#337 Cardinal Burke - The Old Testament

34:25and people can think of that as less important but it's not really because god is manifesting himself to us with his his right that we worship him in the way that he teaches us so we don't end up worshiping ourselves or worshiping some some demons and so all of those things have their importance. And of course, there are other things that are more immediately obvious. For instance, our Lord makes reference to the book of Genesis, how God made man and woman, God made man male and female, and what he intended that a man should take his wife and wife take her husband for for for life that the marriage is indesoluble what god has joined man must not put asunder and so that's a of course very fundamental essential teaching but there so we see a whole variety in the in the scriptures but each each part has its importance But I know a number of books.

35:50For instance, there are other Gospels than the ones that are in the Scriptures. And they can be read with profit, but they aren't part of the Church. They do not understand that they should be part of the canon, as we call it, the canon of the Scriptures. What is the canon of the Scriptures? canon of the scriptures is is the list of those books of the old testament 45 or 44 and then the 27 books of the new testament uh that are declared by the church to be divinely revealed to be the word of god what time span is the old testament does the old testament cover well from the beginning from creation it starts with the book of genesis uh right up into the coming of our Lord.

36:45The prophets foretold his coming and spoke about it, and then John the Baptist is the last of the prophets now. He did not leave us a book, but he's the last of the Old Testament prophets. He points to our Lord Jesus Christ and said, Behold the Lamb of God.

37:18How do you think that, before we move strictly to Old Testament, how do you think that, how many authors are there? Oh, that some of the books are written by the same author. there'd be more or less 40 or so authors. The first five books called the Pentateuch or the Law,

37:45those were often called the books of Moses, that Moses wrote them all. We don't necessarily think that Moses wrote all five books. And so there could be the exact number of authors, I wouldn't be sure, but a number of authors. Well, I guess what I'm getting at is several different authors over thousands and thousands of years. Yes. And it formulates one story that references itself over 62 ,000 times.

38:23but how do we know this is the word of god that it's been because it's been written by man because our our lord himself uh teaches us that he he says that he has come to fill the law and the prophets is referring to the Old Testament, and he tells us, do not think that I've come to destroy the law and prophets. I've come to fulfill them, and insists on our attention to the very detail of the Word of God. And then our Lord, acting through his church, has verified for us that these exact books are divinely inspired. and then one last question before we move on just to the old testament why does the god of the old testament seem so much different than the new testament well because god hadn't yet taken our our human flesh to uh to redeem us he was bringing the people along and we must not forget and those people were not unlike ourselves he refers to of stiff-necked remember the we get various stories in the bible but take for instance when god brought the people out of slavery in egypt and they were in the desert on their way to the promised land moses was called up by our by god to receive the ten commandments down below what are they doing they're molding a a golden calf out of taking their jewelry to make a calf to worship And can you imagine?

40:12God brought them out. Slavery brought them. He's bringing them on the way to the promised land, and they turned to idolatry. so God is bringing the people along and finally and so the God of the Old Testament rightly can seem a bit harsh to us but he had to purify this people in order that they would be ready to receive the Savior our Lord comes and of course he is God himself and divine nature united to our human nature and the one person of God the Son. And that gives us all hope. That gives us assurance. People haven't ceased to be sinful. The effects of original sin continue. But we know now that we have the grace of Christ to help us to overcome the temptations to sin, to overcome the temptations to evil, to pursue that which is true and good and beautiful.

41:26And so it, I should say, brings out all of the joy and positive aspect of God as revealing himself in the Old Testament. And so God isn't different. It's simply that he has brought his plan to its fullness. Let's move into strictly the Old Testament.

41:54What does testament mean? Testament means covenant. And all the books of the Bible are an expression of the covenant that God made with man. covenant an agreement a sacred agreement where god promises to be our god to to save us and and we accepting that covenant pledge ourselves to to be his loyal sons and daughters too and and so every book of the bible beginning with with the story of adam and eve with the creation God confides to Adam and Eve the stewardship of the earth. He's created this beautiful world, but he creates this creature. The scriptures, the book of Genesis makes it clear. One creature, one earthly creature, is created in his own image and likeness.

42:57What does that mean? It means that God intends us to be in communion with him, that we share in his own life. and he says, let us make man in our own image and likeness. And so from that moment, there is a bond between God and man. And now Adam and Eve sinned. The serpent came, tempted Eve, and then she tempted Adam. They both fell for the lie that the serpent told them. God had only asked them not to eat the fruit of a single tree. And that was a sign of the trust. And they broke the trust. But even from that moment, they, of course, lost God's friendship. But he promised already that moment.

