Is not a Bible study with a free snack at the end OK?

It is the feast of love, the wedding feast of the Lamb that we are invited to participate in because it is a foreshadowing and a foretaste of where we're going as Christians.

The Eucharist is a foretaste of immortality.

It is the portal to heaven, which Saint Thomas describes so eloquently as this feast of law.

Right now in this world, we worship as through a glass darkly behind the Sacramento veils of bread and wine under ritual forms.

But one day the last priest will sing the last itemisa S that the last Mass and what we worship under sign or symbol is going to fade away into the glorious reality of fulfilled glory.

Welcome to this episode of FAX.

I'm your host, Steven Boyce.

I am with Pat May and that was Father Christopher Smith from Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Taylors, SC.

You'll find the link to that clip in the description.

So that way we're giving credit where credit is due.

Pat, good to see you back again.

Round 2.

Yeah, good to be back.

Thanks for having me.

Make a quick statement about what Father Smith said, because I think it is actually very important.

They just released it today, so it kind of connects with what we're already doing as it relates to the discussion of on earth as it is in heaven.

He talks about seeing in a glass darkly, bringing that scripture into it.

He talks about that we're getting a foretaste of something, that there's something being replicated.

The portal to heaven, all these things that are happening is exactly what we've been talking about.

So kind of comment on that real.

Quick, absolutely Revelation.

We're going through the Book of Revelation doing a series on this and how Revelation is the Liturgy of Heaven.

And we are joining in that when we are celebrating the liturgy on here on earth in the church.

And that's what Father Smith was referring to as the portal.

The Eucharist is the portal to heaven.

And we're we're participating in that liturgy now when we join together.

But one day, those signs and symbols will be no more.

They're going to be the actual thing that we get to see with the physical eye and hear with the physical ear.

Yeah, praise be to God.

Yeah, absolutely.

One of the things that we're going to be talking about in the outline today particularly is really the marriage supper book, having inspired some of the thought that we have.

You've been reading through Scott Hahn's book, and I have it right here in my hand.

There's also Others, Hope to Die by Scott Hahn.

You also have Angels and Saints, which I think you've been reading through recently.

I have, yeah, as well.

We recommend these to you because these kind of books and they're not long, they're short.

They're short and they're easy.

They're easy reads.

Easy reads, and we've been kind of using some of the outline of it because when you're in the Book of Revelation, and we're going to talk about Hebrews a little bit today, we're going to talk of Revelation again as it relates to the liturgy in heaven and on earth.

But specifically we want to tie that into the line, the Communion of the Saints.

The Communion of Saints is something that we say almost at any baptism or confirmation, we go to the Apostles Creed and right there toward the very end of the creed, we're we're proclaiming that we believe in the communion of Saints.

So when we talk about that, it sounds good in a creed, but that has so much more meaning to it.

Biblical backing, I should say as well.

So kind of define for us when we talked about the Communion of Saints, what that is and what it isn't because there's there's two elements of this.

There's the Protestant side of things has one definition that would only take it so far and they would leave it at that point.

But then there's other perspectives more in the Apostolic churches that would take say, look, that's a half definition.

We need to go fully to kind of talk about the communion of Saints.

What is it?

What does it mean?

What does it not mean?

Yeah, the community of Saints is basically the unit, the visible presence and oneness of all of God's Church, of God's people present in heaven and present on earth right now.

So it's not, it's, it's not an invisible reality.

It's very much a visible reality, mostly visible within the liturgy of the Mass for for us here.

But as John sees in the Book of Revelation, it is from every language, tongue, nation and tribe present around the throne worshipping God.

But yeah, you know, when I was a Baptist, I never really actually thought about this term.

I don't know about you, but didn't even know about it until I started studying church history.

And by the way, this is not a term that was just brought out in the 3rd century at school.

This is new.

You can actually see that this was understood from scripture, sacred tradition.

Sacred Scripture passed on the faith once delivered to the Saints, as Jude tells us, but the communion of Saints is just the visible reality of the Saints in heaven, Saints on earth, and it is the idea that we are joined together in this oneness, worshipping the living God.

I think that's key too, because the MIS definition of that is that it only relates to people on earth, right?

So that it would only be relevant or applicable to your local congregation, your small group, whatever it is.

Because in a sense that is a communion of the Saints, but it is 1/2 communion.

And we kind of talked about this before, like, like Christ is building his church and he's looking at that church as a living entity.

As Peter said, you are living stones, right?

You're an Organism.

And Jesus dealing with the subject of the resurrection with the Sadducees, when they asked him about it, what does he do?

He goes to the Old Testament and he says that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Therefore he's not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.

So if the church is a living entity, as described in the Shepherd of Hermes, as this tower that is being built, not not a tower that once it dies, the peace comes out and a new one comes in, it's replacing.

And if we are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, the apostles, the prophets.

Being the foundation.

All of these things are being built in this tower, if you would, in the Shepherd.

Then we are a part of something that's not just of people who are unconscious, because every time people die, the church is either going to fluctuate with the living on earth and only following the trajectory of the living, right?

But if we believe that God is the God of the living, not just of the dead, that he actually has a church that encompasses those in his beatific vision, those in his presence, and those that are looking at him through these signs and symbols of Father Smith talked about on earth.

Now you can actually have a a real communion, not a partial communion.

Yeah, and I think again, if we go back to the Sacred Scripture, what does the writer of Hebrews tell us in chapter 12, verse one?

That we are surrounded by a living, a cloud of witnesses, at least present.

