Fr. Steve and Beth examine the significance of scripture and give some practical takeaways for how to incorporate it in our ministry.

Show notes:

(1:51) Beth discusses her journey to Christ, when she really encountered the life-changing grace of Catholicism, and how she discerned her path to ministry. Fr. Steve also shares about his Catholic upbringing with and his vocation to the priesthood.

(9:48) Fr. Steve discusses the podcast’s goals: sharing intentional conversations about ministry with ministers, providing practical ministerial tips, answering questions from coworkers in the vineyard, and to help everyone understand their role in the effort to unleash the Gospel.

(14:18) Beth shares her hopes that the podcast will be a way for ministers to be able to accompany one another through our shared responsibility and our shared mission. Beth and Fr. Steve also discuss the importance of connection as ministers and disciples.

(18:34) Fr. Steve introduces the first topic of scripture, and how it helps us to better know God’s voice. The two discuss what their relationships with scripture were growing up, resources to help understand scripture, and how to incorporate it into ministry.

(39:18) The two reflect on a set of questions Beth proposes when reading scripture: What does this passage reveal about God? What does this passage reveal about me? What is God saying to me right now? Fr. Steve also discusses the inter-relationship between scripture and liturgy.

(44:39) Beth and Fr. Steve answer common scripture questions, like, “How do I justify all the terrible things that happen in the Bible?” “How do I start reading?” and “What if I don’t like reading scripture?”

(49:20) Fr. Steve shares about the Unleash the Gospel Scripture Challenge taking place in 2021, outlining the six challenges and recommending this as a great place to start with reading the Bible. He also discusses the benefits of studying the Bible using lectio divina.

(1:01:11) To close the episode, Beth and Fr. Steve share their favorite Bible passages.

Fr. Pullis:

Welcome to the Encounter Grow Witness Podcast, our new podcast where every month we provide the Encounter Grow Witness community of ministry professionals with meaningful conversations and practical tips for keeping their work on mission, especially as the Archdiocese of Detroit transitions to Families of Parishes. Inspired by the Unleash the Gospel pastoral letter, our goal is to equip and evangelize the evangelizers as they work to bring about a missionary transformation in our parishes and in our communities. I'm your host Fr. Steve Pullis, Director of Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Beth:

And I'm Beth Spizarny, Director of Evangelization and Faith Formation at the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica in Royal Oak. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at egwdetroit.org/podcast.

Fr. Pullis:

Well, I am so excited for this new endeavor, for this new work that I get to be a part of. You know, I was very blessed to help host Open Door Policy, our flagship, inaugural podcast for the Archdiocese of Detroit. And that was a lot of fun, but I'm excited to do something new and excited that Beth is joining me on this journey. Beth, how are you?

Beth:

I'm doing well. We're going to have a little adventure here.

Fr. Pullis:

This is going to be fun. And I think the best way we can start is just to introduce ourselves to this community of listeners, to the Encounter Grow Witness community in the Archdiocese of Detroit, and people around the globe who are going to be tuning in.

Beth:

Surely.

Fr. Pullis:

Beth, why don't we start with you, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got here.

Beth:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've been working at the Shrine of the Little Flower, great place to be. I've been working here for — I'm in my second year, just a great place to be, but I'd rather start way back when I really came to know Jesus and kind of start with that. But I, you know, I was raised in the faith and it kind of seemed like that thing you do, sort of a background part of my life, but not, not alive, not compelling. I couldn't explain it or defend it to others. And I got to high school — I was in a public high school — and just being with people who are not of faith really brought up questions for me about what, why, it just wasn't enough anymore to just kind of go through the motions. It just wasn't enough. And so just in prayer, coming to know Christ and being invited to follow him, and it was just the way someone just explained the basics of the Gospel and let me know that Christ had a plan for my life, that was an adventure. A true adventure, better than anything I could plan myself. And that just sparked this powerful journey. So.

Fr. Pullis:

And that was in high school, you said?

Beth:

Yeah, that was in high school. Yeah.

Fr. Pullis:

That's awesome. Yeah. And so in high school you said, "I want to work at the Shrine of the Little Flower," I know it's got a much longer title. I feel like I have to take a deep breath before I say the title. So what's the title of the parish?

Beth:

It does. Yeah. 'The National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica' does, it takes a whole breath. The way we abbreviate it on paper, just to make it fit is tricky. It's true. Well, actually my call to ministry was really cool, too. I was actually in India, serving in Calcutta with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's sisters. And I needed a break and Darjeeling was real close and that was the city where Mother Teresa received her call within a call. So I found a couple of volunteers, I was there by myself, but I found a couple of volunteers who spoke English and I could convince to go with me. So we went up to Darjeeling and we were praying in this chapel with more Missionaries of Charity before the Blessed Sacrament. And we were praying there, and I was just thinking like, I'd been on this whole journey, here I am.

Beth:

And my whole journey — the key to my whole journey was the Eucharist. Staying with the Eucharist, remaining with the Eucharist. And so here I am in this chapel that was built well before I was even alive, on the other side of the world, praying, and I just felt coming out of my heart, this prayer of, like, "Lord, where am I going? Like, what are you calling me to, what am I supposed to do? What's next?" And I just sensed this very specific call to ministry and a very specific place in a very specific way to work for the Church. And I, I remember thinking that doesn't make any sense, well, how could I do that? Me? Like, what would I — what? It just was without context for me, but within, you know, I just, I could, it was like, it just sparked, like the desire was there in my heart. And it was so exciting, the idea that I could be a part of this. That I could be a part of bringing the truth, bringing the person of Christ and the fullness of truth that we have in the Catholic Church to more people.

Fr. Pullis:

Yeah. That's so beautiful. And you're from Michigan, right. So I know you're not, like, directly from Detroit, but you're from the area, right?

Beth:

Yeah, I'm from Ann Arbor, townie. Very proud. There's not very many of us, most people in Ann Arbor are transplants, but I am a real person from Ann Arbor. That's where I'm from. But now getting to know Detroit, these other areas —.

Fr. Pullis:

Townie? Is "townie" a thing?

Beth:

Yep, "townie," that's what it's called. Yeah. It's definitely a thing. Yes. Being a townie. Yes.

Fr. Pullis:

I'm learning so much already from our Encounter Grow Witness podcast.

Beth:

Right. Right. What about you though? I mean, how did you come to know Jesus and come to be a priest, leading the office for the archdiocese?