43:56He made a covenant with them that he would send. He said to the serpent, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and your seed. He will crush your head. In other words, the son of the woman. And that indicates to us, too, the central importance of the incarnation that God united himself, his divine nature to our human nature in the womb of a woman. That's why the Blessed Virgin Mary is so important in our faith because she is that instrument through which God came into the world. She's not mother of God in the sense that she's mother of his divine nature. No. But she is his mother when he unites his divine nature to our human nature.

44:50And then throughout the Old Testament, then, this covenant is renewed. We know the story of Noah and the ark. We know the story of King David. Of Abraham, of course, too, of course, is very important. The promise God made to Abraham, that his descendants would be as numerous as the sands on the shore. Why did he pick Noah? this is uh noah was a faithful was faithful to to god he there was people were acting in a very sinful way but noah and his family were striving to follow the law of god and uh and so they

45:45God told him what he planned to do and instructed him to build the ark in order to save. God would never destroy what is good. And so this faithful family, Noah and his family, and then they took some of all the animals with them. So God, in punishing the people by the flood, punishing them for their sins, at the same time saves the goodness of his creation represented in Noah and his family. I know I talk a lot about preparedness on this show. Most of the time, that conversation's about what gun you're carrying, what knife you have, what your EDC is. But here's the reality. People bleed out from injuries they could have survived all the time.

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48:11how did he know how did anybody know the law of god because already then uh god was speaking uh to them through the patriarchs uh uh through the uh their their religious leaders they we we know about some of the figures from the scriptures themselves, but God was revealing himself, speaking to them. And so they knew and they trusted. I mean, Noah could have said, well, that's crazy, and not built the ark and so forth. But no, he prayed and he understood that God had this plan to save the people and that he was part of it. The same way, too, that God instructed Abraham to leave Sodom and Gomorrah to go away and to a land where they could live in fidelity to God.

49:18And Abraham trusted, and his faith was always rewarded. The same way too, Abraham and Sarah are living in the land of Ur of the Chaldees, they have these three visitors come to visit with Abraham, to renew the covenant with him. We always understand the three visitors to represent the three persons in the Holy Trinity. but there too God promised Abraham he'd have all these descendants but he didn't even have a son his wife was sterile, Sarah and the three visitors said no, your wife is going to conceive a child and she overheard this she was preparing some hospitality for them and she laughed in the sense that she was way beyond the age of childbearing.

50:24And they reprimanded her, and she did indeed have a son. And Abraham, Isaac, and God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a sign of his fidelity, of his obedience. and Abraham, his heart broken, is taking his son up to offer him in sacrifice. The son has on his back the wood in which he was to be immolated. We see it as a sign of the cross. And at the moment when he was going to do what he understood God's will, God intervened and said no. and Isaac was saved and of course he had Jacob and then the twelve sons of Jacob and the story goes on so to speak but there's a in all of it we you know the twelve sons of Jacob the sons are are envious of their brother Joseph because the father had a special affection for him.

51:43So they sold him into slavery in Egypt. And then comes the famine, and they have to go to Egypt to try to get some food to live on. In the meantime, their brother Joseph, who had such extraordinary gifts, the pharaoh of Egypt recognized them, and he was practically the governor of the whole country. And so these brothers come, and Joseph's talking to them, and they don't recognize who he is. But he finally breaks down, and he says to them, you intended to do something evil, but God used what you did to save you and then he he gave them the food that they needed to survive but and so he he becomes a figure to us too we see that how God is always at work and it's always bringing good even out of out of evil situations he's always at work to accomplish his salvation he wants for us

53:02How does the Old Testament line up, especially the creation? Does it line up at all with theories like the Big Bang, dinosaurs, things like that? There can't be—whatever is scientifically proven can never be in contradiction with the Bible. And so that isn't a major concern of ours. Sometimes people, for instance, people say, well, evolution proves that the book of Genesis is false. Well, that isn't true. First of all, evolution is a theory. This is not scientifically demonstrated. And the story of creation is, first of all, it is the word of God. We know its truth. we interpret it according to the form of literature which it is, but what it tells us is that all of creation, the order in it and so forth, comes from the hand of God.

54:06It's not some kind of accident that took place. And that in that creation, there's one creature who is radically distinct from the others because no creature evolves with a soul which we have with an intellect and will which we have in all the scientific studies that are done. It's clear that this is a distinct gift which only God himself could give. I remember when I was a young man and studying philosophy, there was a theory that people have always tried to discover that some animal had intellect and will. I remember there was some people were saying that the bee, because the bee goes out and finds the nectar, comes back to the hive and communicates to the other bees where it is.

55:15and they go and it's a kind of instinctual behavior. But what they discovered was that even if there were no other bees there to communicate with, the bee did this. It was just instinctual behavior. Went and then, and so there wasn't intelligent communication. and there was some kind of communication, but not intelligent and willful communication. I remember there was a famous book written at that time by a Jewish philosopher, but I believe he became Catholic, if I'm not mistaken, a man by the name of Marner Adler. And he wrote a book, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes. and so the difference of man is that we are essentially related to god and that makes all the difference and we could say in a certain way the whole the whole of the old testament is showing us this this truth and get back to your original question that's why it's called a testament It's the Old Covenant, the first covenant, which finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the New Covenant, the New Testament.

