Father Simon Says - March 18, 2026 - The Most Beautiful Words in the OT [ENCORE]

0:00Well, let me tell you what you're listening to. Welcome to Father Simon Says on Relevant Radio with Father Richard Simon. I'm here to answer your questions. Have a question? Give us a call. 1-888-914-9149 as any question you may have about the Lord, the faith and the church. That's 1-888-914-9149. This is, in fact, a radio show called, Father Simon Says on Relevant Radio. Hello. The readings today, well, they're more complicated than they seem right on top, but we'll talk about them. They're very interesting as the voice of my head reminds me, but they're a little complex. So let's pray, and then we'll jump into it. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle them.

1:02The fire of your love, send forth your spirit, they shall be created and you shall enter the face of the earth. Lord, you taught the hearts of the nations by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us by that same spirit, every judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoicing his comfort through Christ our Lord. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou amongst women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our dead they men. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke and we humbly pray and do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Host. By the power of God cast into Hell, Satan, and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruin of souls in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All right, let's go to the big book on the coffee table. I don't know. It's got unpleasant stuff in it.

2:05Okay, let's see here. It really does the Bible. Yes, it's got some unpleasant stuff. All right, let's just plunge into it. Thus says the Lord at the time of favor. I answer you on the day of salvation. All right, favor of the doke. That's all good. I've kept you and given you as a covenant to the people to restore the land, say to the person, now this said, I think this is being directed to Isaiah the prophet. Tell him what he's got to do as a prophet to those who are in darkness. Show yourself. And along the ways they shall find pastors, and for he pities them, who leads them, and guides them besides springs of water. Now realize, now there are different theories about the book of Isaiah. One of them is that there are three different books of Isaiah.

3:05And this is one of the later ones. So maybe these are already people in exile. If you maintain that these are all by some fellow who lived, oh, 700 years before Christ, before the exile, it still works. It's still prophetic. These are people who are wandering or about to wander so far, so good. I will cut a road through all my mountains and make my highways level. Some shall come from afar, others from northwest, some from the land of Saini. The land of Saini, I'm having a hard time finding out where the land of Saini, it may be Aswan, which is interesting, because of course when Jerusalem fell, some people went into Egypt. Aswan in Egypt is where the Aswan dam is, where the Abu Symbol temple is, that sort of thing. So Aswan, in Egypt, that may be the land of Saini.

4:05But sometimes it points to the east, but I think it's more likely Aswan in the context, because some of those who are exiled were taken to Babylon, some fled to Egypt. So, well, nobody quite noticed what Saini they're talking about. So, sing out all heavens and rejoice, or break forth into song you mountains for the Lord, comforts us of people, and shows mercy to us afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Now, here's some of the most beautiful words in the Old Testament. Can a mother forget her infant to be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Yes. We're living in that era, blessed at the womb that never bore the breast, that never nursed. And you know clearly what I'm talking about, talking about abortion, that's the child of a woman's womb. I remember hearing a story of a missionary with a very, very isolated people.

5:05And he was explaining abortion to them that this happened. They started laughing because they thought he was telling a joke. And when he said, no, this really happens. They started weeping. These were people who were just unvarnished human beings. And when they found out what we were really like, they started weeping for us. So, enough. But think about that. Can a mother forget her infant? Be without tenderness for the child of her womb. Apparently so, which is why the next lines are in. Even should she forget. I will never forget you. What a beautiful thing that God's love is more dependable than maternal affection. A lot of people want to say this talks about the feminine side of God. I really get upset when people use their new scripture for their political agenda. So, I'm not even going to talk about that. But the point of it is, is that it's saying a woman can forget the child of a womb.

6:09But God can't forget us. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. So, this is not a difficult reading so much. But the next one gets very odd. Let's put this into context. Remember that Jesus has just cured a man on the Sabbath. That was yesterday. And this is interesting. Let me talk about this a little bit. The gospel of John can seem very anti-Semitic as can the book of Acts. Talks the Jews this, the Jews that. Well, wasn't it written by someone who was Jewish? He's written by someone who we would call Jewish. But as I tried to explain yesterday, he might not have called himself Jewish. Remember that Judaism is more properly called rabbinic Phariseism. There were 12 tribes in Israel.