Yes, They're not.

They're not.

They haven't ceased to exist.

They're they're witnessing and they are witnesses.

They surround us and they're already keenly interested in what we are doing here on earth as the church here on earth.

They are, they're interested in our struggles.

They're interested in our in our endurance, in the faith.

They are present with us as the entire body of Christ is together.

And so with that, because people don't have a a fight with the idea of angels observing, because the same writer of Hebrews talks about how we entertain angels unawares.

We have an issue with it being a deceased St.

But we don't have an issue with the idea of angels.

But yet when we are in the vision of John, like in Revelation 4, Revelation 5, you don't just see angels and people as in one category and then people on earth over here, he sees his vision of heaven and earth in one climactic join together worship.

And so I don't, I don't understand why I fought this for years.

I, I plead ignorance and faultiness in that.

But like, if we are entertaining angels unawares, we believe that they are presently among us and interested in US.

It's so much so that they're, they're in a sense almost jealous and desiring to look into the salvation that Christ has obtained through his own physical life by the incarnation and how that affects us here in the physical realm as they are in the spiritual realm.

Father Smith and another sermon, in fact, it might even be that same sermon, talked about how there's like this really good jealousy on their end that we get to partake of the body and blood of Christ and have a connection with him that they don't even have surrounding his throne because we're partaking of the incarnational aspects of Christ that they can't do.

And so that they are almost desirous of the salvation aspect that we have.

So if we believe that we can have that kind of interaction with angels where they're observing us and even have this godly jealousy to it, and that they are watching over us, and we have guardian angels, as Jesus says, the angels of these children are always beholding the face of God.

So I've heard people even in these moves say, yeah, I believe there's guardian angels.

I believe we entertain them unawares and may not even know they're there, that they are interested in our lives and that they are interceding between heaven and earth.

Four people on earth to God in the beatific vision.

But we believe that that's limited to angels, but not those who have gone into the presence of God who are Saints.

Yeah, which doesn't make sense in the exegetical understanding of Hebrews, because what happens right before Hebrews 12/1?

And by the way, there are no chapters and verses in the original text.

The writer of Hebrews has just began forming, informing us about the those who'd gone before us, right before us, and the Old Covenant particularly.

By Faith by.

Faith by faith, you know, or you know, he begins with creation, the patriarchs, and it goes all the way through the Davidic Kingdom.

And then even then, the Maccabees, if you understand Maccabees, the Book of Maccabees.

So it it's interesting.

Like it's not the context of angels, It's the context of those who've gone before.

Yeah, yeah.

Those who have lived in the Old covenant period.

And then we have a greater thing, he says.

Yeah, we have something better.

OK, So if, if we're surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us in the old covenant and we have something better, there must be something better, right?

Like there's got to be something.

So he, he builds into this identity and, and you look at the, the Christian life of faith, which he talks about, we're fully focused on Christ because he's the one who went before us.

He's the forerunner, he's the captain of our faith.

He's gone on before us.

And he has the joy as the motivation for us to continue and persevere through this.

The joy that was set before him when the dirt.

So all those things have been given to us.

We now have the full encompassing of Saints and angels we talked about last episode and how Hebrews deals with those who are sanctified Saints, those who are brought before God, that we are joining in some sort of worship with myriads of angels and sanctified and glorified and all these things that have happened and those that are of the faith.

There is this communion of Saints introduced in Hebrews.

John, on the other hand, gets to see the visionary form of this behind the Lord's Day Mass, where he's seeing the symbols and the signs that Father Smith alluded to, but he's actually getting to see the living, breathing entity behind those signs and symbols.

He's telling us they're in signs and symbols, but he's seeing the real thing behind the signs.

Behind the signs and symbols.

One day we'll be able to see that as well.

So let's talk about particularly the Saints, what they are, what they were in relation to, say Colossians chapter 3.

You wanted to deal with that in chapters 1/3 verses one through 4, that Saints in heaven are not dead.

So talk about the intercession side of that because this is where people get a little, Oh no, that sounds too like necromancy for me or something like that.

So kind of talk about Paul's perspective.

We had a good conversation about this on the phone.

I think it's good that the audience hears your perspective because there's a there's an identity here that goes also to First Timothy.

So let's start with Colossians.

We'll work to First Timothy.

We'll talk about the Saints.

Who are they living and dead?

Yeah.

And I, I'm assuming we're going to get in the Revelation off.

Absolutely.

We'll talk about that too.

But yeah, Saint Paul makes it very clear in Colossians 3, and he says this in other places.

He says in Ephesians as well, Ephesians 2, that we have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

We have been like present.

Tense.

We're there.

Yeah.

And then he says in Colossians 3 pretty much the same thing that we have been raised in Christ Jesus in him.

And so the sense is that yes, we are looking forward to a bodily resurrection right in when he comes again to judge the living in the dead, there will be a, a resurrection of the dead bodily.

And we obviously look forward to that.

We don't, you and I don't hold to the idea of a rapture.

We hold, we hold to the the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.

But Paul does make it very clear in Scripture to us.

And I think Jesus does too in John 5 and in other places in the Gospel, that we are already raised in him because he has already been raised from the dead.

Because we're in him.

We're not outside of him, we are within him.

If we are in him, the Spirit of God lives within us, then we are already partaking and participating in what he has accomplished for us.

We're not separated from Jesus.

There is a union there.

Paul talks about this in Romans 6 when he talks about baptism.

In baptism, we have died with Christ and we have been raised up to walk in the newness of life with Him.