56:39And really, it's one covenant. It's always God's relationship with us from the moment of creation. He chose man for this very particular relationship with Him. How many covenants are in the Old Testament? At least four. It's the same covenant, but our Lord keeps renewing it. The first gospel or the first announcement is with Adam and Eve. You have Noah. You have Abraham. Then you have the Mosaic Covenant. And David, that's five. I think five would be the right, correct number. Who was David? David was the people at a certain point, they saw the people around them had kings. And before, our Lord had always governed the people through judges.

57:48They were people endowed with special wisdom by God. to to to lead the people for instance samuel and there were also judith others but and so god gave him gave him a king and the saul and uh saul's uh excuse me um i'm getting makes up no yes saw in any case uh but the king was corrupt uh and so david became king when he he destroyed goliath the the head of the philistines who were coming to destroy the people he killed him with a slingshot he was a young man but he so he became very popular people so he he he succeeded that king and and god promised him that it would be through his descendant that he would uh save the people that would and that the people would become great in and all the earth and our Lord Jesus Christ through St.

59:22Joseph is a descendant of David. The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy that shows all the generations from Adam and Eve down to our Lord himself. And so that David himself sadly fell into sin too, but he repented of it, and our Lord forgave him, but through his line, our Lord was born in human flesh. of course is God. He is from all time. His divine nature. And back to Abraham. I believe, as you mentioned, that the covenant from Abraham was the promised people, the God's chosen people. Yes, yes. we in fact we refer to ourselves as sons of Abraham because of his faith in God's promise of a son that God would continue to generate the family and Abraham trusted in God's promise against there was no reason for him to to trust no human reason no earthly reason but he he trusted and so we uh abraham is a very important figure to us and of course through abraham it's through abraham that we arrived uh now through the genealogy and so forth we arrive with at our lord and it is our lord who makes the fulfills the promise that the children of abraham are as numerous as the as this sand on the on the sea in other words through our lord jesus christ all men are called to be saved if only they uh accept from him the gift of faith and follow him.

1:01:54So, are the descendants of Abraham the Jewish people? Yes, the Jewish people are the descendants of Abraham. And we, ourselves, as Christians, we call ourselves spiritual Semites. Semite was another term used for the Jewish people. because God chose the Jewish nation, the Hebrews, to present him to the world. God chose Hebrews, the Hebrew, Virgin Mary, to be the first tabernacle, the first place which he came to dwell in our human flesh. And so it is the vocation of the Jewish people to present the Savior to the world. And that is what our Blessed Mother does. That's what St. Joseph does. And so we have a great reverence.

1:03:05Of course, we share the scriptures with the Jewish people. One has to understand the difference between the Jewish faith and what might be other political realities, and I don't intend to get into that at all. But the Jewish faith is contained in those books of the Old Testament. and that's part of our heritage an essential part of our heritage is the old testament fulfilled in in our lord jesus christ at what point did i mean if we all came from adam and eve at what point did the did the split happen or was it it was just the descendants there was no split until Abraham and then it was his descendants.

1:03:58Was that the split? From Adam and Eve, there are two genealogies in the Gospels, one in Matthew and one in Luke. And one in Luke draws out more. Basically, there are numerous infidelities in this long history. But basically from Adam and Eve to John the Baptist and the coming of our Lord, there is no split. It's a constant handing down from one generation to the next. And that really is from the time of Abraham. Okay. The Ten Commandments, what is the significance of those? There was a tremendous significance. So God, the people were in slavery in Egypt, and God sent them this tremendous leader, Moses, who brought them out by God's hand out of the land of Egypt, the famous story of the plagues.

1:05:20Moses went to Pharaoh and told him that God wanted his people freed. And Pharaoh equivocated. He said he would, then he wouldn't. And there were various plagues that God sent. And the last one was the Passover when the angel of death came and the firstborn of all the families, those families that did not have the blood of the Paschal Lamb on their doorpost were killed. And at that, Pharaoh let them go. and they came to the Red Sea and God by a miracle dried the Red Sea so they could pass through it and Pharaoh at that point decides that he made a mistake letting him go and sends his armies after him and at that the sea returns and all of Pharaoh's army is destroyed and the people are free so they're they're out they're in the desert and then god in his desire to to

1:06:37for their salvation to bring him in the promised land he calls moses up to the height of mount sinai and there gives him ten commandments and they're basically this is the uh the order of our relationship with god with one another and with the world so the first three commandments all have to do with our relationship to god that we worship him alone we we don't have idolatry we honor his holy name. We don't want blasphemers that we keep holy his day. Even as from the story of creation, the seventh day is a day of rest, of giving thanks to God for all of creation. so then the next commandments have to do with the family honor your father and your mother and by extension our relationship in the wider community the virtue of patriotism that we honor also our homeland as a place that makes it possible for families to exist and to prosper then the commandments not to commit, not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to covet your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's goods.