7:09The northern tribes were taken off into exile and did not return. They lost their ethnic identity. They still have a small representation of people who weren't exiled in the Samaritans. But they aren't probably much intermarried with people who were brought into the Holy Land. But they still practice a form of the religion of Israel. That's pretty, pretty biblical. But there were four tribes that didn't actually go into exile in the South. We talk about the Ten Lost Tribes. Well, the math is complicated. And as I've told you, I can only count to 20 of my shoes are off. But moving on, the tribes of the South were the tribe of Simeon, which was absorbed into the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Benjamin, and those members of the tribe of Levi who lived in the South, those members of the tribe of Levi who lived in the North were taken into exile, most probably.

8:11Now, the word Jew comes from the word Yehud, which means a member of the tribe of Judah. So people talk about the covenant with the Jews. There's a covenant with Israel. There's a covenant with house of David. But with the tribe of Judah, there is no covenant. It's, of course, part of the covenant of Israel and it gave birth to the covenant with David. But this idea of, well, you know what we mean. I think words are important, and I think you've got to be precise with words. Judah, when underwent a number of religious reforms before the Babylonians took them into exile and had re-dedicated themselves to a pure monotheism. In the North, they were all for mixing in different gods, and you know, they had the golden calves that they worshipped in Dan and Samaria that had been set up by Jeroboam when he split from the temple in Jerusalem

9:14after the death of Solomon. We've been through this. Trust me. Well, they did not have a real monotheism, so they lost their identity because they lost their faith. And when you lose your faith, you lose your identity. And that's true now. It's true then. Well, Judah had been through a number of religious reforms, and when they went into exile in Babylon, they didn't lose their identity. And probably it's reasonable to think that it was in Babylon that the synagogue was invented. The synagogue is a way to be an Israelite without the temple, to practice the religion of Israel, the religion of the covenant of Moses, without a temple. And so the synagogue, you will notice, is unmentioned in the Old Testament. It's mentioned in the New Testament, but the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, do not mention the synagogue. It is not a biblical idea as far as modern Jews are concerned.

10:19You can be a perfectly good Jew and never darkened the door of a synagogue. Now that's unusual, and I would doubt that a good Jew would avoid a synagogue, but it's not part of the law of Moses. And most people just assumed that there were synagogues in the time of the prophets there weren't. It was a domestic religion. It was practiced at home. And the synagogue means the meeting place. It's a place where people came together to be Israelites, to practice the religion of Israel, and to find solace in their exile. So, rabbinic Phariseism, really I think it can be said, the impetus for it started in the exile in Babylon. How can we be an Israelite without a temple? Well, by following the law, it's moral and ethical content, and the way of life that it prescribes that separates the Jew from the non-Jew. The Israelite from the Babylonian or the Assyrian. So, this group of Pharisees, which probably means something akin to Puritans,

11:22they practice to pure religion, they invented a way that every single person could respect the laws of purity that were required for those who were going up to the temple, especially the priestly classes. And then they found ways around those rules to make life possible. Like, if you can't carry keys on a Sabbath, what do you do to lock your door? Well, you put the keys on a belt, and you're not carrying them, you're just wearing them. That's a simplification, but yeah. So, there you go. This is the Pharisees. At the time of Christ they had been, there were only about 5,000, 6,000, 7, not many Pharisees. And they weren't priests, and they weren't rabbis. Some of them would have been priests in rabbis. However, they invented a kind of way to follow the religion of Israel that was very, very protective of the religious identity of people. And they were heroic. I mean, they were considered heroic by the people.