So there is this idea of a present tense that we are already given eternal life.

That's what Jesus says in John chapter 5.

Anyone who hears my word and believes in me has has eternal life.

Present tense not will have but has eternal life, which is an amazing thought to to really dig into.

We're on top for that.

But the Saints of heaven are not dead.

We ask for their intercession because we know that they are fully alive, more loud than we are.

They're not, they're not dealing with the physical struggles of this world.

They're not dealing with sickness and physical pain and getting up in the morning and trying to stretch your back out because you're dealing with the, you know, just the, the.

Or like me, this morning I had a cramp in my calf.

I'm like, what is going on?

I'm just getting out of bed, right?

They don't have that and they don't feel the exhaustion.

They don't have to go to bed.

That's right.

They don't sleep.

They are living in eternity.

And you and I were talking about that like the idea of revelation, where John gets behind these signs and symbols and gives us the how and the why, if you will, is to understand that he who was and is and is to come, that that present sphere of the world has no, doesn't care about time.

It's not constrained by time.

It's not restricted by time.

They are living in the internal eternal age.

And that connects with what we saw in Revelation 4 and Revelation 5.

How is John able to see every tribe, tongue and nation coming around the throne of the Lamb and saying, worthy are you?

How?

How is that possible when John, who's right around probably the year 96 during the reign of the mission, all the nations have not yet been discovered.

The gospel has not made it to many of those in the Roman Empire since it had.

But not in the sense of like us, I mean where we are, because he saw all of these things.

In the Americas, if you would, right, Or Australia, yeah.

We're in the West.

The West was yet really uncultivated, and there's a lot of debate about who is even here and how long were they here, But not everyone had yet received the glorious gift of salvation.

Yet John is seeing all of this, all of time and all of its peoples and all of its languages coming around the throne because He is in a timeless place.

That is how we can try to fight and reconcile this idea, like you stated in Ephesians, that we are seated together with him in the heavenlies, but yet we're sitting here on chairs in Greer, SC.

But in the eternal realm, there's something mysterious.

There's something eternal that has touched the temporal.

And we're on the other end of this glass darkly as Father Smith quoting scripture, trying to figure all this out.

It's actually a mystery.

It's a divine mystery and how this works.

But we do know this, that in the eternal realm that there is an active worship ongoing day and night, as Revelation says, it is presently happening.

There isn't a was and will be.

It is an is they, it's it's, it's a present state.

And the beauty of Mass is that we are participating in a temporal place in that eternal moment, just for that moment here on earth.

We are participating in something bigger than us, grander than us, far more outreaching than us.

And one of those things is the communion of Saints.

In many of the Masses, you'll see the names of the Saints listed in the Mass, martyrs, the apostles, even back referencing the faith of Abraham and that we are the children of Abraham.

It's all there in many of these ceremonies and masses that you participate in.

And so there is a calling on of the Saints because there is a recognition that they are presently active in the presence of God.

And we are now they're not joining us, we're joining them.

And so this is important too, because one of the things that people talk about as it relates to talking to those who are dead is that there's this conflation of necromancy, like, well, that's similar to necromancy that is forbidden by God to reach out to the dead.

Now, I'll make a comment here and I'll let you comment as well.

Here's a misunderstanding of that.

Necromancy is to speak to the dead in order to obtain something for yourself.

That's right, yeah.

That is what necromancy does.

If you want to know that what that is in present day form is going to see a, what do you call?

A psychic or something?

Yeah, Palm readers.

Can you, can you visit my relative?

Can you talk to my relatives for me?

That type of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You are trying to obtain something from this restaurant.

No, I'm not saying that people don't cross the line and go into idolatry or even major things like like we're not even arguing the fact that there's people that that abuse any good thing.

Yeah, Christians can abuse anything.

But the idea of the sainthood of these people who have gone before us, who are in the beatific vision of Christ, they're gloriously worshiping him with Saints and angels around him, and we are participating in that.

We are not asking something from them in the sense of we're asking them to tell us the future.

We're asking them to tell us what year we're going to die.

We are asking them to pray for us, not that they would intercede in our lives in the sense of they come down and do something and come haunt us.

Know that Christ would hear their petition.

By the way, if you think that's a problem, then you also have to conclude that it is a problem to go to your living relatives and say I'm having a bad day.

Please pray for me.

I'm struggling with these things.

You have the same logic Applause.

It it's the same thing.

What what's the difference?

The difference is actually on the better end of things since they are in the beatific vision of God.

They're not hindered.

We see on earth our prayers can be hindered.

A husband's prayer can be husband on how he's treating his wife.

So I can go to you if you're having a bad day in your marriage, or you can go to me if I'm having a bad day in my marriage where my prayer is hindered as Peter says, and say, hey, Pat, pray for me today.

And your prayer is, is almost pointless in the sense of your prayers are hindered.

Their prayers are not hindered in the beatific vision.

So we actually have almost a more they've.

Arrived, they've arrived and that's the difference between us and them is they have arrived.

They are more fully alive than we are and that's what we mean when we say that they have entered into the beatific vision of God where we have not.

We are still presently living our lives here in this world.

Now this begs the question of what about our salvation and we're not going to get into that today, but you know we we could talk about does does one particularly break fellowship with God because of their sin Absolutely they do sure and when you're living in disobedience to God.

James kind of tells us the prayers of a righteous man avails much is very effective if you're living in sin you're or you're being disobedient in in one area of your life and God knows that and you know that you haven't come to God, you haven't confessed it, you haven't repented of it.