1:08:16And those commandments remain for us today. Our Lord himself, when he had the Sermon on the Mount, this is found in this very significant passage in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapters 5 to 7. Our Lord gives a Sermon on the Mount beginning with the Beatitudes, but in that Sermon on the Mount, He confirms the Ten Commandments, that He has come to fulfill them, not to eliminate them. Some people say, oh, now we have the love of Christ, therefore we don't have to worry about the sixth commandment, for instance, you not commit adultery, all the sins connected with the abuse of our human sexuality.

1:09:08But our Lord makes it clear, no, those commandments are as true today as ever, only that they should find their perfect expression in pure and selfless love. And so the commandments, it's called the Decalogue, they are considered to be the rule for our lives, the rule that leads us to lead a good and holy life. Have there been any mistakes found in the Old Testament, any discrepancies? There are a couple of passages that talk about having to do with natural phenomena. I'm an old man and I'm not remembering exactly the passages. One was about the movement of the sun and so forth. But they are mistakes in the sense that the passages involved weren't meant to be teaching earth science.

1:10:12And so, no, we can say there are not mistakes in the Bible, no. How much of it does line up with science? It all does eventually. If you understand the Word of God correctly, interpret it correctly, and if the science is true science, we always have to keep in mind that sometimes somebody can come along and say they're a scientist, but they tell you things that are not true. So it has to be things that are scientifically demonstrated. There won't be any contradiction.

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1:14:07They were part of, they were not for all the Jewish people. Some accepted these seven books, some did not. and the principal reason, in short, was that the whole Old Testament was written in Hebrew, except for these books. And then, let me go back. The whole Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Then there was a translation into Greek done by, they say, 72 scholars. It was called the Septuagint. and it's the word of God but translated into Greek. And in that edition of Septuagint, these seven books were included. But they don't have a Hebrew original. They were written originally in Greek. And so for some of the Jewish people, they excluded them because they didn't have a Greek original, excuse me, a Hebrew original.

1:15:22But the church said, no, they don't have a Hebrew original, but these are divinely inspired books. And so they were included in what is now what we call the canon, And as I was saying before, the official list of the books of the Bible, these seven books are also included. Okay. Okay.

1:15:53I wanted to dive a little bit more into the covenants. Yes. The covenants with Noah, Abraham, David, and Moses. And I wanted to start with Noah. And if you could explain it as if it's somebody's first time ever hearing this. Yes. well this is early on in the book of Genesis not there was of course Adam and Eve and then the first generations and then comes the time of Noah and the scriptures tell us that God looked upon man and the way he was living and he was doing everything but what God wanted and the scriptures say that not literally it shouldn't be interpreted but that it made god sorry that he had made man in other words not that he was ever would ever be sorry for having created this wonderful creature but when because man has free will he can go away from god and at that time clearly people were living in doing very immoral things well we shouldn't be so surprised because we have a lot of things going on today in our world that are pretty terrible and are there similarities yes what are some of those similarities those similarities would be violations of our of our human nature as male and female the violations of the the transgenderism that would be a clear example they didn't they didn't have the capacity to do all these terrible surgeries and so forth to try to well to mutilate somebody try to make a man into a woman and vice versa but uh the other and I guess a simple way to put it, unnatural relationships or relationships that violated the unity and the indissolubility of the marital bond, adultery, or just sexual activity outside of marriage.

1:18:20because sexual union is expression of the bond, the exclusive bond of marriage. And to have sexual union with someone who's not your wife is a grave sin. So God saw this, what was going on. And of course, other things too, people, dishonesty, abusing people for one's own gratification and so forth. It could be also done in economic affairs and so forth. So God saw this, but he saw that Noah and his family were living rightly. We're living in truth according to the way God made us. And so he called upon Noah to build the ark and to save us. I was saying before what was good, the good that he had created.

1:19:34Now, of course, this was before the Ten Commandments. Noah comes for Moses. But I would like to make a point here, if I may, and that is that God made us in his own image and likeness, intelligence and free will. And he wrote on the human heart, we use that image, his law. In other words, if he made us in that way, he made us to live in accord with our true nature and not in accord with idolatry or sinfulness. And so we call that the natural law, that its expression is found in the Ten Commandments, but that every man, even if he doesn't know the Ten Commandments, if he is in communication with his heart, with his deepest being, he knows, for instance, that human life is inviolable.