12:22But sometimes heroes take their role too seriously, and they were busy telling everybody what they should do. And so, they failed to believe that this was a great miracle that had been performed. And they said, rise up, pick up your man and walk, and that's what we see. So, the Jews said to the man who was cured. John, as I was saying, John wouldn't have considered himself a member of the tribe of Judah. Probably he was from a priestly family. He was involved with John the Baptist and the separatist groups around the Red Sea and the Jordan Valley, who claimed the temple was corrupt. And I'm not a Jew. I'm a Levite. I'm from the tribe of a Levite, which I suspect John was. He had the run of the high priest house, and that sort of thing. They're really kind of, as Jesus said, straining at the net and swallowing the camel. They're failing to notice an amazing thing has been done.

13:23They just realized that their interpretation of God's will has been violated. Therein lies the rub. So often, we commit the same sin by deciding our interpretation of the will of God is, in fact, the will of God. And all we can say is, to the best of my knowledge, having studied this, having thought about this, having prayed about this, and following what I read in the documents of the church, that this is what I should do. But more often, we said, well, I heard in the visions that you, I'll never, I know this 20 times, destroy this guy, who is a great medjugorje devotee. And I think amazing and wonderful things have happened in medjugorje. You talk to people who have heard priests who hear confessions there, and there's a lot of repentance going on. It may not be 100%, but there's a lot of prayer and repentance going on it. And I've said, well, this guy from, who is a great devotee of the visions of medjugorje, he would come to the rector every Wednesday in Friday to see what we were eating.

14:23And we ate what was left over after that we closed the food pantry. And he would get, he would say, Father Simon, the blessed mother has said, you may only eat bread and water on Wednesday and Friday. And I would say, John, seven kids in Yugoslavia said, the blessed mother said, and she's not the Pope. And he would just turn red the vein on his forehead would stick out. I'm going to spend some time in purgatory for them, but it was so much fun. I digress purgatory won't be moving along. This idea that this is what you should be doing. No, no, this is what I should be doing. This is what the Lord has said to me. And if you see that it's working in my life, you might want to try it. This idea that I can make rules for you. This is what's going on in this parable. So to understand what Jesus is saying in the reading, you got to understand that context. My father is at work until now, so I am at work. And so they tried to kill him because he made God his own father making himself equal to God.

15:26But then now, oh dear, this is, this is my hair brain theory for the day. Amen, amen. I say to you, the son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the father doing. For what he does, the son will do also for the father loves the son. What's Jesus saying here? Well, Jesus worked miracles because he was God. I don't believe that. I believe Jesus worked miracles because he was the new Adam, the obedient son of the father. Jesus didn't work miracles. He worked the miracles. The father told him to work. You know, you hear all these pious stories from ancient myths about Jesus making little birds out of clay and then breathing life into them and off. They flew. I got a lovely story. I doubt that it happened because did the father tell him make some little clay birds and have them fly up. Maybe he did. I don't know, but that's just these apocryphal things. When we look at people who have charismatic gifts and we think that they belong to the people, they don't belong to the Lord who has given them to the church.

16:32I think that was one of the big flaws in the charismatic renewal, the Pentecostal movement of which is a very important part of my life, that we looked at miracles as sort of things that we did. And miracles are things that the father does for the people, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the manifestations I prefer to call them, of the Holy Spirit are given for the common good, not to prove that I'm holy, not to show that I am God's man of power, but because of the father. I'm utterly intrigued by a verse in Scripture that says, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus went and visited his home and he could not, could not. He was unable as the word in the text to work many miracles there, but only a few healings. He was unable to work miracles if he was God. He could do what he wanted. He did what the father wanted him. He says, elsewhere in the Gospel of John, I think the chapter, I always do what is pleasing to him, not what my whim is.