Fr. Pullis:

So I was born a priest, a — No, I'm kidding. Sometimes I get the, like, "Man, have you always been a priest?" And you know, especially the little kids ask those kinds of questions, but I grew up in an awesome, awesome Catholic family. So I'm one of 10 in my family, grew up in Sterling Heights, Michigan, one of the big old suburbs we have here in Detroit, in the Archdiocese of Detroit. I grew up with, as I mentioned, a whole bunch of siblings and just, the faith was — the Catholic faith was the central guiding principle of our family's life. Like, there was no doubt about that. We would — we went to Catholic school, we went to Mass every Sunday. During a time off, like during the summers or when we were out of school, occasionally we'd go to Mass, but other times we went to confession regularly, we'd pray the rosary together every night.

Fr. Pullis:

So like, whatever the image of the uber Catholic family,

Beth:

That was you.

Fr. Pullis:

I think we fit that pretty well. Right. What is Jim Gaffigan's line? We were Shia Catholic? So yeah, we were very Catholic.

Fr. Pullis:

And you know, so Catholicism, I think was very much in my blood, in my bones, and in my life. And so I always had an appreciation for it, but it wasn't until I went to college that I really began to ask the questions that, you know, any young adult needs to ask about their faith. I had kind of received great models from my parents and my family, had good instruction in Catholic schools and kind of learned some of it, but it wasn't until, as an adult, I started to say "How do I, how do I accept this? How do I receive this, right? Is this something that I'm like caught in the stream of? Just flowing in Catholicism? Or am I like actively receiving it and saying, this is what I want to do?"

Fr. Pullis:

So, you know, for me, college was a time of three important things. It was asking questions. So learning things about my faith, like digging into questions. Especially at that time, it was lots of things around morality, lots of things that as a college student, you know, you think of, "Here are ways I want to live my life or ways I see people living their lives," and the Church offers a different perspective, and to be able to ask the question why, and to dig into the Church's teaching on some of these things, that was really important. I met people who were kind of my own age who really loved Jesus, and their witness for me was so important. It was like, it was, So like whatever, the, I don't know, you know, it's different when it's your family, right? Than when you meet people who are not your family. So the witness that they had was super helpful. And then, I love you talking about the Eucharist because it was, you know, spending time — and I'll tell that story another time — but spending time in Eucharistic Adoration really allowed me to be quiet and to begin to hear the Lord's voice, and part of that was reading scripture as we're going to talk about later today.

Beth:

Yep.

Fr. Pullis:

So it was in that silence of Eucharistic Adoration, where a friendship with Jesus really blossomed in my life and where I could hear his invitation, which was so opposite of how I wanted to live my life, but I could hear his invitation for me to be a priest. So I am, you know — oftentimes when I go on retreat or when I'm praying, there's a lot of gratitude that comes in my heart for days. It sounds like your experience in Darjeeling — Darjeeling? How do you say it?

Beth:

Darjeeling, yep.

Fr. Pullis:

Darjeeling. So yeah, that's a little bit about me. And then I entered seminary right out of college, I was a priest up in Lake Orion for a couple of years and have spent the last number of years working in the Archdiocese of Detroit Central Services. And right now I get to lead an incredible team of people in the Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship office. So, super grateful for that and grateful for the way, you know, I've seen God work in my life and I've seen God work through me. And you know, one of the great joys of ministry — I'm sure you experience this, Beth, is just seeing how God uses us to bring his truth and his love to people we meet.

Beth:

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a gift.

Fr. Pullis:

Yeah. And so one of the reasons for me, at least, I'm stepping, you know, from Open Door Policy into this is because there's so many people who have that experience in ministry, and we want to build them up. We want to build up our community of Encounter Grow Witness, people who work for the Church or who have kind of dedicated a significant amount of their time, talent, their efforts for the Church. And that's what we want to do in this podcast. So, you know, the Unleash the Gospel movement is about building up a community of joyful missionary disciples. Like, that's what it's all about.

Beth:

Yeah, a band. Yeah. And not just you, not just one person alone in a room, a band. That sounds like fun!

Fr. Pullis:

And someone who has no musical instrument, or no musical ability like me, I think, you know, whether you're playing the kazoo or the triangle, or whether you're kind of like lead guitar, lead violin, however, you think of it, like, God's got a role for us, for everyone to be part of this band. And you know, the people we really want to pour into in this podcast are those who work for the Church. Those who are part of the Encounter Grow Witness community here in the Archdiocese of Detroit. So let's talk a little bit about what some of our goals are here. And then Beth, I'll ask you to share, you know, what's your hopes for this podcast? Well, the first thing we want to do is really, you know, you and I, Beth, and by extension the wider community, to have meaningful conversations about life in ministry. There's so many joys that come with being in ministry. I know one of the sisters that I got to know very well talked about these as gifts the Lord gives, and we have to spend time to unpack them and appreciate the joys and the gifts he gives us.

Fr. Pullis:

But there's lots of trials and difficulties, disappointments or discouragement that can come, and, you know, God doesn't want us to sweep those under the rug. He wants us to really kind of take those to heart and understand if he's teaching us something through that or if he wants us to move in some way. So I think meaningful conversation is so important. You know, you and I come from different perspectives. I work at the diocese, you work at a parish. And so it's good for us to have practical tips about how we can grow as disciples, because if we're going to be leaders — and God is calling everyone in the Encounter Grow Witness community to be leaders — it has to start with our discipleship. Right? We can't give what we don't have.

Beth:

Yeah, absolutely. Right. Yeah, we've got to start in prayer, start in discipleship, or what will we have to give people?

Fr. Pullis:

Yeah. We're just going to be pouring out —.

Beth:

Emptiness, yeah.

Fr. Pullis:

Yeah. And we're going to be miserable if we do. Not only will be ineffective, we'll be miserable. Yeah.

Beth:

Both are noteworthy though, both are very noteworthy.

Fr. Pullis:

As much God wants us, as much as we want to be fruitful, we also want to be united to the Lord. And so our discipleship is so important, that we're kind of constantly going back to the source so that our work of ministry, our work of making disciples — so the third point is practical tips for the work of making disciples. You know, it's it's an art, not a science, right? There's no instruction manual that tells us exactly how to do it. So we've got to help each oter.