1:20:46He knows that human sexuality is intended to form the bond of marriage and for the family. And he knows that God is to be worshipped, as our Lord says in spirit and in truth. And we see this, that people eventually, when they're told about the faith and so forth, they understand that this is the truth about themselves. And so in any case, Noah and his sons, they were living according to the natural law, to that law that God had written on their hearts. And so God called upon them to build the ark and to save his people. and so the people of God continued, even though this flood destroyed everything, including all the people who continued, even though Moses was building the ark and so forth, they continued to carry on, as we say, as if there were no tomorrow, and they were all killed by the flood.

1:21:51So the natural law is God is to be worshipped. Yes. Human life is invaluable, and sexuality is for procreation in the family unit. That's right. And so what did God promise Noah? God promised him that he would have descendants and that they would have life and that they would enjoy his friendship forever. And in fact, he kept that promise. He did keep that promise.

1:22:27what about the covenant with Abraham there we have Abraham was was living in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah and uh uh there what was Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were were two cities and the people there began to live in a godless way and especially there was homosexual activity. They were a natural attraction between people of the same sex and then they would even abuse people who would come. People would be passing through, offer them hospitality but with the intention to abuse them sexually to have relations, unnatural relations with them. And so God told Abraham to leave Sodom and Gomorrah and with Lot.

1:23:35And so they fled and God led him into the land of Ur of the Chaldees, the present situation in Iraq is so sad for us because that's where they went. The Chaldeans became the Chaldea, and today is Iraq. But in there, God promised Abraham a son, which he didn't have. Lot was his nephew.

1:24:16and that from that son would come a people a people a greater number than anyone could imagine and so as i was mentioning abraham's wife who was far beyond childbearing age she she thought that This was some kind of joke, if you might say. But no, it wasn't. She did. She had a son, Isaac. And Isaac had a son, Jacob. The covenant keeps coming through. And then Jacob had 12 sons. and uh and it was uh anyway the whole genealogy continues and indeed uh from abraham uh comes this what today is the church all those who uh have come to life in christ through baptism uh and who who become more numerous than we can imagine.

1:25:30Now there are still a lot of people who do not yet know Christ, and there are sadly people who have known Christ and then have gone away from him. And so the church is essentially missionary in the sense that she's constantly wanting to bring Christ, to bring that to fulfillment, that promise of God to make a great nation, that Christ, who is the king of the universe by his saving work, would reign in the hearts of all men. How did he appear to Abraham? He appeared as three visitors, a mysterious visitor. There's a famous Russian icon of the three visitors to Abraham, and they say there were three angels.

1:26:28In some way, they represented the Holy Trinity. And they came to Abraham. He showed them hospitality, and he recognized them as truly unusual visitors. and it was through them that God promised him the son, who was Isaac. How did he appear to Noah? With Noah, the scriptures simply say God spoke to him. I don't recall that it was more than that, that God spoke to him and didn't say that he appeared to him in the sense, in some kind of particular way, but in some way he communicated to him what he needed to do. Did he fulfill his promise to Abraham? Yes. We see in the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, we refer to, in fact, to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because through that line came then David, who was the house of Judah, and then through the house of David came our Lord.

1:28:03are you seeing similarities in today as they did in sodom and gomorrah as well yes the days of no yes it's it's very clear to us or to me i should say but i'm and to to others as well that in this rebellion that is set into society really centuries ago but in our day is represented by the idea that I am the author of my own being, that I have a right to decide whether I should live or not, and that I have a right to change the identity which was given to me at my birth, and then in all kinds of other ways in which evil is exalted as good and then the evil actions of men are exalted as good and in defiance of god's law and we see a good example is is atheistic materialism communism and uh to deny that uh the law of god by uh enslaving people to an ideology which uh is contrary to the to the christian faith but we see it too in the whole the homosexual agenda to say that that you can have a marriage there are countries the country of my own ancestors Ireland they put in their constitution that you can have marriage between two people of the same sex.

1:30:12I say this is a heresy not only against the faith, what the scriptures teach us, but against reason itself. It's clear that God made man for woman and woman for man, and he didn't make us to have genital relationships with a person of the same sex. And so, but we see various phenomena in this whole transgender business too. Someone gets an idea that he's a woman captured in a male body. So he, this is where too I have to say we need to think about medicine. medicine is the art of healing of curing it's not to be used for other ends but sadly the medical profession has then taken up the work of of actually really mutilating people so that they can somehow realize this idea that they have that the sex assigned to them by nature is wrong and they may want to change it to what their idea is.

1:31:39It turns out, of course, no one can be happy that way. And now already we hear the cases of people who've had all these surgeries and so forth making lawsuits against those that mutilated them. And as I say here, too, it's a question of this just isn't reasonable. How anyone could think that you could change your sexual identity. It's just, and certainly God, from the creation of Adam and Eve, He said, let us create man. And then it says male and female he created them. So God creates us either as a male or female. We should be very grateful for our sexual identity and strive to live out the particular gifts that come to us for our sexual identity.

