person that can do this role. So working on that.
Speaker 2 00:46:36 Beautifully put, beautifully put. And, uh, second question. What's just one, what's one among maybe May, I'm sure there are many, but what's one daily practice you do to draw closer to God? Yeah. Find meaning in your
Speaker 0 00:46:49 Life? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I carry a pocket New Testament with me mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, uh, I like to get up in the morning and pull that out. And, uh, it's, it's a certain New Testament that's kind of divided into daily readings mm-hmm. <affirmative> in about three minutes a day. And, uh, so that, that's usually my first devotional practice. And, uh, that gives me some food for prayer. And then I go into prayer for, you know, 15 minutes or so to begin the day, come back to prayer later in the day. But, uh, yeah, that's one devotional practice, and I really promote this. I learned it from you <laugh>. It's, it's the New Testament you used to carry, uh, same edition from Stor Press. Uh, I, I know you're familiar. And, uh, I, I promote these and, and, and I'd take 'em with me to speak in events and sell 'em at, at men's rallies and at parish missions and stuff like that, just to encourage everybody to carry New Testament. Pope Francis, you know, more than a dozen times, uh, has encouraging his public audiences Christians to carry a New Testament with them. And it's very important,
Speaker 2 00:47:43 He has a beautiful line too, where he says that, um, we, we need to read scripture. I, I don't know how he puts it, but it's, I might have been in like, the joy of the gospel as in cyclical on or, you know, the, uh, evangelization. But, but basically he says, we have to, when we read scripture, we have to listen to the voice of the master. Yeah. Right. That we, that's what we're listening. We're reading scripture, listening to the voice of the master teaching us. And, you know, la Last question. Uh, this is a Right. A theology show. So we're we, the part of the principle of the show is that trying to think rightly about God is helpful Yes. Helps us in a way to love him more and maybe hurt ourselves less <laugh> and hurt others less by understanding who God is. Right. And, and who we are. Yeah. Uh, you know, what's a belief that you held at some point, maybe about God that you discovered was false and you, what was a deeper understanding you came from?
Speaker 0 00:48:31 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I, I grew up with this notion that if you followed the law of God, you would, uh, be spared great sufferings, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:48:40 Wow.
Speaker 0 00:48:41 And that's not the way things work, <laugh>. And, uh, so when I, when I hit about, uh, you know, uh, about three years into marriage and, uh, we had a baby on the way, and I was unemployed and, um, and, and suffering from like clinical depression and like, uh, okay, what's going on here? Lord, I, you know, I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't mm-hmm. <affirmative> to what I can see. I haven't been committing sin, and yet my life is falling apart. Yeah. And, uh, through that crucible, you know, I came to understand redemptive suffering that no, indeed following the law of God doesn't excuse you from suffering, may lead you into worse sufferings. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but, but that's okay. Uh, and there's meaning in that because we're being conformed to the image of Christ. And again, this is how our love is demonstrated and how our love is purified. So finding meaning and suffering, um, was, was really key to me and eventually paved the way for me to come into the Catholic church.
Speaker 2 00:49:34 Wow. Well that's, that's, that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And, uh, again, just, uh, for our listeners, we have a, we're doing a series of, uh, podcast episodes on, uh, really trying to dis u understand and increase our devotion, uh, to the Holy Eucharist. Uh, we've had dog, Dr. John Bergsma, uh, for those who are interested in, uh, reading some of his books. He has a book The New Testament Basics for Catholics, um, kind of almost like a, you know, a a kind of a little textbook of sorts, uh, but with lots of fun drawings in it as well. Yeah. Uh, he has a kind of a popular book about his, uh, understanding and his conversion, understanding scripture stunned by scripture, how the Bible made me Catholic. And he has a huge, uh, probably weighs about four or five pounds book on the, all the books of the Old Testament and introduction to the Old Testament. So again, thank you John, for being on our
Speaker 0 00:50:21 Show. Yeah, absolutely. Michael, it's been great.
Speaker 3 00:50:23 Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you, you like this episode, please write and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation Circle so we can continue to bring you more free content. We'll see you next time on the Catholic Theology Show.