Beth:

It's part of what a disciple is, right? You're not a disciple unless you make disciples. That's literally what it means to follow Christ. It's to follow Christ and to teach others to follow Christ. It's not complicated and it's not — but it's not optional either. It's part of it.

Fr. Pullis:

Well, and that leads to the fourth point or reason for this podcast. One of my hopes is that we can help people understand their call to be part of the Unleash the Gospel movement. This movement is to be a band, as you emphasized rightly, a band of joyful missionary disciples, right? We want to have our discipleship that comes from our relationship with the Lord, and we want to be missionary. We want to go out and share his good news with other people. So those are kind of the goals I have for our podcast here. What are your hopes?

Beth:

Yeah, those are good goals. I think my hopes — I'm hopeful that this podcast can be a way for us to walk with one another. And you and I, but also those who are in the fields, right? Those who are working in the vineyard, the laborers out in the vineyard. I Think serving in ministry can be hard. As you say, there's these seasons of joy, there's seasons of sorrow, there's just seasons of change, which we can interpret sometimes as sorrow, but that's not necessarily the case. But I think also I just — in the years I've been in ministry, I've seen so many amazing ministers prioritize serving everyone else and then end up shortchanging themselves when it comes prayer or rest or family time. But God is not calling us to be exhausted and discouraged, he's calling us to this abundant life. And I've noticed it in myself sometimes when I've worked on a project or a ministry, even beyond hearing the Lord's quiet voice of like, "It's enough Beth, stop Beth. That's enough, Beth. That's good." Like, "Move on Beth, go home, Beth."

When I hear that voice and I, even when I ignore it, and then on my way home, I'll talk to someone and I'll think about something else and I'll realize how exhausted I am, and I'll think, "Oh, I didn't listen, Lord, I didn't listen. You didn't ask this of me. Did you? I asked this of myself." So I just, I love the idea of being able to offer some support to those who are working in the fields. I think that the other bit of it that I get excited about is just doing this work and remembering that there are others in the field, that we are not the only laborer. I think that Satan really loves to divide and isolate and make people feel alone and think they're alone. And I think that that's how he brings a lot of division in our midst, but if you look back in the history of the Church, saints had friends who were saints.

Beth:

They were those joyful bands, even if they were small bands of twos or threes or pockets here and there, right? And I just think that the more that we can do, the more that the Encounter Grow Witness movement and community can do to remove, sort of, those divisions and help us really see that a win for that person is a win for me, and like, we are all on this mission together, we bring our unique gifts, our unique strengths, but there is a mission, and we are not alone, and we matter, too. The individual person matters, too. If my heart — if in the ministry that I'm doing my own heart isn't being drawn closer to the Lord, then my ministry is not bearing fruit. Not in the way that Christ wants it to bear it

Fr. Pullis:

What the heck am I doing then, right? I mean, I just, I think it can be so — like any work, but it's especially discouraging to see it in in ministry is like, you know, if we get so caught up in tasks and we forget about, you know, our own need to be united to the Lord and our own kind of joy in seeing other people grow in that, then I just think like, hey, forget about it, right? If it makes it harder for me, or if it's a stumbling block for me to grow closer to the Lord, I need to change something. And you know, I love your point about doing this together. I was, in this new year, we'll talk about our scripture challenge a little bit later, but started reading scripture from the beginning again. And to see in you know, the first, the beginning of Genesis to hear God's word to Adam, "It's not good for man to be alone."

And just how that hits my heart and how that hits, I think, so many hearts, especially, you know, coming —.

This moment globally.

Yeah how deep we are into this pandemic and just seeing how isolation has really made it hard for people to, just to get through parts of their lives that, you know, we need to take up that —.

We need to be together.

Yeah, we need to take up that challenge to be in community because community can be hard. 'Cause I don't get to do everything that I want every time I want to do it.

That's right. People will annoy you. They will. That's part of it.

No, no, we don't annoy people, but yeah. [laughs]

You might be a little annoying. I'm not annoying. [laughs]

Oh, your humility is just coming through.

So much, right? Yeah. Iron sharpens iron.

Yeah. So, so how important it is for us, you know, to keep going back to that theme of being a band of joyful missionary disciples. That God wants us to do it together and to encourage each other when we need it and to challenge each other when we need it as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

So as we talk about helping people to grow in their discipleship and to be disciple-makers, you know, Beth and I you and I were talking about like, well, what would be a great first topic? And I thought with the this year of scripture, the archbishop releasing a pastoral note on scripture, that was really kind of giving a push, what better topic could we start with than the Word of God? And and why it's so important. You know, when I think about scripture, I think about it as the way God slowly and steadily teaches us what his voice sounds like.

Oh, I love that.

When I started reading scripture, I was like, this teaches me to hear what God sounds like, right? Like a friend who you notice on the phone when they call, or someone you hear in the other room. Beth, how many kids do you have? Three? You have three.

Three. Yup. Seven, six, four. Yeah, they're little, but I know what they sound like. I can tell their cry — someone's coming up from the basement crying, I know which one that is. I know. And I know whether I need to come or whether it'll be fine. I already know.

Yeah. You know that cause you're a mom and you're around them and you've heard it in all different ways.

Yep. I've listened to their voice for years. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's what scripture is meant to do. Like teach us what God sounds like, both the tone and the kind of things he says. You know, one of the ways I think of this is, when I get discouraged or when something — when I kind of make a mess, do something wrong and I feel the condemnation, I think, this is not what God sounds like. Right? Like, when God challenges me and calls me to repentance, it's not a kind of biting discouragement. So I hear that, I'm like, that's not his voice, that's the voice of the accuser. That's the voice of the devil. I need to renounce that and turn to God who is always calling us to be greater, right? It's not like God's just the eternal hug machine. He's, he's calling us to conversion.

Conviction is very different than accusation. Yeah.

But he does it in a different way. And that's why I think, you know, scripture as part of any disciple, but especially those of us who kind of speak on behalf of the Church, who work for the Church. It's important that we kind of take on a life of reading scripture, that we have that in our inner lives.