1:32:43And we know that man and woman also in their way of thinking and so forth, very distinctive gifts, and that's what makes for a good marriage, it makes for a good family life, and those are the things we ought to, for instance, instill on our children, and the qualities of a gentleman, the qualities of a lady, as we say, which is something we all recognize as is a real gift and something very beautiful in human life.

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1:37:43And then he had Uriah killed because he didn't want Uriah to discover what had happened. And so the Lord punished him for his sin, but he repented, and God promised him before he died that through his family would come a king who would rule forever. and that, of course, that king is our Lord Jesus Christ. So that covenant was fulfilled? That was fulfilled, too. And how about Moses? Moses, likewise, Moses himself became upset with the people and famous account of the people were always complaining about things. And so they complained that they didn't have any water and our Lord told them to take his staff and strike this rock and that water would come.

1:38:57And Moses, before he struck the rock, made a rather angry speech. And then he struck the rock twice and God saw that he didn't reflect the holiness of God in the way he responded to the people. And so Moses did not enter the promised land. It was through Joshua that the people entered the promised land. He was able to, from Mount Nebo, he could view the holy land from afar, but he didn't enter the holy land. Now, Moses was a very good person, but God in his plan for our salvation requires that we imitate as perfectly as possible his holiness, his qualities. And so Moses rightly accepted that he had failed in that regard.

1:39:55But Moses was a great figure. There's a wonderful tribute to him in the scriptures.

1:40:06And so there, too, God kept the promise. He brought the people into the promised land. And, of course, that promised land eventually is the church.

1:40:24Are there any covenants that God did not keep or has not fulfilled yet in the Old Testament? It's not possible that God would make a covenant and not keep it. We say of God that he is ever faithful, his love is enduring, and so it never fails. And the scriptures testify to that. Okay.

1:40:57in genesis 3 15 god promises that the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent

1:41:06what conflict does this set in motion and how far does it run through scripture but it runs through the whole of scripture uh satan succeeded in tempting adam and eve and he will of course he doesn't rest he doesn't sleep he continues to to tempt man to turn against god to think basically for man to think that he is god and we see manifestations of this immediately for instance the tower of babel people thought that they could build some kind of physical structure uniting heaven to earth and on their own not according to god's god's plan and so the where in the whole scriptures we see the people are waiting for the fulfillment of this promise through the whole old testament uh and the prophets speak about, for instance, connected with Genesis 3.15 is Isaiah 7.14, where God promises that a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and who will save the people.

1:42:29And that, of course, This is a prophecy in Isaiah, but it's the prophecy of this man born of a woman who crushes the head of Satan. And that opposition continues. Our Lord comes. He's incarnate in the womb of Mary. He's born at Bethlehem. He carries out His public ministry, which is fundamentally a confrontation of the goodness of God with the evil of sin. the powers of darkness. And so our Lord comes and he crushes Satan's head by his suffering and his death, his resurrection. And he sends the right hand of the Father and sends the Holy Spirit in the church. And so that victory is won. now what remains is that the victory which christ achieved in his human nature is to be achieved in each one of us saint paul uses images said that he rejoices to fill out in his body what is lacking in the sufferings of christ now there's nothing lacking in the sufferings of christ he's he's the redeemer perfectly but what is lacking is that each one of us incorporate the life of Christ into our lives and that we resist the temptations of Satan until our Lord comes at the end of the time and restores everything to the Father.

1:44:06And so, this is so important for us to realize that we're all called to cooperate with Christ in his saving work and that that saving work should be the story of our lives. And even as in Genesis 3.15, this was through a woman, we also, through our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, understand what our Lord is asking each one of us to do according to our vocation in life, according to our particular gifts. And the image of this is in the wedding feast at Cana. Our Lord and our Blessed Mother were invited to a wedding feast at Cana, and at the wedding feast, through some miscalculation, they ran out of wine.

1:45:01And the wine stewards were extremely distressed, and it was our Blessed Mother who took them to Jesus, her divine son, and said to them, do whatever he tells you. And of course, they do. He told them, fill these water jars, and the water was transformed into wine. So we take that, what she said there, for each of us, we're trying to do whatever Christ tells us and in doing that we cooperate in his saving work and even as our Blessed Mother cooperated by saying when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her to tell her that she was to be the the mother of the Redeemer she didn't understand it first she said how can this be because I know not man she was married to Saint Joseph they were fully married but there was a virginal marriage They had not come to live together, and they had intended, we know this, that they had intended to lead their married life respecting her vow of virginity.