Well guess what, you are living in a state of danger and and.

But there's no confession that it's in the beatific.

Vision.

There's no confession.

Sin to deal with.

Let me give you an analogy of this.

When Isaiah saw the vision, that's right, because obviously we believe it was Christ that he saw, because John the Apostle says he saw these things.

When Isaiah saw these things, he was Speaking of Jesus himself.

But when he was in that presence, what's the first thing as a mortal that he recognized even in the vision?

I am a man of unclean lips.

And the Angel goes to the to the altar and brings a living cold, and wipes the uncleanliness off his lips.

Purges.

Right.

Don't get me started on that.

That's another episode too.

But even in the vision that he had while a mortal man, the minute he saw Christ and these living holy creatures around him, which John later sees as well, he's he's unclean.

It's no different on earth.

When Peter finally came to this recognition on the boat about Jesus.

He's the Messiah and he says get away from me, Lord, I'm an uncalls.

Him, Lord.

Man right, He didn't call him Jesus cause him.

Lord.

But he recognized his sin, his depravity, his his brokenness before him.

Mortal man is constantly having to see this when he's in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in these elements.

But in the beatific vision, they are holy ones.

That's what St.

means, what you're talking about, holy.

They are now in a state of that holiness.

And so they're not in a confessional.

So they don't have a hindrance with God.

They don't have a brokenness of friendship and companionship with God.

They are worshiping Him in spirit and in truth and imperfection.

And by that, when we asked for their intercession, we are receiving a more clear path of intercession than even asking people on.

I'm not saying we don't ask people on Earth.

I'm saying that if you are willing to ask people on Earth, but not those who are in the Beatific vision, it is both inconsistent and you're actually lacking something that could be a greater intercession.

Yeah, I would just say it's missing out.

It is.

You're missing out on the greater benefit of the whole family of God.

I I.

Agree completely and it and why quote the notorious Apostles Creed, which says you believe in the communion of Saints if you don't believe the settlement, because that is exactly what they had in mind when Speaking of the communion of Saints.

So that kind of takes us sliding over to Timothy, Paul writing to Timothy, kind of talk about that verse because I thought what you brought up was very, very important because one of the criticisms that comes into play is we only have one mediator between God and man.

That's the man Christ Jesus bless God.

No intercession of the Saints.

Argument's over.

Not so fast.

And again, clearly that logic doesn't even apply to many of us who want to talk about, who want to state it that way, because we still ask our loved.

Ones right, like we just said.

Those who we think are alive here, we're going to ask them to pray for us.

But yeah, I think even as a as myself, when I was Baptist and, and even in some sense coming into the Anglican Church in the in the beginning, I was still learning.

But you know, I would always quote for Timothy 25, you know that.

I did too.

There is one God.

There is one mediator between God, a man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

I that was a passage that I always went to like, I don't need anybody to, you know, be a middle man.

It's just me and Jesus.

It's.

Just me and Jesus.

It's like Depeche Mode song, you know, person of Jesus.

But yeah, neither here nor there.

So it is in fact, interesting to me that if you read that verse in context, that makes no sense to how we miss how we used it because we actually twisted it when we treated it that way.

Because if you read the verses immediately before First Timothy 25, you will see the Saint Paul clearly sees no conflict between intercessory prayer and Christ's unique role as the one mediator.

I just want to, I want to say something to this because this again is where we fail to see the connection between the old and the new always.

We miss it.

We miss it all the time.

And, and, and Agustin taught this, that the old is fulfilled in the new and the new is hidden in the old.

And we have to learn how to read both testaments or covenants to understand how they work together.

And you had a mediator in the old covenant.

It wasn't Jesus, Moses, it was Moses.

Did Moses was he the sole mediator and sole intercessor for the people of?

Israel, you had the Levitical priesthood all doing.

That exactly.

You had others who were mediators for Moses.

They acted in his authority, in his, in his stead.

He was like the Regent.

They were the vice Regents, the viceroys.

They were working on his behalf.

And the same thing applies in the New Covenant.

Why we have this kind of attachment to Jesus as if he is the superhero in the story and we're just normal Joe Schmo's out there.

No, He's called us to be a part of his team.

He's called us to be a part of his family.

He's not acting solely.

He wants us to work with him in the redemption of the world.

God has always done that.

He did it with Abraham.

He did it with before Abraham.

He did it with Noah, a literal new creation.

But let's start it all over Noah.

And you're going to start that with me?

This is this is an important thing because you mentioned Moses as a mediator.

We talk about him.

Let's Fast forward that thought to the New Testament when Jesus is on the mount of.

Transmateration.

OK boy, talk about necromancy.

What was it?

Was it necromancy for Jesus to be talking to Moses and Elijah?

Was it necromancy for James, John and Peter to be there and participating with that?

Obviously not it.

Really.

Was not.

I mean, so so at what point?

And in fact, Peter misdiagnosed the situation.

He's like, man, this is this is good.

Like this is really good.

That's a weird holy moment.

Let's get a Tabernacle made for everybody.

And then he gets of.

Course I would have done the same thing.

I think we all would have it's like but but why?

Why did Peter think a Tabernacle should have been made for Moses and Elijah and the then the the voice of the Father says, hey, hey, hey this.

Is my son.

Listen to him.

Why did Peter as a Jew immediately go, there's Moses, Elijah, we got to get tabernacles.

What was his?

Thought Law in the prophets.