Yeah. I had a friend who, just a couple of days ago, we were praying and her prayer was, "Lord help me to hear your voice in the rain and in the storm." And it was just so powerful to hear her praying, that, like, that was her prayer, right? A lot of times we think, well, it's just too loud. The world is just too loud, or all the things I have to do or too loud, or my crushing isolation is too loud. It's too distracting, right? How can we hear his voice in the midst of all of that? And I think scripture is just a great place to start. You know, one of my favorite quotes from Dei Verbum, On the Scriptures, "For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets his children with great love and speaks with them." Right? These are the words of God for me, for you, for us, for right now. I can't tell you many times I've opened the Bible and just read exactly what I needed, you know, exactly what I needed in exactly the right moment, because he's so tender. He loves us so well.

Yeah. And it shows the fatherhood of God, who wants to speak to his people in all these different circumstances, in all these different ages, even with the different genres of of scripture. Like this might be a little cornier than we need, but I think about all the dad jokes that dads love to tell, and the different genres that people speak in. And I think, you know, scripture has the wisdom of Proverbs, it's got the history of the historical books, it's Jesus himself in the Gospels, it's got prophetic language. And and so it's just kind of like, all the different ways that we hear the voice of the Father who wants to speak to us. Beth, when did you first start reading the Bible?

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we read it as kids, like a little bit at home and stuff, but my real first memory comes in high school. I had a youth minister who really challenged us to read the Bible and he's like, "You need to be reading the Bible every single day." And he was, he was a real tough guy, he was like an army guy. And so we'd come back the next week and he'd be like, "So how was the week? Like, did you pray the Bible every day? Did you read it?" And I was like [groans] and everyone was avoiding eye contact. I mean like, no of course we didn't. We were teenagers. No, we didn't do that.

Ministry by intimidation. [laughs]

I was very intimidated, but I remember finally, I don't know what it was. It was just the grace of God, but one summer, probably, I don't know, after one of my years of high school, I just said, you know what, I'm just going to do this. I'm going to read the Bible every day. And so I started reading every day and I plowed through a lot of the Old Testament and you know, it was just amazing. I think in general, it developed a habit of filling the gaps in my day with the Word of God, which now — I didn't even have a smartphone at the time, so scrolling, wasn't an alternative — now, how many of those gaps in our day do we fill with just that scrolling? But at the time, I think for me in high school, as I started reading the Bible and finding God speaking to me in such specific personal ways, time and time again, I think it really overwhelmed me with the depth of God, the mystery of God, and just the love of God. And I know a lot of people get down on the Old Testament, seeing God as the angry God, who's, you know, destroying people in cities and peoples. And I just, you know, I mean, of course you have the whole arc of salvation history to keep in mind, but I just saw so much of God's love in the prophecies of Isaiah and there's — just all over. There's just good stuff.

Yeah. Did it help you grow as a disciple? Did it help you kind of like, you know, I don't want to use the word mature, but I guess I do want to use that. Did It help you mature in your discipleship?

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I think just starting to think and see things more from God's perspective or reading through Job and, you know, "Well, where were you when I formed the seas, Job? You're questioning me and what I've allowed to happen in your life, but where were you when I formed the stars? Where were you?" And it was just this beautiful moment to be like, "Oh gosh, I am so small," but now, knowing more my identity as a daughter of God, I delight in that littleness. I love it. It's awesome to be small. It's great, because he is big and he will do it, and he is great. So I think just recognizing the greatness of God, the intricacy of his plan and how thorough it has been. And my small piece of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it sounds like Saint Therese, you know. You're at the right parish. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm at the right parish. Yeah. The littleness. I really dig the littleness of Therese.

Yeah. Yeah. I started reading scripture, I would say, more in college. I don't think I read it at all in high school. You know, I remember as a kid for my First Communion, I got one of those picture Bibles that had like a story on one side and a picture on the other. And I'm sure I read that because I liked to read, but I didn't have a concept of, like, opening up the Bible to read it when I was in high school. But in college I took a class on a sacred scripture — I went to a Catholic school, Catholic college — and you know, I found that really helpful. And then I started going to Adoration once a week because I was asked to kind of fill a slot and be someone who could you know, consistently be there so that it could be open, they could have Adoration, 'cause someone has to be present all the time. And during gaps of — between falling asleep and doing other homework, I would say, "Well, maybe I should read a little scripture." And so, you know, I would just kind of bounce around in the, in the Bible. Didn't really know what I was doing, but I had something similar to you when you talk about just feeling, like, God's closeness or his tenderness in scripture. That was, that really came through clearly to me when I read it, like, I don't know, it didn't strike me as reading an ordinary book. It struck me as kind of hearing how God wanted to speak to me. And I was struck by the other, like, the characters in scripture. How human they are, how fallen, how flawed they are, how they want to do what's right and they mess up or they don't want to do what's right. You know, just kind of seeing the whole, I don't know, the whole tapestry of humanity there.

There's room for every character in the story. There's room for us, too. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I felt like reading about Peter or some of the other apostles who are like, you know, Lord, can I sit at your right when you go into your kingdom? As Jesus is trying to give this prophecy about his Passion and to see some of that, to see some of the pettiness of them really helped me see that God is not looking for these non-human perfection, these angels to communicate with, but that he wants to speak to me and my humanity. And I do think it helped me grow in my discipleship. I found it really maturing for me as a disciple to see, okay, like God comes into messy situations.

Right. It kind of got me out of the mindset of, okay, God is for church, with nice clothes, on your best behavior, in this kind of Norman Rockwell kind of situation. And that's not to say, God doesn't deserve our best behavior in our nice clothes and attempt to be attentive, but like, God is not in the china cabinet or in the glass case somewhere else, like, he's in the nastiness. And that was a little bit of a mindset shift I had when I started reading scripture more.

Yeah. Yeah.

Let me ask you — I'll put you on the spot a little bit, we talked about this, putting you on the spot about, do you have a resource for better understanding the Bible? To, you know, if I'm just starting out, or if I've read it a little bit, like, what would you offer as a resource to better understand the Bible?

Yeah. Yeah. Since we're talking to people who are kind of in the ministry fields, I was in a presentation where a guy was presenting the new textbook that he was proposing for our religious formation curriculum. And he was giving it to us and he said, "You know what I would — you know, you've got all these references for the Catechism, so, you know it's there, but you know, the Catechism is a reference book. Nobody's going to read that. So, you know, understanding no one's going to read that, you know, we've kind of put those things to the side so that, you know, if you ever really want to go and read them, you know, later, I guess, I mean, you could, but like,"

I guess in theory, you could...