1:46:15And St. Joseph accepted this. So she said, I know not men. She was married, but she knew not men in the sense she had no sexual relation with Joseph. and the angel tells her not to fear, but to trust God's word. And she says, fiat, let it be done to me according to what you've said. And so she became the mother of us all by that fiat. And then, of course, she, that let it be done. fiat is the Latin for let it be done to me according to your word and then throughout her our Lord's public ministry Our Lady is always been at a side but most most importantly as he's dying on the cross she's at the foot of the cross with st.

1:47:15John the evangelist the other Apostles sadly were cowards and had run away. They didn't want to risk being arrested and punished. But St. John was there, and our Lord, just moments before he died, he said to Our Lady, Woman, behold your son. St. John, of course, represents us all, the church. And then he said to John, Behold your mother. And so we see that our Blessed Lady's role in the redemption, which Christ alone, of course, accomplishes. But all of us have some part to play our Lord. It's calling upon us to be, as it's in the third letter of St. John, cooperators of the truth. All of us are called to be co-workers of the truth.

1:48:12That, by the way, was the motto of Pope Benedict XVI. he chose that cooperator is very taught as cooperators of the truth as his motto for his his uh episcopal ministry i have a question if god promises that the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent but the serpent is satan satan is obviously alive yes and working yes how is that prophecy that promise that prophecy how has that promise been fulfilled because we receive divine grace we receive from christ himself the sevenfold gift of the holy spirit to combat satan and that wasn't true until he came yes people received grace from God but but not the gift of the Holy Spirit as is given through baptism and through the sacraments and through our whole life in the church and so yes Satan is still around he'll be any you'll always be in hell but eventually our Lord will come to to restore the whole church become the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly church, and then, of course, Satan won't be able anymore to tempt and bother anybody.

1:49:57But up until then, we have to, as St. Paul says, fight the good fight, stay the course, and keep the faith. God keeps his covenant with us. He gives us divine grace, but we need to keep our covenant with him and cooperate with that grace. Oh, God.

1:50:24The blood of the Passover lamb saves Israel from death. What does this point forward to? Well, this I was mentioning before. When the people were enslaved in Egypt, God wanted to set them free. and he chose Moses because they were killing all the first, the Egyptians were killing all the firstborn of the Israelites because they were becoming so numerous and they were becoming very powerful. And so, but Moses was saved to the daughter. Pharaoh discovered him and his mother hid him in a reed basket in a marsh, and she found him and took him and raised him. And, of course, this was all in the providence of God.

1:51:13He became then a great leader, and God, through him, asked Pharaoh to set the people free. And God sent various plagues to show that he wanted his people to be freed. and Pharaoh would, the plague would come. For instance, the water turned all, the water turned to blood. There was a terrible plague of locusts and so forth, destroying the crops and the source of food. And Pharaoh would say he was going to set them free, then he wouldn't. Well, finally, the last plague was that God took through the angel of death, the firstborn of all the Egyptians died. And the night that this happened, the Israelites were instructed, with very strict instructions, to slay a lamb and to eat this Passover meal.

1:52:23pass over the the angel of god passes over the houses of and to sprinkle to slaughter the lamb to sprinkle its blood on their doorpost and in all the homes where the blood of the paschal lamb was sprinkled the child was saved and so we see this is a very strong symbol of what our Lord has done for us by his saving passion and death. And we eat his flesh, we drink his blood in the Holy Eucharist.

1:53:03We are saved by his blood from everlasting death. And so the Paschal Lamb is a very strong sign of that. And then the people, through the blood of the Lamb, they escape from Egypt. and eventually arrive in the Promised Land. Are there any other prophecies in the Old Testament that came true other than the birth of Christ? They all center on that. All of them are directed toward the Savior, the Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord. These are all names for our Lord. They're all centered on that. but there may be some aspect or another that's reflected in one of the prophets, but it's always everything is directed toward the coming of the Savior and that the people ought to be prepared.

1:54:05They ought to, by their way of life, be ready to welcome the Savior at his coming. And, of course, John the Baptist expresses this most perfectly because he's the last of the prophets and he's preaching to the people repentance for their sins and that they should make the language from the prophet Isaiah make a straight pathway for God to enter their lives. And that, of course, is what happens when our Lord comes. But even as the prologue to St. John's Gospel tells us, our Lord came unto his own and his own received him not. In other words, our Lord came to save us, but many people who knew him, who met him, rejected him, and in fact, ultimately, they convinced the Roman government to put him to death.

1:55:04but that notwithstanding he saves those who who turn to him with faith who who embrace him with love and and so we will find get back to your point all all the prophets are very rich messages I often think of the one in Prophet Zechariah when he says, strike the shepherd and scatter the sheep. In other words, this is how the devil works. He corrupts the shepherds and then the sheep are scattered. Don't we see that in the whole history of the church too where those come to call to high office, in some way betray that office and therefore cause damage to innumerable souls. And there would be other prophecies.