17:38And so I think, I look at the miracles of Scripture and the miracles work by the father through Jesus. They aren't just Jesus snapping his fingers like a magician. They're quite different. They all have meanings, they're all prophetic words. That's why they're called signs. A sign has a meaning, like stop, yield. The word sign is about meaning. And these things were prophetic words to the people whom God loved, worked through the sun, and this idea that, well, Jesus could do it every once. Jesus said, no, I can't do anything. I cannot do anything on my own, but only what I see the father doing. I know we're almost, I wish it were a break, but this is the whole thing about judgment, which I just don't have the time to get into or the intelligence. This long story, there's a wonderful, I think it's in here, come on, I saw, I'm sure I saw it when I read earlier, that for the father loves the sun and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these so that you may be amazed.

18:55I thought miracles, you're saying, don't create faith, no, they create amazement. The joy of knowing that God is in control, which is, and that God is accompanying us, and that's what the first reading is about, that he will accompany us. Now, there's something very, very scary down here, the resurrection of kind of nation, but that's going to be the word of the day, and we will be a part of the word of the day. We will come back, God willing, and a couple of you, and you can call in, we'll open the phones at 888-9149-149-889-149-149. The relevant radio studio line is sponsored by Catholic Order of Foresters, information about employment opportunities and their flexible premium life insurance plans available at relevantradio.com-slash-forester.

20:02It's all the brand new, good old days, by used to us, got stuck way back the yesterday. It's never more now, this is the Great Sun, the brand new good old days. These are good old days. You may not think so, but other times may come when we look back to 2022 and say, ah, the good old days. Any day that, you know, the Lord is a good old day. So, that said, let us go to letters. All right, I got letters, lots of letters. All right, where did I put them though? Ah, they're there. Let me see. This is about, this is from an anonymous person, you suggested to someone else to leave a friendship that was toxic. But what about one of my marriages? Did you take a vow to your friend till death do you part for better for worse and sickness and health? You see, that's why we should be careful about marriage and go into it very slowly and very spiritually, prayerfully and wisely, because you take the most solemn vow in the presence of God.

21:14You know, the word sacrament, which I share often, in Greek, it's a mystery, mystery on. Well, what's mysterious about sacraments? The word mystery in Greek means, I believe it comes from a thing whispered. It's a secret, not an inexplicable thing, but a secret. And when Jesus says to you are given the secrets of the kingdom of the kingdom of God, he uses the word mysteries. He's saying to you are given the secrets of the kingdom of God. The mysteries of the rosary, our blessed mother, meets Elizabeth. What's mysterious about that? Well, if you understand, it means a secret. The savior of the world is secretly hidden in the womb of the Virgin. And his forerunner, John the Baptist, is hidden in the womb of Elizabeth. Nobody knows this except these two women. It's a secret. So that's the idea of mystery. Now, the Greeks talk about the seven rituals of Christianity as the mysteries, the sacred mysteries.

22:22That's why we talk about the mystery of faith and the mass. Looks like bread, but I'll let me tell you a secret. It's the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. So that's mystery. The Latins decided to use the word sacrament. Because in the ancient Greek world, they had what are called mystery religions. In other words, you were told certain secrets of the God and you swore an oath to the death, not to reveal them. The Latins decided to emphasize that oath element and the word for oath to the death inland is sacramentum. It was an oath to the death that lovers swore or the oath to the death that the Roman soldier swore on the parade ground to die for the emperor. This is what a sacrament is, an oath to the death. The classical definition, an outward sign is due to my Christ to give grace, but it is the most solemn oath and to leave a marriage because it's toxic. Why are you doing it?

23:36You swore to love and to honor each other. What do you do? Again, the definition of love that I most love is St. Thomas Aquinas' to love us to will the good of the other. If you are in a situation in which your remaining in that mental relationship is going to harm another person, well then maybe you need to have a separation. If it's one and simply I'm unhappy, what's the degree of if you are going to be destroyed to the point where you become toxic to that other person? Well, yeah, you look at separation. But to say that because this is a toxic marriage, what does that mean? Toxic. Is it just one that at this moment is tremendously unhappy, uncomfortable?