"I mean, your catechists won't do that. You know?" And I, you know, the few of us in the meeting kind of looked around at each other and our eyes got so wide, you know, because I love the Catechism. There's great stuff in there. It's so readable. That shouldn't be in the China cabinet, hat should be right out on your desk. But, you know, for me, the Catechism was a book that I had on my shelf when I was in college, and I had been really more rooted in our Protestant, like, all the — I'd never left the Catholic church, I was raised Catholic, I really fell in love with reading the Bible, and my faith, kind of my discipleship habits maybe looked more Protestant. I couldn't really defend or explain the rosary or the saints or those things, but I had a Catechism on my shelf.

So one day I realized, you know, huh, I don't really know that much about like the Catholic aspects of my faith. And so I got it out and I started reading from the beginning, and the section on scripture is almost to the very beginning, speaking about divine revelation. And as I began to read that, I just, it was so overwhelming. It was so beautiful. You know, the Church there, another quote, "The Church has always venerated the divine scriptures just as she venerates the Body of the Lord." To me that just united all of it together for me, so I would encourage if people haven't read the section in the Catechism on the scripture, I think you've got to start there. Because it gives the overview of the scope, the different senses of scripture and how we came to have the Bible, all of those things. I just think it's a great foundation to remind ourselves of, or to discover for the first time. So it's not super wild and crazy, but I would suggest the Catechism 'cause I think it's great. And I think we should be reading it all the time.

Well, that's, you know, I don't know if you listened to any of Fr. Mike Schmitz's podcast on Read the Bible in a Year, but like that's what he started out with. I think that was at the end of 2020, you know, the teaser episode was like, how do we read scripture? How do we do this? And he talked about the different senses and I'm like, he's getting this all from the Catechism, right? Like, this is right at the beginning. So yeah. I would offer something very similar that you've already referenced, which is Dei Verbum. I mean, the Second Vatican Council is such a treasure trove, especially for people who worked for the Church. And I know sometimes people can think like, well, that's what I had to read to get through the class, to get certified or to get my degree, or, you know, you can think of it as like, the textbook you had to read.

There's good stuff there.

But to go back to Dei Verbum, and just like you're saying about the Catechism, like, it's really accessible, like Dei Verbum may stretch you a little bit, but that's okay, we should be stretched a little bit, right? Like God is not, again, he's not fourth grade math, right? Like, where we are in our faith, for people listening here, our Encounter Grow Witness community, we want them to be stretched. And this is something that can help us become the disciples and disciple makers we are, is by being stretched a little bit. And I think Dei Verbum is a great way to do that, to kind of, exactly like you're saying, understand the senses of scripture and also understand the tradition the Church has had, and how we as Catholics, maybe — you know, maybe it hasn't always been the way our Protestant brothers and sisters, where it's kind of a devotional to read. But it's always been in our liturgy and it's always been in our the understanding of the sacraments and everything we do as the Church has always been kind of, you know, dripping with scripture. So to read it as a Catholic is a great way to — read Dei Verbum is a great way to see like, okay, this is how I can bring scripture into into my life more fully.

Yep. Absolutely.

Let's talk about scripture in ministry as well. You know, how have you used the word of God in your work of ministry, Beth?

Yeah. I think my favorite moment, if you will, of scripture and ministry, I was leading an Alpha, and it was actually a really cool Alpha. It was at my last parish and we were actually out at a bar in the community, and so we're out at this bar, there's, you know, it's packed, and they are showing the Alpha video on the big TVs all around, right? And so there'll be a handful of tables of just people just hanging out there and they'd kind of look over and they were kind of like, "What's happening there?" And it was just a bunch of young, normal looking people having food and beer and watching these great videos and having these great conversations. So anyway, one of the weeks was "Why and how should I read the Bible?" That was the question of the week.

And so we were kind of talking, there was a video. And then afterwards, one of the discussion question, I just read it off the sheet was, "Do you see the Bible as God's love letter?" That was the question which the video had proposed that the Bible is God's love letter. And so I just asked the question and there's kind of a lot of quiet, which I've experienced can be common at Alphas where there's a lot of Catholics, that can be a common response to that question. "Do you see the Bible as God's love letter?" A lot of crickets, like, well, it seems nice and I don't really know. But anyway, a woman, she was just awesome, she spoke up and she was just, she was like, exactly the type who would say this. And she just kind of like, let her face go into a deep sneer.

Just forgive me as I see her initial reaction, rght? And she was like, "No, no! It's filled with horrible things. No, I don't see it as God's love letter, why?" And she's like, does anyone else? And then a couple of people kind of shared their own thoughts and you know, it's an Alpha, so every perspective is welcome. I'm delighted. And I always say like, the more diverse the perspectives we get at the table, the richer our conversation will be. So don't hold back and don't feel like you have to give whatever the churchy answer. That's not what this is, that's not what Alpha is. You know? So anyway, afterwards, and I didn't want to push anything, but we were friends, so afterwards I went around to her and I said, "Can I share one small thing with you?" I said, "If any passage is —" just my opinion, "If any passage was going to convince you that the Bible is a love letter, it will be this one. Here, I'm just giving you the Bible to just read this just to yourself."

And she was like, "Oh, okay, I'll read it." And she says, "Hey, everybody, come back. I'm going to read this." And I'm like, "Oh no, you don't have to call everyone back out, it was just for you." And she's like, "Oh no, it's fine. Everybody come back." So everybody obligingly returns, right? And again, we're in a bar. And so she starts reading from Isaiah chapter 43 and it says, "Now thus says the Lord, who created you, oh Jacob? Who formed you, oh Israel? Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name and you are mine." Now here she starts to choke up, and she pauses for a minute. And then she keeps reading. And the the fourth verse was the last one she read, and it says, "Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you. I give men in return for you and peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you."

This is a woman who had had extreme — a lot of suffering, a lot of difficult times in her life. And and you know that for her, that sparked a journey. And it was just my simple post-Alpha proposal that like, "Hey, this might change your mind. Hey, you might want to take a look at this, you might want to explore this." And she's been reading the Bible since, and she said, "There's so much comfort in the Bible that I never knew before." And now you can't get her to be quiet with that question. "Do you see the Bible as a love letter?" So I just think little moments like that, where we can propose to people. And I like to think a lot of times, I think in ministry, we'll give people an orange and say, "Here, this is food. You're going to really love it." And people who have never seen an orange before, they're like, "What do I do with that? Thanks, is that — do I put that on the table? It doesn't look like food." You know, there's a peel of the orange for people, you know? So I think a lot of times like sharing a particular word of scripture, verse from scripture can help people see, "Oh my gosh, this is food. This is nourishment. This is for me." Yes, yes it is. So that's my favorite story of scripture and ministry 'cause it was just amazing.