1:56:05The prophecy of Amos is very rich in the instruction about fidelity in the marriage bond and so forth. you and so there's a whole richness in the prophets but it's all directed toward the coming of the of the anointed of the of the savior of the the seed of the of the woman that crushes the head of satan

1:56:40The only woman that could ever have a seed. Yes, it's because the seed is the Holy Spirit. She was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. And so it was the seed of God that, that's the miracle of the incarnation, is that she gave the human nature, but the divine nature, the union was accomplished by the Holy Spirit, by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. But it's interesting not to get away from your question, but what's beautiful, too, is how God prepared everything for the conception of our Lord Jesus. Sometimes people say today that Mary was the first unmarried mother. and that's not true because she was perfectly married to Joseph before the angel Gabriel arrived.

1:57:51In the Jewish law, there were two stages to marriage, and the first stage was the contract of marriage, and from that moment on, the couple were husband and wife. But then there was a period of time before the husband would lead the wife into his home, and the marriage was consummated. But the consummation didn't make the marriage. The marriage was already there. It simply was the consummation of it through the conjugal union. So Mary, when the archangel appeared, was married to Joseph. And that's why in the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, when Joseph finds out that Mary's with child, he thinks to divorce her.

1:58:41Well, he wouldn't have thought that if it were a question that they weren't married. So they were perfectly married. What's the point I want to make is that God made so his plan to save us that the Savior, God the Son incarnate, would be born into a family. with husband and wife and saint joseph is called the virginal father of jesus he's called the butative father of jesus but jesus was of the in the home of mary and joseph and that's where he grew up and so forth and so you you see how god is uh his providence at work and he's blessing uh blessing the family and from the very beginning of his saving work and uh so i I always like to make that point because many people don't understand that.

1:59:33They think that in the gospel it says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and people think that that's engaged. No, betrothal was marriage. It wasn't just engagement. There was a legal bond so strong that, as I say, St. Joseph would have thought that he had to divorce Mary. Wow. I did not know that. Yeah, it's very important.

2:00:06And there have been all studies done on the Jewish practice of marriage, and this is just perfectly the case.

2:00:18So that should be a special inspiration for husbands and wives. And we always say that the husband should imitate St. Joseph, not that every marriage should be virginal. That wouldn't work very well in terms of the propagation of the human race, but that the husband, like St. Joseph, should have a very chaste love for his wife. In other words, that it's pure and solely for her good, and that it's not mixed in with any infidelity. Can you describe, this is a little off topic, but can you describe the Holy Trinity? If I could describe the Holy Trinity, I would be God himself. This is, we say that this is the great mystery, the three persons in one God.

2:01:10Our Lord himself refers to his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. and we see in the whole of scriptures that God is, there are three persons that share the same nature.

2:01:26And different images have been used to try to help us to understand that. I think if you ask me for a description, it would simply be this, that the nature of God is so rich that it is embodied in three distinct persons. And so they're perfectly one. There's only one God. There are not three gods, but the fullness of God has this expression in the Son who is the Word and who comes to save us, and then in the Holy Spirit, who the Son and the Father send to us and to our hearts into the church so that we can be alive in God, that we can live in guidance.

2:02:30They say that St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach this, that it's a single stem but it has these three three leaves there are there are other images too that are you sometimes the uh a triangle uh a single unit very very solid and uh but with three distinct. Those are all images and we can never, I mean, only God can reveal the fullness of his nature to us, but he has in various ways shown us that who he is, the three persons and one God.

2:03:23well cardinal we'll wrap it up the interview so

2:03:30what is the overall message of the old testament and what should people take from it the overall message of the old testament is uh god saves us through jesus a name which means God saves. But the whole Old Testament is a preparation for this incredibly wonderful, indescribably wonderful act of God's love that he comes himself and the person of his only begotten Son to dwell with us, to be one with us, first during his public ministry, but then as he was ascending to the father he ascends to the father to send us the holy spirit so that we can uh continue to enjoy the grace of salvation uh until until the end of time so And the Old Testament just encourages so many beautiful things in the Old Testament, and we need to read it to understand how great is the mystery of God's love.

2:04:56I think of the story of the Exodus we've talked about. We've talked about King David, a book even like the book of Tobit, this wonderful story about the care for the dead and so forth. They're all bringing out different aspects of God's love for us.

2:05:18Thank you. You're welcome. Can we end with a prayer? Yes. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen in the name of the father and of the son of the holy spirit amen amen good carnal god bless well god bless you too we've done we've worked hard this morning start again tomorrow with the new testament very good all right wonderful thank you thank you for doing this i'm sure it's going to reach countless souls and so god willing it'll lead them to to uh start to read the bible and come to know our lord through the bible i hope so

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