He had to because each you have Moses representing the law, you have Elijah representing the prophets.

Now, unless somebody wants to believe that that Peter, James and John did not see the real Moses and Elijah, that they just saw a hologram or something like I, I, I don't know how was it wasn't wrong for them to they.

Had a hallucination, yeah.

They they, they were doing mushrooms at the bottom of the garden and then they got brought up to the mountain.

But like that's for this perspective, we have to consider this truth.

They were participating with the dead.

Now I know Elijah technically never died, but you can't say that about Mojo Moses.

God buried the man He did.

Now we believe that he was probably assumed as well.

Probably brought him up.

We have the whole writing called the Assumption of Moses, which Jude quotes, from which I did a whole episode on the Epistle of Jude.

You can go back in the archives and find it.

But here's an interesting point.

Were they wrong when Peter says it is good for us to be here?

This is great.

Now he was wrong in what he decided to do with that moment, but the moment itself wasn't wrong because he reflects on it later.

And second, Peter Jackson.

He does, yeah, he absolutely.

Does so he didn't see it as being he saw it as being in the presence of Christ glorified in this transformed position and the Saints with him and they are in the presence of both Christ in the transformed glory that they were going to see.

How did Jesus enter into that glory yet without entering into that glory?

Because there must have been a moment where they were in an eternal realm.

They were seeing something in an eternal.

Realm and allow you have Moses and Elijah up here and Jesus consults with them.

Yes, has a conversation about his death and the glory that's going to follow.

After it, because the transfiguration proceeds pretty quickly right before his death.

Right, right at it, right at it.

So there is no necromancy there.

There's nothing wrong here.

And and I'll, I'll just point out too for our audience and our listeners.

Listen, I I think what we've done is we've taken the issue with Saul.

Oh, it's Samuel.

And Samuel, and we've said, see, you can't, you can't ask the those have gone before you to intercede for you because that's what Saul did.

No, the problem with Saul, and you mentioned this before, was a selfish intent.

Saul was trying to see how he could preserve his Kingdom rather than submit to God and God's desire for David to be the king.

Because Samuel told him.

You're going to lose your Kingdom and it's going to be given to to, to the to the lion.

He tells him him and his sons will die in.

Battle him and his sons are going to die in battle and and so.

And I would also add that his means of going to the dead.

Yeah, through which?

He went through witch witchcraft, so let's not conflate folks the issue.

And I think that's what we, that's what's happened, is that there's been a conflation between that and we're going to, we're just going to generally broad sweep all that into this idea of the intercession of the Saints.

And I think what ended up happening there is that first of all, I think the witch of Endor was, was completely caught off guard because she, she worked with a familiar spirit.

And I think Samuel actually came up and, and that's why she freaked out because she's used to working with a familiar spirit And God, even through evil means decided, all right, I'll give you a message.

It's your last one and you're going to die.

But when Samuel came up, she immediately freaked out because if it was who she was conjuring up and she thought it was who, she didn't have the ability to conjure up the same.

She did not.

Or prophet, anyway.

She was working with the that's what it is, a familiar spirit.

We're not working with the familiar spirit.

When asking intercession work through the Holy Spirit, we're working through the work of Christ on the cross.

Who tore down the veil?

Who tore down these partitions?

Who made access to Him completely open, not just in a building or through ethnicity, but through an open veil that's been removed and that we are with all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations, past, present, future angels and Saints together.

The communion of Saints is made possible by the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus who has opened all of these things to us.

So in that context, in in Samuel's life, that was a totally different visionary situation because it was the wrong means, wrong purpose.

Everything was wrong about it, but God still brought Samuel up to give him a message.

He did for for Saul's sake.

His sake and destruction.

Destruction.

Yeah.

So I, I don't buy into this idea.

I think that we've, we've overemphasized these things.

We've done faulty comparisons.

I do want to read the catechism.

That you have.

But let's go back to Paul, because again, there's only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

But what does Paul say immediately before that?

Oh yeah, he's going to say.

I urge you, brothers, that supplications and prayers and intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men.

So it's like he can't be saying what you think he's saying if he's saying that all these types of prayers and intercessions should be made and then you turn around and go into this.

So 100% agree, Pat, 100% agree with what you're saying.

And I think that we once again take things out of context and we do Yes, yes, because of Jesus, the great High Priest.

He is the true and only means to God the Father the only way.

But as we saw Peter, James and John were able to hear the voice of the Father and see the glory of the Son.

The Son was not alone in those moments.

He was surrounded by Saints, even after his temptation in the wilderness.

Who comes to comfort him?

Angels.

Yeah.

I mean, this is what we're seeing in the life of Jesus, that where he goes in his glory and his Kingdom, where he goes, His people and his worshippers are always around him.

He is surrounded by the voice of the Father, the company of angels.

And that's his.

That's his glory.

So anywhere Jesus is Saints and angels are with him, and so we believe in the real presence of the Mass, and that when he is present in the Mass, angels and Saints are with him.

Which means they're also with us.

That means we're with them.

We're joining in this host of heaven.

We are joining in the great chorus.

I I think of John chapter 15 and and this gets to a a kind of a deeper understanding of the text.

But our lives are hidden with Christ and God, as Paul tells us, because he is the vine.

We have the branches.

And we are the branches and we cannot bear fruit without him.

He is the origin of all the of all the things that we can do in the body of Christ.

Everything we do in the church is not separated from him.

It's connected to him.

Completely connected, yeah, that's a good point.