That's awesome. And those are the things we need to keep going back to and keep clinging to and say, okay, God is working like this is — God is doing something, right? And, you know, the one sheep that we're called to seek out and to help them know God's love. That's an awesome story, Beth.

Yeah, it was sweet. It was very sweet. But then if I look further back in youth ministry, I was a youth minister for a lot of years. And I really wanted to teach young people to pray with scripture. And so one of the things that we would do is I would give them the Sunday Gospel or whatever passage we were looking at that day, and I would just give them the scripture and I would say, "Let's just sit and pray with this and reflect, and here a few questions, just reflect on these as you pray." And so I taught them with whatever passage you're reading in scripture, to take three questions to mind. What does this passage reveal to me about God and who he is? Every passage reveals something about God and who he is. What does this passage reveal about me and who I'm called to be? Every passage has something to say about who I'm called to be. And then lastly, what is God saying to me? That's a bold question. What is God saying to me?

Did you find that helpful with young people? That they were able to kind of think through those three stages? Go through — mention that again. Talk about those again.

Yeah. So what does this passage reveal about God and who he is? And then what does this passage reveal about me and who I'm called to be? And what is God saying to me? I found one really powerful thing is to start meetings like that, just to begin meetings with praying with scripture and asking those simple questions, and then inviting people to share their reflections. But yeah, I think for young people, it gave them kind of a structure and a framework to begin looking at like, "Oh, so when I read scripture, it's supposed to reveal something about God and about me? Oh, I'm a part of this?" Yes, yes. You are a part of this. Yes.

And those can be different things too, right? Like, that's why it's so helpful to read a passage of scripture. I love that way of doing it to say, okay, like what does this say about God? Like, you know, you think of one of the most classic examples of the prodigal son Gospel, like —.

Yeah, what does this say about God?

What does this say about God? You know, so looking at it from the, from the father's perspective there.

The merciful father.

The merciful father, who's willing to humiliate himself by running, the father who is like, you know, I'm sure the older brother's like, "why are you giving this dude money? You know he's gonna blow it." Right? But the father who is okay with that, who's okay with kind of being taken advantage of to some degree, and the father who's even seeking out the heart of the older brother when he gets hardhearted.

But then, so to say like, "Okay, how can this shape and help me understand who God is," because — I'm going to get on a hobby horse a little bit here, so hold on. But like the beauty of being Catholic is it should shape the way we think and believe and see the world. Because the world wants to form us. It wants to shape our thoughts on what's right and what's wrong. And what's important, who I am, you know, what the meaning of life is. But when I read scripture, my disposition has to be like, "God, show me who you are. God, for me, show me who I am." Right? If we're just reading it like we're reading the newspaper, just reading it to kind of check a box, we're going to miss something. It's got to have the disposition of a disciple, or at least someone who's curious and open to say, "Lord, show me what life is meant to be, show me who you are." And I think your questions really get to the heart of that. What does it say about God? What does it say about me? And then the third one? What is God saying to me today?

Yeah. What is God saying to me, because God is always speaking, right? He always speaks, he speaks in every moment. Are we listening? Can we hear him in the rain and the sun and the storm? Can we hear him? Are we listening? Yeah.

Yeah. And the Word of God is living and effective.

Living and effective. Yeah.

So it's not just this, you know, manuscript we found. But it's living and effective. It tells us who God is. It tells me my identity and it wants to speak to the circumstances of my life. It's beautiful. You know, when I think of using scripture in my own ministry, I think about how helpful it has been when you talk about opening up the Sunday Gospel or the readings, I think it's so helpful — one of my professors in seminary studied biblical theology, which is just a fancy way of saying, like, understanding what we believe as Catholics in the light of scripture.

And I find that so helpful. So like you know, in Advent and before Advent, when we came back in late summer, fall, I did a long series of preaching on the Mass and just tried to talk about aspects of the Mass in light of scripture. Like, why do we say — why does the priest get there and say "In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit," "The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all," you know? Why doesn't he say, "Hey, how's everyone doing? Hi, y'all! You guys have a good Saturday?" Right? Because we're entering into something sacred and scripture forms that. Like, we're baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy spirit, because that's Jesus's command that we read at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. St. Paul greets the communities, you know, with the — however I said it, I forget it.

With those words!

With those really important words I can't remember now! "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit," right? Like, these are words that come to us from scripture. It's the Word of God, and so we speak them to each other. So I find like trying to take things that Catholics know and do just through the ritual of Catholicism and finding the scriptural depth to it is really helpful for understanding that we're not just making this up or, you know, it isn't something someone thought was cool 200 years ago, and, you know, we're just kind of in some archaic language, we're speaking God's words to each other and we're hearing God's word from each other. So I find it very helpful to kind of teach out of scripture to make scripture the foundation for how we understand what it means for what we do as Catholics. Yeah. Got a couple of other questions for you Beth, as we kind of dig into doing ministry with scripture. How do you help people understand challenging passages? Because you talked about you know, your friend who said like, "There's horrible things that happen in there!" How do we help people make sense of that?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think just recognizing the content and the unity of the whole, right. I once had someone — and this is kind of a simplistic answer, but I had someone say, you know, if you find a puzzle piece and you can't figure out where the puzzle piece goes, then you set it down and keep working on the rest of the puzzle, and eventually you'll need that piece to finish it, right? So I think in the same way, sometimes we'll come upon a difficult passage, we won't maybe understand it, and then backing up to see the whole picture, then you can see it. It's just like a stained glass window, right? If you look up close at it, you might look at the pieces and you're like, why would you put these colors together? They're so ugly right together, up close. But if you back up, you can see, "Oh, now I see the whole, now I see the beautiful picture." But I think a lot of, I think in my personal opinion, the problems we get into with difficult passages is that we just sit with the questions and we never seek the answers. My husband is famous — he's he loves questions. He's actually the ideal small group member, 'cause he'll never let it like a trite answer, like suffice and like stay, you know, he'll challenge everything. He's always asking more questions than that. I love questions, but we also have to love answers. So if you have questions, if you're reading and you're getting into questions, then what will you do with those questions? Right? If you just let them sit, then they just slowly mold and erode your confidence in your faith. But there are answers to our questions. I mean, I almost left the faith because I didn't think there were answers to my questions. And then when I really looked and I stacked up my whole list of questions, there were answers for all of them, but we have to actually do the work of looking for the answers with those difficult passages. Look in the Catechism, Catholic Answers, the internet. There's so many great resources right now.

