WEBVTT

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In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the

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Holy Spirit, glory to Jesus Christ. is in crisis.

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The world is in crisis. Just this week, we have

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the big one everybody knows about. We have the

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coronavirus. Then we have that crisis there.

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Then we have the meltdown of the financial markets,

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another crisis. We have wars and rumors of wars,

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especially in the Middle East. We even have crisis

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in the Orthodox Church. The Ukrainian crisis.

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We have all these things. The world has no lack

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of crisis. What we lack is the understanding

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of crisis. The word itself in Greek means judgment.

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It means judgment. And up until about, I'm going

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to say probably about 150 years ago, when something

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happened on a level that's pretty high, or even

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maybe in a person's life, it would be a crisis,

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but what they did, they'd call it judgment. They'd

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say, it's God's judgment. We need to repent.

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It's God's judgment because of our sins. Now,

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of course, their view of that is entirely changed.

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The view now is that it's what they call a black

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swan. A crisis shows up. It sort of came out

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of nowhere for no reason. And for sure, The idea

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of God being somehow involved is completely gone.

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Completely gone. When's the last time some crisis

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event happened either to people at large or to

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you individually that you heard somebody say,

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it's God's judgment. We should repent. We should

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repent. In older times, there was no lack of

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crisis in the world. There's always been wars,

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famines, plagues. It goes on and on. Earthquakes.

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The list is huge. And the way people, like I

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said, again, the people looked at it was that

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it was God's judgment on us. Because we've sinned.

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Russia is a particular example. When they would

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get a bad czar. And the people were going to

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like suffer under this person. They would go.

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God's judgment for our sins. And then they would

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pray. And they would repent. Last week. We. remembered,

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it was a Sunday of the last judgment. We call

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it the biggest crisis of all time. Hasn't happened

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yet. The last judgment. Today, we celebrate or

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remember, maybe not celebration, it's quite the

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best idea, that we remember the casting of Adam

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and Eve out of paradise. I would call that God's

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first judgment. Such a crisis still affects us

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to this day because we live in a fallen world,

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we're fallen people. We have death and all the

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things around it. But those aren't the only two

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times that God's judgment is in the world. Look

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up in the dome. When you get a chance later,

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if you're in the back and you can't see who's

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up there, Jesus Christ. The Pentecrotter, the

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Lord of the Universe. It's to remind us that

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everything is in God's providence and in God's

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hands. Everything. We experience these crises

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on a world level or even on a country level.

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But we also experience them individually. Each

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person has times in their life when they have

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a crisis. As a priest, I hear this quite often.

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People come and they'll go, Father, you know,

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I'm having a crisis. And it can be a health crisis

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or a financial crisis or somebody died. The list

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is very large. It's the same thing. It's God

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working in our life. And why does he do this?

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Why does he allow? Why does his judgment come

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in? It's to draw us back to him. He doesn't do

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it because he's angry with us. God loves us.

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And remember that beautiful quote from Scripture,

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God chastens, or the Lord chastens those he loves.

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God is loving us when he chastens us. Because

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what he's trying to do is draw us back to him.

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Back to him. Because we've forgotten. We've sort

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of lost our way. That's why we need to repent.

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For our sins for sure, but we've turned from

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God. And we need to go back. I was... reading

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a book this week. And in that book, it was about

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the Puritans. And the Puritans that came out

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of eastern England and then came and settled,

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you know, around Massachusetts in New England.

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And a very interesting book. I mean, their theology,

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their dogmatics, their ecclesiology was sort

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of off the wall. But the thing I really, really

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admired about them was that God was very foremost

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in their life. They didn't have a materialistic

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view like we have today. You know, we get a crisis,

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we immediately try to think who are we going

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to blame and sort of that it just happened. It

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just happened. No, for them, every single thing

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that happened in their life was God was behind

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it. If they had a crisis, if they had, you know,

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it was God's judgment. If they had good things

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happen, it was God's grace. If nothing much was

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happening, glory to God, we have peace. God was

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foremost always in their mind. Are we like this?

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Do God foremost remind everything that's happening

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in our life? It's God's providence? I think we

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too easily forget. We too easily forget this.

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So for ourselves, now that we're sort of on the

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edge of Lent, the time of repentance, the time

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of repentance, And when we go and we repent for

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our individual sins, we should also repent for

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the sins of humanity. Why does God visit these

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crises upon us? Trying to get us to turn our

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hearts back to Him. We should be very, not only

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just repentant, but thankful. Thanking God. For

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all things. As we move through Lent. We should

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be. Repenting. Thanking God. Giving glory to

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him. For everything in our life. The crisis.

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The graces. And. The times when not much is happening.

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The times of peace. The words that we should

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keep on our lips all through Lent and beyond

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is this. Glory to God for all things. Glory to

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God for all things. Glory to God for all things.