And, and when you look at the vine and the branches concept in that manner, the abiding process was prespoken by Jesus before that parable or that idea, not really a parable, but the imagery, I should say, of the vine branches.

He says that whoever does not eat my flesh, drink my blood, cannot abide in me and I in him.

So this does come full circle where there is the connection of the Eucharistic Mass with the abiding process.

And if we're in the abiding process, all the things you just said are now connected.

There's not a disconnect.

It is fully functionally connected in the person of Christ that we partake of in the Mass.

Now let's let's look at the catechism on this.

You have it posted in the notes.

I'll read it.

Being more closely united to Christ.

Those who dwell in heaven fix the whole church more firmly and holiness.

They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us as they proffer and merits which they acquired on earth or the one mediator that's him.

That's the one we talked about, right?

That's first Timothy between God and man, Christ Jesus.

So by their fraternal concern, our weakness is greatly helped.

So the the catechism is teaching there is benefit from this.

It's not excluding that there's one mediator between God and man.

It explicitly says exactly what we just read.

So they're not arguing with that verse saying, oh, of course there's more than one mediator.

Not even the Catechism teaches that That is a straw man.

That is to make that argument.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's a, it's almost a, a gaslighting of sorts.

I, I, I, I agree with that.

So let's kind of take the Book of Revelation.

So again, we, we've talked, what is a community of Saints?

What is it not?

How is this connected in the Old Testament?

How is this connected The New Testament, the life and ministry of Jesus, his, his story and the temptations during the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter's remembrance of the second Peter, Paul's view of this being in the heavenlies and the constant abiding process that we're doing and by being in him, being in Christ, all of these things that we set up as a preliminary, We come to the vision of John in the Book of Revelation and we see some images.

So I'm going to bring that up on the screen.

I think for us, it's going to be an important way to interpret this through the vision because what He is seeing is all the things that we just said.

Everything we just said, He is seeing it fully.

OK, So in Revelation chapter #5 we do see the intercession of angels and Saints, see it around the throne of God.

We see it in chapter 6 and chapter 8.

The first line here on the screen is when he had taken the scroll.

You have the four living creatures and the 24 elders.

Now the four living creatures are described prior, and they seem to be the same kind of creatures that Isaiah saw in chapter 6.

They're they're covering, they're shouting holy, holy, holy, the Sanctus.

So we see the Sanctus, the Sanctus here in the vision, which we do at every Mass.

Holy holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might.

Heaven and Earth are full of Heaven and Earth are full of your glory, Hosanna and the Highest.

All right, so.

He says he takes the scroll, these four living creatures and the 24 elders, which seem to go back to 12 tribes and 12 apostles.

Later we see this unveiled in the vision of the New Jerusalem.

You have the inscriptions on these pillars.

You have the names of the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles in this holy city.

This is the representation probably of more of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant people of God being together in the same worship.

Now I I would argue that it's very possible that it is also seeing the actual people, not just the descriptor.

Yes, they represent that, just as Moses and Elijah represented the law and the prophets.

I think Peter, James and John actually saw Moses and Elijah.

Peter recognized him.

He didn't say I saw a vision of somebody that looks like Moses, he said.

No, I saw Moses and Elijah.

We saw him on the Mount of Transfiguration like this is what we saw.

We know what we saw were witnesses of these things, right?

But notice this, they fall down before the Lamb, each holding a heart and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the Saints.

So in this you read an Old Testament passage right before we hit the record button, looking back at the prayers as representative incense speak to that.

Psalm 141 verse 2 where it says and my prayers were lifted up to you as incense and that that again just points to the connection, the interconnection between the new and the old covenant, that prayers are like incense offered to God.

I think Paul refers to this as a sweet smelling aroma.

Sweet smelling and the old King James savor I think is the word.

But the aroma that is brought before God is the prayers.

It's the prayers of the Saints, which is not just the prayers that are brought.

But notice who's bringing the prayers before.

Him, yeah, it's those who are with him in the in the heaven.

Holding a harp.

So there's song, there's music to this, right?

And golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the Saints.

So here it is, who's holding these prayers, who's bringing them before the Lamb and pouring them out.

Yeah, it's the elders.

And the elders and these 12 like these angels are and these elders, that is where people have come to their intercession and they're bringing these prayers before the Lamb that have been given on earth.

They are interceding and it comes in the form of incense.

Now, if you go to the Prince of Peace Catholic Church or Our Lady, the Rosary, you look at some of these churches, like the clip we showed at the beginning.

One of the things they do a lot is a lot of incense.

I mean a lot of incense.

I mean, you're coming out, you open the doors, puff of smokes coming.

With it, I love it.

It is really setting the mood.

I remember talking to one of the other Co hosts, Tyler W, He was talking about being in in Anglican churches at a time where there's no incense versus ones that did have incense and how it really does change your mood.

It does it.

Changes your mindset.

It changes your processing as you go.

And it's like I am in a holy place, yeah.

And this isn't smoke machines.

No, no, no, this isn't the smoke machines that are apparently OK, but incense isn't.

But this, this is actually going in and it's representing we incense the people.

You incense the altar, you incense the priests, you incense the deacons, you incense the Gospel book.

I mean, you're, you're incensing everything because it is bringing.

And you could sit there and it's, it's wonderful to watch.

And sometimes there's like certain light angles that come in through the stained glass or something and you see this smoke going up, up, up.

I remember a couple weeks ago I was sitting in Mass and there was a calling on the Martyr, St.

Ignatius and all these other lists that are in the in, in the profession.