Your priest, or your Director of Evangelization and Faith Formation.

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Give her a ring. She'd love to help. Yeah.

Yeah. I think you're right. Do you know the image Pope Benedict used when he came to the United States? He spoke at St. Patrick's Cathedral and the stained glass image, like, he talked about the faith. From the outside, it's like looking at a stained glass window from the outside, right? It's kind of dark or kind of indistinct, but it's when you come in the church and you see it, that you understand the beauty of it. And he was talking about that, that like certain aspects of the faith or truths of the faith or relationship with Christ from the outside, you can tell someone like, "Hey, you really should have a relationship with Jesus." If they don't know what that means, it just looks like this kind of opaque thing, right? But when you come in and you when you look at it from the inside, when you know what that is, that's when you understand the beauty of it. That's when you say, Oh, look at the detail, look at the care, concern, effort, time, resources that went into this beautiful stained glass window. And I love that image. You know, that if we just ask the questions outside of a piece, a life of faith, if we ask it — you know, this is one of my favorite things to look at in the last few years it's been in the Gospels, is to see the different way people ask Jesus questions. Right? So Nicodemus comes at night and he's like, "Hey, how can I be born again? I don't get it." Right? He asks with earnestness or the rich young man, like, "What do I have to do to enter the kingdom of heaven?" Like there's an earnestness with asking the questions. But then the Pharisees and others come like, and we even hear in the words of the Gospel, they put this question to him to trick him or to trip him up, right?

"Is it lawful for us to pay the census tax?" They're asking a question, not because they honestly want to know the answer, but because they're trying to drive a wedge. And I think, I think that can happen when we get to challenging passages of scripture with Abraham and Isaac, or all sorts of other things, especially in the Old Testament, you know, it really matters our disposition. Am I asking to know? Am I asking to understand what God is saying about himself and me and my life right now? Or am I asking to like, try to let myself off the hook from a life of faith? And you know, God's not a fool, right? Like, God wants to teach us, but he's not just going — and so Jesus does this in the answer, like he doesn't respond to those kinds of questions, whether it's in front of Herod or Pilate or others, the Pharisees he just doesn't answer. And so what — the way we get to a true understanding of challenging parts of scripture is by asking from a place of faith.

There are answers, there are answers to every question, we just have to look.

So thinking through Beth's way of sharing the scripture, you know, in a ministerial way, teaching the scripture by asking, what does scripture say about God? What does it say about me? And what is God saying to me today through the scripture? I think, you know, one of the things we talked about Beth is giving people practical applications, right? Like how they can take this. I think that's a great way to teach scripture or to say, I want to incorporate this more throughout this year or throughout my whatever ministry or apostolate you're in. That's great. One of the personal ways I think is great for people to apply this is — shameless plug for Unleash the Gospel here — our scripture reading challenge. We did a whole bunch of work leading up to this year, knowing that the archbishop wanted to write this pastoral note on the importance of scripture in the life of a disciple, knowing that this is a year for us, we're really making it a "grow" year to encourage everyone in the archdiocese and in a particular way, those in our Encounter Grow Witness community to read scripture this year. To take up one of our challenges, to join a guild and to either read the four Gospels, the whole New Testament or the whole of the Bible this year.

You know, the beauty of this challenge is — I think the Gospels are, I think there's 79 days to read them, but the other ones, it's 365 days. If you start today, you finish a year from now. You don't have to have started on January 1st. So I just want to give a big encouragement for people to take up this challenge. It's a great, easy way to invite someone else. Maybe someone who's been away from church a little bit because of the pandemic or someone who you know from church, a great way to encourage them to take a step deeper into their relationship with God because of the way scripture shapes and molds the way we think and understand not just our relationship with God, but as you said, Beth, like my life here today. And to read scripture everyday begins to kind of shape who you are. It's like going out in the sun everyday, your complexion is going to change, especially if you have red hair like me, 10 minutes in the sun and your complexion changes significantly. But just you know, a little bit of scripture everyday and it's going to start to shape your life as a disciple. So that's my encouragement go to unleashthegospel.org, sign up for the scripture challenge and begin making scripture a regular part of your life today. That sounded like an infomercial there at the end. So

That was a great commercial. [laughs]

For the low, low price... [laughs] no, but we really want to encourage people to sign up for it. So yeah. That's our practical application for the personal life to read scripture and join a guild. And for the, your life as teaching scripture in ministry, the three points again, Beth?

Three questions: what does this passage reveal about God and who he is? What does this passage reveal about me and who I'm called to be? And what is God saying to me today?

Awesome. So we want to, we want to have a segment in our podcast where we take questions from the field. We know that there are lots of questions that people ask. Being our first podcast, we didn't kind of put it out there for people to say, what's your question about scripture you want Beth and I to respond to, but we've both been in ministry long enough to have gotten a ton of questions about scripture. So Beth, what are some of those questions?

Yeah, here's one to start us off: where to start reading. People always ask this. "So I want to read the Bible, I don't have any idea where to start. It's a big book. Where would I begin?" What would you say to that?

I would start in Deuteronomy or Leviticus.

Yes. Leviticus would be a really good start.

You know, we tried to lay out, in our scripture reading challenge, a way to read systematically through the Bible, but we know it can be really challenging, especially the Old Testament that, you know, you get a few days in, or you get through the book of Genesis and you get into Exodus, and it can just be a slog in some places because it's written in a way that's hard for our ears to understand. So we want to keep people away from being discouraged, but still not avoid the whole of scripture, right? Not just kind of pick and choose the places you like. So the scripture reading challenge has a systematic approach through the old Testament, but each week, each day, I should say, you read a bit from the wisdom literature, which is the beautiful scripture in the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and then there's part from the new Testament each day as well. So my approach would be to take that method of a little bit of the Old Testament, a little bit of the wisdom literature, which is part of the Old Testament, and then part of the New Testament and kind of read it in pieces like that. Beth, what's your advice?