24:38Or someone has committed adultery until adultery to us part, until death to us part? I hate to be tough about this, but this idea of this relationship is bad for me, so I have to get out of it. Yeah, friendship you can do. Marriage, this relationship is bad for him or for her, so I think I have to pull back. It's quite different. So no, what is the nature of the toxicity that you're talking about? If for instance children are in danger by a very abusive parent, well then yeah, that might be the loving thing to do to get out of that relationship. Even if you are in physical danger, because to love them is not to love them to get into the situation of committing mortal sin and going to hell and also to prison in this world, yeah, that would be toxic.

25:41However, just because if someone is unhappy and it's ruining their weekends, that's not toxic, that's a challenge to love. At any rate, so that's kind of, you know, I think before we, Jesus said, a man may not leave his wife, and the disciples said, then who would marry? And Jesus said, this is a hard teaching. Surprise, yes, Jesus dealt with this issue. All right, enough of that, but I firmly believe that it's not what I want to hear, but man, okay, now this is an interesting letter, which I certainly agree with. I'm going to leave it anonymous. Do you see an increase in spiritual tax against traditional marriage? I don't know if there's an increase, but there's certain becoming obvious, the devil hates marriage and hates children. And he says, we have a seven-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl. We also lost a baby three years ago. My wife has not been the same since. And of course, she, she, as the wife, is abandoned the church and abandoned her marriage is at once a divorce. So it's signed by an absolutely destroyed Catholic man.

26:51Well, undestroy yourself, friend. You're in a marriage and she may decide to leave, but you will still have two children that you have the responsibility to love. I have seen so many marriages where someone is destroyed by the infidelity or the, what's the word, the hatred of their spouse and they try to, you know, they marry, they remarry, they remarry again after they're trying to find happiness and the children are utterly destroyed by it. You know, I was listening, again, this morning, Patrick Madrid and he just casually threw off. And of course, the purpose for marriage is, is, is, they have children. He's absolutely right. That's what we believe. There's a purpose marriage, the mutual support of one another and the sanctification of each other, but the main purpose is to populate heaven.

27:55And so if your wife dumps you like a bad habit, then the rest of your life is supposed to be devoted to those children. But I'll only get to see them on the weekends. You fight for the children, you know, make it about the children. You may experience great loneliness, but to say to two little people that you are more important than my happiness. I know that sounds like a bit much, but I believe it's true. What does a priest know about this? A priest know a lot more than you think about marriage and divorce, a lot more. We see a lot more marriages than you'll ever see. And I just think about the children who are destroyed by divorce. If you have children, you don't even have the luxury of contemplating divorce. You don't. And you certainly don't have the luxury of contemplating remarriage. I'm sorry. I'm being, I'm being a little hard-nosed at the moment.

29:01But you don't have that luxury. You're responsible for these two people and getting them to heaven. And to say to them that, well, I will never forget you, even if a woman forgets the child of a woman, I will never forget. You're going to be exotic. You're going to be righteous. You're going to be godly. You're going to imitate God and not forget your children. To live a life of simplicity and chastity for the sake of a little seven-year-old boy and a little 10-year-old girl, it'll pay off in the long run. Perhaps when they're grown, and if the marriage is an old, for good reason, you know, but right now, you know, I've seen too often where guys or women are looking to be happy. And they remarry. Usually two or three times. And the children, well, it doesn't affect the children. They'll be happy. They'll be taken care of. No, they won't. I've seen it for 60, 70 years.

30:05There's nothing but misery that comes to children from the separation of mother and father enough. Let's go to a break. We'll come back with a word of the day, which will be equally grim and in that fun. And you can hear more of the grim father Simon. And if you have experienced the horror of divorce, you know what I'm talking about. And don't beat yourself up on it, but still. Okay, maybe we'll talk about it. Who knows? 888-914-9149. 888-914-9149. The relevant radio studio line is sponsored by Catholic Order of Foresters, information about employment opportunities and their flexible premium life insurance plans available at relevantradio.com-slash-forester. Let's go to the word of the day. Bung! All right. Am I on the air? I have no idea. Well, I'll just talk. Oh, they're all right. The voice in my head tells me I am. I'll just talk.