And I'm watching the statement made after that or made with that.

And keeping with the same request, may your holy Angel take these gifts to the throne on high, to the altar on high and make it for your people, the body and blood of Christ.

And as he said that I saw this swirling for I'm not saying it was an Angel I saw.

I'm like just before videos are made against me.

I'm not saying it was an Angel.

I'm saying it was really neat to see almost the swirling movement of the incense at the altar going upward as the words were bringing these gifts to the altar on high.

The connection between the physical element, the bread, the the wine and making it for your people, the body and blood.

But you could see it through the incense almost as man, I'm picturing this happening in reality and it's the incense that created the mood as the prayer was bring this before.

So it's interesting And and I'm, I'm at a point in my life it's not where I'm not going to amass hardly ever unless I'm just in a position that doesn't have the insect.

Like when, when you and I were a part of the same Anglican Church, this was a, a, a point we argued about, not argued in a bad sense.

It's like we need incense.

We need incense, but it was difficult.

The location we were in to do fair enough, but we saw the need and necessity to have these kinds of elements that represent the prayers of the Saints.

But it is these elders bringing it to the Lamb.

Well, if he's our only one mediator, what do you need it being brought before him?

It just right there.

Yeah, again, just a false a false dichotomy.

It is a false dichotomy, it's a misunderstanding and and it takes away from the glory that is there.

Chapter 6 When he broke the 5th seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony and given.

By the way, I just mentioned that in a lot of of of the parts of different masses there is a calling on of individual names of martyred Saints.

Now, I will say because it mentions Stephen, the first martyr, it mentions names of the apostles all the way down to Ignatius of Antioch and even some of the early women martyrs.

When you're looking at these things, why?

Why is that done in the Mass?

Well, because we see the slaughtered Saints who are under the altar, right?

Crying out to God to avenge their blood.

Avenge their blood.

By the way, if you go to most Catholic churches and even some of the Anglo Catholic churches, you go to these these altars, there's usually a relic under the altar, under the altar.

That goes back to two things.

One, we see the visionary form of it here.

2 Even in the early church, when church was underground, literally they were in the catacombs and they were doing masses over the graves over.

The.

Graves of of dead Saints and those who had been martyred in these in these rooms or in these colosseums or something like that.

Those who had died in the Lord.

It is.

It is undeniable that this happened.

This is undeniable.

It is historically attested.

It is stated.

That is why you see it in.

It's not some weird thing that happened later, is all through.

Definitely not superstition, no, and it's not necromancy.

Not necromancy.

I don't know how many times we can say that, but notice where they are.

They're under the altar for the testimony that they had given.

They cried out with a loud voice.

Sovereign Lord, Holy and true.

How long will it be before the judge, before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth, which is what you just stated, which is kind of meant to bring us back to the blood of Abel, you know, crying out.

Blood that cries out from the ground.

And so, but remember, he already gives the analogy that this is the blood greater than that of the sacrifice of Abel that we see back in Hebrews.

And so there's a connection here where there are around the altar of God the souls of those who had been slain for his name, and they are crying out for justice to be done on the earth.

So there are Saints pleading in heaven for things to be done on earth.

And what ends up happening is in the story that Christ gives them this white garment, tells them to continue to rest until the other Saints are brought to perfection.

So there is an interacting with the dead in the throne room around the altar.

4 things that are happening on earth.

All right, so there's another example, chapter 8, verse 3 through 4.

Another Angel with the golden censor came and stood at the altar.

He was given a great quantity of incense, meaning that place was smoking.

I mean, it was smoking that.

I mean that that room was filled.

Yeah, it it makes you wonder, like in this, in the, in the way that John writes this heavenly vision, like, OK, something's really about to happen.

It's a lot of incense like that's that's more than what we do.

I mean, so it's basically his way of looking at it.

But notice what again, what are they?

It is the prayers of all, catch it, the Saints of the golden altar on the golden altar that is before the throne all again, we're in the eternal realm, folks.

We're in the eternal realm.

This is the Saints in the past, present, future.

All the prayers that have been heard throughout all ages are poured in a single moment because it's eternal.

It's eternal.

So This is why you know, you look at praying in the past, the present.

When you pray, you're not praying in a time, you're praying in a timeless place.

You are bringing your request in time to the eternal realm and you are tapping into eternity when you pray.

That is why we pray.

That is why we don't just go to mass.

We go to mass and we pray because we also in our state of prayer, are bringing before God our petitions in the eternal.

And that is why when we don't see things happen in the temple the way we want, it's because we really are near sighted and we cannot see God working out our prayers in the eternal because those prayers, though made temporary, are brought into eternal realm for God to do eternal work back in the temporal world, which is what we see in these passages of Scripture.

But know this.

And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the Saints rose before God from the hand of the Angel.

How did God receive?

All right, let's move quickly.

We see the chants.

Love this, right?

And I have a manuscript of an old Latin chant here, Revelation 4/8 through 11.

We're going to look at a few of these.

It says in the four living creatures, each of them had 6 wings full of eyes.

All around inside again, is the Isaiah 6 kind of vision.

Day and night catch it day and night without ceasing they sing.

Here it is sunk to sunk to, sunk to the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

He's eternal and whenever the living creatures give honor and glory and thanks to one that is seated on the throne who lives forever and ever, and the 24 elders fall before one who was seated on the throne and worship and lives forever and ever, They cast their crowns before the throne singing You are worthy, O Lord God, to give glory, honor, power, for you created all things about your will.