I think if you're not ready to go all in the reading the whole Bible in a year challenge, then I would say starting with the Gospels would be a great thing. You know, the Gospels, we encounter the person of Christ. So that's why in the —of course we sit to listen to the scripture readings, we stand for the Gospel, right? Because we hear the stories of Christ. So I think any of the Gospels are great. I'm doing the New Testament challenge this year. And so we're, we're all that we're awake at making our way through Luke. And I am just loving Luke, the Gospel of Luke even more. I would have maybe picked John as my favorite and the one I would suggest people start with, but I think Luke could be a great place to start too, so.

The nice part about Luke is Luke wrote Acts as like volume two. So if you want to see if you want to do like the two volume thing to start off, it would be to read Luke and then Acts of the Apostles because Luke is the author of both of those and kind of wrote them with continuity there. Beth, let me ask you, how can I integrate scripture more into my ministry? I've heard that from a number of people who say, you know, what does it look like for me to do this?

I think first would be, like, in the way that we're just living as ministers and acting as ministers. I mean, we, I know it says in Unleash the Gospel, you know, we don't want to start our meetings with a perfunctory prayer. Fr. Steve, I think we're still starting our meetings with a perfunctory prayer. I think we're still doing that everywhere. I'm not just saying here, we have lots of rich prayer here too, but I think it's just, it's often overlooked. Right? And so I think the more we can lean into praying with scripture together, I think that the more fruitful our ministry will be. And then I would say, when we're preparing talks, I know many of people we'll be listing will be catechists and people who are really teaching the Gospel, religion teachers, you know, are — instead of paraphrasing the scripture, read the scripture, open your Bible and read the scripture. Or instead of reading from a piece of paper or reading it from your phone, a real Bible, hold a real Bible, right? You can teach so much just by the way you hold a Bible that we revere this book, that this is God's Word, we respect this book. So I think those are just a couple of things that come to mind to me off the top of my mind, praying with scripture more together and using scripture when we teach and when we share.

Yeah. You know, we haven't even talked about Lectio Divina, which the Archbishop holds up as one of the kind of preeminent ways to for a disciple to read scripture, to pray with scripture. I think that can be so helpful. You know, the point you've made here about the way God is speaking to each of us today with this word, it's always, it's often beautiful to hear how different people hear a different story. I know on our staff meetings, we rotate through different ways of praying. And once a month we do Lectio Divina. And I love to hear how different people identified with a different character or heard a different word or a different aspect of this story. So I think integrating scripture can be into your ministry is begin, and it takes an investment of time because you can't do a two minute Lectio Divina, right? Like, you've got to give it at least 10 minutes. So to invest in that time and to say, you know, I know it's going to be difficult if we're used to doing things differently, but to take some time with Lectio Divina, because I find my appreciation for people I work with or interact with grows in hearing how they're hearing the word of God.

What if I don't enjoy reading scripture? What if I don't like it?

That that's the question that's most frequently asked once everyone else has left the room. Now that all those other good people are gone, and I can just be honest, what if I don't like reading it? Like how do I start? Yeah. And I think that there are people who just don't like reading in general. And so that's my next question. Like if someone were to ask me this, I, you know, I don't like reading it. I would ask, do you enjoy reading in general? And it's surprising to me that oftentimes the answer is yes, I love to read, [laughs] just not that. Then I would try to get a sense of where that person's at and maybe make a really specific recommendation of a place to start for them, you know, maybe Acts of the Apostles would be a better place to start. If someone's coming in with kind of a Catholic foundation and a worldview, then Acts of the Apostles can really open your heart and open your mind.

Oh my gosh. The Holy Spirit — look at what the Holy Spirit did. Look at how the Holy Spirit developed and grew the Church in these, like, broken people. So I think it depends on whether or not that person likes to read. And otherwise I would just say that, you know, sometimes I have to love my husband in a way that I don't love loving him. Like I don't want to do the dishes or sweep the floor. But when I do it, I grow and I become better and our marriage becomes better. So there are some things that you just have to, what is the expression? Man up and practice and lean into, and then you'll discover the joy in doing them.

Yeah, no, that's good. There is a bit of like, this is what God has given to me. And if I don't, you know — and this might sound harsh, so receive this in love, people — if I don't like it, there's something wrong with me. There's not something wrong with God. Right? So there's something wrong with all of us, we all need to grow and be formed as disciples, so this is not an accusation, but it's just a way, like, exactly, like you're saying, right. I need to learn to love in the way that God has, has given himself in the Word of God. Now that doesn't mean I have to, you know love it in every single moment, but to make the commitment to say, "God has something to say to me here. And so I really want to be open and try to receive it. I want to be formed by it."

You know, I love your comment about maybe Acts is the place to start. I think like the book of Esther, the book of Tobit, these ones that are kind of short, but it's a story you're reading, and it's very clearly a story. Some of those can be super helpful in addition to the Gospels. There are lots of other questions that I think we could talk about, but we have gone for a good chunk already here. And I think Ron, our faithful producer, is ready for us to wrap up. Before we wrap up Beth let me ask you, let's kind of wrap up by sharing what's our favorite passage in scripture. So, Beth, what is your favorite passage in the Word of God?

My favorite passage comes from the Gospel of John chapter 12, verse 24. "Unless a single grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it dies, it yields a rich harvest." It's just a verse that I felt the Lord speaking to me when I was in high school. I just kept stumbling upon it on accident. Just when I would open my Bible or go different places. Anytime I looked at the clock, it was always 12:24, every single time. So it just felt like a message to the Lord that like, just as I think about my whole life, like, what do you want your life to mean? Do you want your life to mean something? If you want it to mean something that, that means dying to yourself and letting me, letting God bring something to life. So that's my verse. What's yours, Fr. Steve? Let's hear it. Favorite verse?

My favorite verse is from the first letter of John chapter four, 10 and 11. "In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." This idea of understanding, you know, love is a word that gets used so often and gets used in so many contexts that to understand "in this is love." Like, the paradigm for love is what God has done for us. And that every other way we think about or talk about or try to express love has to be measured again, sort of related to what God has done for us. And to me, that is my favorite place to go to in scripture to just think about what it means to receive that from God and what it means for me to respond to his love.

Beautiful.

Beth, thanks for this awesome first episode of Encounter Grow Witness, our new podcast.

That's right. New podcast, subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at egwdetroit.org/podcast.