31:11Well, at the end of the gospel, we hear close to the end. Well, that's interesting. Oh, I want to just rehash a couple things. If you, I, that tirade against divorce, if you have been the victim of divorce, and I mean that, whether you initiated the divorce or it was initiated for you, in a sense you are, that letter was about spiritual warfare. In a sense, you are a casualty of a spiritual war. And I do agree with him. I think there's a terrible war in the family. I don't know if it's worse now. It's just more clearly evident. Devil hates children. Thus he deates marriage. So, you know, what was the song that you played about the brand new good old days? The brand new good old days. I think you need to say, hmm, I got caught in this trap of divorce and all of this. And I want to do it right from now on. And examine your relationship to, well, if you have children from that first marriage, you know that, that it is never too late while there's breath, there's hope.

32:19And really ask the Lord, and I jump into that because Jesus at the end of the gospel says, I cannot do anything on my own. I, judges, I hear my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me in your relationships in marriage and in parenting. Are you seeking the will of the one who sent you into that? Is your judgment just because you don't seek your own will? And, you know, examine your conscience on this. If you are divorced and in a bad relationship with a former spouse and the children of that marriage, well, you need to do something. You need, and what do you mean, bad relationship with our former spouse? I divorced it because it was a bad relationship. Yeah, but your children need mom and dad to at least respect each other because, you know, the commandment is honor your father and your mother that it might go well with you in the land to which you are, which is being given to you. And St. Paul says, this is the only commandment that comes with a promise. You want your kids to do well. You want your kids to do well, don't you?

33:24This isn't the word of the day. This is just more sermon. You want your kids to do well. Well, then you send them to the best schools and you get the best education. No, you teach them to honor their mother and their father. Well, he was a terrible person. She was a terrible woman. Okay, then you're telling your kids that half of you is terrible. Well, it is lie then. Seriously, I'm joking half of it. There's something in your spouse that God loves. Maybe she made wonderful apple pie or he told good jokes. Honor your spouse even if she is an ex-spouse because when you teach your children to dishonor their mother or their father, you are teaching them to hate part of themselves. And that's a terrible thing to do to a child. You owe it to your children. If you have children to mend those vences, I really believe it. You know, it's about the kids. It's not about you. And you're going to stand before God one day and God is going to say, where is the woman I gave you or the man I gave you and the children I gave you, where are they?

34:32This is a big deal. That's not the word of the day. It has to do with it. Those who have done good deeds will rise to the resurrection of life. Those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation. Did you hear there's a resurrection of condemnation? My, my, my, my. That's interesting. There's a resurrection of judgment. And how do we get there through ridiculous deeds, through follow, the word is foul loss. And it's, it's, it means ethically bad, easy, slight, ordinary, mean, worthless of no account.

35:32Easy deeds, deeds of no account, worthless deeds. To what are you dedicating your life? To ease those who, the word foul loss, those who do foul law, which means the things that are easy, that are flawed, that are ethically bad. You see, I love the story about the house built on rock. In the Middle East, there are these gulches, these dried up. They call them wides for some reason, which is an Arabic word that means gulch. The dry river bed. And that's the last place the grass has grown. And that's where you pasture your sheep when you're, when it's the dry season. It would be much smarter to build the house down there instead of going up and down the hill every day with the sheep. No, it's not smarter because you see, in the mountains, there might be a sudden squall, a downpour, and then a wall of water with on a cloud in this guy will come running down the gulch and sweep you your house in your sheep away.

36:38No, you want to build your house up on the rock. It's inconvenient. We have an inconvenient religion, and the world is preaching no fault, divorce, easy divorce, ordinary, and divorce has become ordinary. It's of no account, but it is ethically bad, base, and wicked. So, choose the hard way or the easy way. We Christians, we choose the hard way, because Jesus said, narrow is the door. That the voice of Jesus, the hard way is no fun. In the long run, it's a lot more fun. Think of mountain climbing, it's adventurous. All right, let us go now to phones. I hope it is a crystal from Green Bay. What can I do for your crystal? Hi, there's been some disputed discussion at my parish regarding the Paschal candle. Does it have to be new each year, or can it be used from year to year?