They existed and were created.

Now catch this.

What is happening in chant?

A lot of times there's multiple voices that come in.

So when you're in a Mass, they'll, they'll, a lot of times the priest will start something and there's a response, right?

How many voices are happening here?

Well, let's take a look at it.

We have the living creatures.

We have them chanting, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, who wasn't his and his come now there's a response, notices whenever the living creatures give this glory and thanks to the ones in the throne.

There's a response of the elders.

What do they do?

They fall down.

They're in a genuflect or well, they're really prostrating before the Lord.

I mean, you could say they're probably on their hand.

Right there on their faces.

So now you have a response that's happening.

So this is what a liturgy is.

It's it's a continual action of response and response to different things that are happening in the scene.

This is why there's certain points in the Mass where people are on their knees or they're genuflecting or they're in a different posture of prayer.

This is why we do these things.

So then what ends up happening, they start going in and falling before the throne and they say you are worthy.

They respond with their own response and worship.

You're worthy, O Lord, to receive power, glory and honor.

You created all things.

So there's responses that are happening around the throne.

Let's Fast forward to the next chapter.

They sing a new song.

Here it is.

You're worthy to take the scroll, break its seals, slaughtered your blood, your ransomed people, Saints from every tribe, language, people, nation.

You made them a Kingdom of priests, Your God and you reign in the earth.

Then he hears that one-on-one side.

He hears it.

John turns and he says, I look and heard the voice of many angels surrounding throne.

The living creatures numbered myriads and myriads.

What are they doing?

Singing thousands and thousands of voices singing worthy is the lamb for you were slaughtered and received power and wealth, wisdom, might, glory and honor.

Then I heard here's another response so there's a response here there's a response here here's another one This is this is the chant.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under earth, the sea and in them singing to the one who sit in the throne, the land, the blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

And the four living creatures said there's the response Amen, Amen.

And then the elders fell down and worshiped.

So there's a response.

There's an Amen, the great Amen.

But notice who's doing this?

Angels, Saints in heaven and creatures on earth and under the earth and in the sea.

Later at the end of the chapter, how are are are you telling me that when we're in the Mass it's not just people that even creation is singing?

And worshipping.

How does this work, Pat?

How does this work?

There's a chant where worship is brought to God from these beings, these beings.

There's a response.

There's chenu flooded, there's prostration, there's going down.

Now there's the sea, now people under on earth and people in heaven, and now angels and now chorus of angels.

This is a orchestrated worship.

It is and it is a chant in the sense of what they're doing in their singing and responses.

Here's another chant, Chapter 7, verse 10 through 12.

And they cried out in a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne into the Lamb.

And then all the angels stood, noticed their position, stood around the throne, around the elders, the four living creatures.

And then they fell on their faces, pure prostration.

And they're going down before the throne and worship God, singing Amen.

Blessing, glory and wisdom and Thanksgiving and honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever.

Here it is.

Amen.

See the chant.

Response, response, response.

They're responding to them.

They're responding back to them.

But all the responses are aimed at the throne.

All the responses are aimed at the throne.

So what do you think about this?

So now we come to the next place in the slides, the marriage supper of the Lamb, chapter 19, verse 6 through 9.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of the great multitude, like the sound of many waters, like the sound of mighty Thunder crying Hallelujah, which there's a lot of great hallelujahs in some of the masses.

There's a time where we don't do it.

That's right, during the Paschal time of the feast when we're looking at the the death, focusing on that until the Easter Vigil.

Then the great Hallelujah returns.

Why is that?

Are these Masses just making things up as they go here?

No, no, no, no.

It's rooted in what we see here.

For the Lord God the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice, exult, and give Him glory.

For the marriage of the Lamb has come.

His Bride has made herself ready to her.

It has been granted to be clothed in fine lemon, pure linen, bright and pure.

OK, here it is for the fine linen of the righteous deeds of the Saints.

Is the righteous deeds of the Saints.

And the Angel said to me, write this, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And he said to me, these are true words of God.

Talk about that passage.

Talk about them.

Well, you know, it's amazing to me the passages we've already referenced.

There are a couple things that just hit me.

First of all is that the Lamb receives the same worship that the Lord God receives.

So what you see in chapters 5

and 6:00 and 7:00, it is the same you see in chapter 4 where the Lord God receives worthy and and praise and honor and glory.

But you see, you see here a real image of the Father and the Son.

The Lamb is the Son who receives the the true worship of the angels and the Saints in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

The Communion of Saints, that's what it is.

And this all culminates, you know, I'm glad you pointed this out in Revelation 19.

It it all culminates in what the climactic moment is in our literary supper, the Eucharist.

The Eucharist.

Yeah, they're coming together.

What are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb?

And they were clothed properly.

We see this in the parables.

They can't.

Ones that were not given the right garments.

They weren't wearing the right garments.

They were kicked out.

But notice what they had in Revelation.

They all have the.

Right, they had the the white garments, which is the righteous.

It's the Saints.

And so again, this, everything we see in the liturgy, in the Mass is rooted in these scriptures.

They're rooted in these things.

These aren't later inventions that came as a result, folks.

These are really good opportunities to rethink your your perspective on the communion of Saints.

And when you quote the Apostles Creed to read it, what does that mean when you say I believe in the communion of Saints?

And this episode was geared toward helping you think deeply about that.

You may disagree with Pat and I at the end of the day, that's fine.

You're allowed to do that.

But we're just trying to challenge your thinking on this a little bit.

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