37:43I have reused Paschal candles because they can get pretty expensive. It depends on the finances. In fact, there was one we got this magnificent Paschal candle, and it was huge. We didn't want to waste it, so we reused it. There's nothing to do with the validity of the second. It's customary to get a new Paschal candle. If you have any idea which those suckers caused, you'd be amazed. So, speaking as a pastor, especially in the COVID era when you didn't have a lot of use for the candle, you can sort of shake this one off at the top, and they give you little decal letters that you put on for the year. If you just saved the decal from last year, you'd peel off the one that's at 21 and put on 22. Easy peasy. It's expected that you will get a new one, but I know of no canon law.

38:48In the old right, the Easter song, the Exalted, which is a beautiful, beautiful song, was all about the candle. We present this offering of a candle to you, which makes you think you should get a new one. Oh, Lord, we present this offering of a used candle to you, but the song no longer talks about the candle quite as much. So, you've heard from a titled Diocesan pastor. As far as I know, there is no strict canon law regarding that, though it is customary to get a new candle every year. That's the text book answer, but that helps Germans. We are not cheap Germans. We are frugal. Not totally. Yes, and just now is your background German. If you come from Green Bay, it might be. Remember Germans are not cheap. We are frugal. That's different. Oh, dear. Many of the traffic Germans that on the Dutch board.

39:51Yes, well, I've always found Jews to be very generous and well Germans too, but boy. My family, we just squeezed that nickel till it sings. All right, good to talk to you and have a wonderful Easter, even if it's an old candle. Oh, I'm sure. I'm not sure I'm right about that, but hey, 8889149149, I do think we have some lines open. If I ever stop talking, who do we have now, dear voice in my head? Chris, from Minneapolis, Chris, what can I do for you? Yes, could you please tell me I'm widowed? Yes. And is there a lot in the church that if you are widowed, that you are not able to remarry? Oh, no, you can remarry. You'd have to remarry someone who's free to marry. Someone who's also widowed or never been married. Or if they were married civilly, that it was an invalid marriage. Yeah, you can remarry. That's not a problem.

40:53No, in fact, it's a blessing. In the early church, there were people who said, oh, you shouldn't do that. That's just given into the concupacence, but no, you can remarry. Because marriage is a sacrament and it's a source of grace, it's a gift from the Lord. Does that help? It does. It does. Thank you. There you go. Have you been widowed for a long time? 17 years. Oh, it's still tough, I imagine, isn't it? It is. I was married for 17 years and I've been widowed for 17 years. Let me, let me kid it. You have children from the first marriage from your marriage? I don't. My husband was ill. Okay, so you have no children. When people remarry, they really need to consider the children, but you're not in that situation. You have spiritual children, I'm sure, but yeah, so for people who are listening, that even if you remarry and you have adult children, when my sister died, my brother-in-law

41:54brought his prospective bride to meet his in-laws. You wanted to get the seal of approval from his mother-in-law whom he loved. That's a wise thing to do because you marry families. I'm just an extra kid but it's on my part. I'll be praying for you and I will certainly offer a mass for the repose of the soul of your husband, even these 17 years later. God bless you and thanks for listening. All right, whom do we have now? Regina from DC. What can I do for your Regina? Yeah, hi. Yeah, you were talking about worthless deeds. It's not hard and easy, but Jesus says, my yoke is easy, my burden light. Yes, he does. The yoke is easy because he's helping you to pull it. The pulling of the card is difficult. You know, when you say, my yoke is easy, my burden light. I have a feeling that when Jesus said that it was actually kind of a joke,

42:54because according to, I think it was St. Justin Martyr who lived in the Holy Land about 100 years after Christ, Jesus had a reputation for making yokes, you know, these animal collars, because you had to be very, very good with animals, because in that subtropical climate, if a collared shave to the animal might become infected, and you'd lose what was one of your most expensive possessions, and in fact, a piece of farm machinery. So Jesus, they say, had a reputation in all of Galilee from making animal yokes, because he was so good with animals. And Jesus was saying, you think I'm good with animals? I'm much better with the human heart. So I think people would have laughed their smiles when he said that. It's such a beautiful thing. His yoke is easy, not the deeds that he asks us to do. In the long run, it is easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing.

43:55But what we do is we look at the simple, easy, you know, well, yeah, it's easier to get a divorce in this situation. It's easier to, you know, his yoke is easy, not the things he asks. He says, all else when the gospel, John, what I have done and greater still will you do. He also asks us to go to the cross. His yoke is easy, his burden is light, but we do great things by his grace. So it's a kind of both end. So that's how I would look at it. That the Christian life is, it looks hard, but it is easier than the non-Christian life than the pagan life. So you're right that his yoke is easy. But I guess I'm right too, that he asks us to do the hard thing, and he promises to walk with us as we do it and to carry the burden with us. So thanks for calling. Who do we have now on the line here? We got, who do we got? Pat from San Diego. What can I do for you, Pat? So I learned so much from you.

44:56You're really a stickler on the correct grammar and language in the Hebrew and the Latin. I like grammar. I wondered if you could do something about correcting the name of Jesus. How frequently it's used on your program, and it's always Jesus'ness. We don't say Jesus'ness. I'm sure you know that. It's not apostrophe S. It's an apostrophe at the end of the S. You're the only other person I know other than me that gets upset about that. That when you have an apostrophe, an S ending a word, you don't add another word like the Jones'ness. No, it's belongs to the House of the Jones. Yes, the Jones' house. Yes, nobody does it that way. You and I, we will take a stand for the proper placement of the apostrophe. Yes, I agree with you. You're so incorrect. You're so incorrect on the news. But I mean, every day the number of times that Jesus made his use on that radio. I think it's a starter. Yes, well, you and I will take a stand that if you, the possessive case in English,

46:04the word that ends in S, including Jesus, does not need an extra S. And maybe in some very rare situations, but I can't think of one. I know that. Do you think I have a person I know who's ever, ever thought of that? Well, we will begin a crusade thee in me. Thanks for calling in. I agree with you. I'm 87, so I went to school and I taught grammar. Yes, yes. In the days of your grammar and my grammar, they were lovely women. I'm joking. All right. God bless you. Ha. A new cause, Celeb. Whom do we have now to your voice in my head? Charlie from Des Moines. We got just about a minute. What can I do for you? Hi, Father Simon. I appreciate it. I was just going to say I appreciated what you said earlier about divorce. My family was, you know, we're a Catholic family and I have four brothers and sisters and we're confirmed, but my parents got divorced and it really destroyed. Yeah. And there's just a lot of our relationships and our family, really.

47:06Yeah. Just a lot of, you know, just a lot of heartache that came out of that because I was the youngest. Yeah. So all the siblings were like teenagers, but I was still eight at the time. Wow. And it was just hard. But anyway, both of my parents still don't really have a good relationship here. But I just wanted to say I appreciated what you said, Father. Well, thank you. Thank you. You know, people don't think about that. Well, it's better for the children because they can't see. You know, they don't want to see their parents fighting. Yeah. They want to see their parents fighting and then making up. So, well, thanks for calling in. It's a hard thing and I think it just becomes so easy to divorce and talk about choosing the easy deed. You know, it isn't easy. It's, you know, the yoke of the Lord is easy even though it appears hard. And when that yoke involves difficulties and marriage, they don't give up. You don't give up unless there's real danger. At least that's my, my thought.

48:07Gosh, I'm thinking about my parents. My mom said she cried herself to sleep every night because of her mother-in-law living with them. She didn't get divorced because they couldn't. Thank God I'm here. And speaking of being here, there's true.