Video Transcript

Emily Mentock: I loved this part of the Catechism because it almost felt to me like a cheat sheet for understanding the Old Testament.

Edmund Mitchell: Hi everyone, and welcome back to The Real and True Podcast. I’m one of your co-hosts, Edmond Mitchell.

Emily Mentock: And I’m your other co-host, Emily Mentock. And on the Real and True Podcast, we’re exploring our mission to unlock the Catechism for the modern world. We want to help equip you to use the Catechism for evangelization and catechesis. So this season, we’ll be exploring part four of the Catechism, the section on Christian prayer. We’ll give you a bit of behind-the-scenes of our work to create the content for this unit, and really be focused on how you can use this section of the Catechism in your classroom for evangelization and catechesis.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah, I’m really excited. So we’ve started in the fourth pillar on prayer, and we had the first unit, which was the last episode. And now we’re in a unit that’s really talking a lot about the Old Testament, the New Testament, Scripture. And the thesis for this unit is that God has gradually revealed His invitation to prayer; His invitation to a covenant relationship, and we enter this covenant relationship through prayer. And Emily, we’ve had a few conversations as we’ve prepped for this content where we’ve talked about like, “Man, this is really making us think a little differently about Scripture and prayer.” And I wonder if maybe we should start with any stories that come to mind related to prayer and Scripture or where prayer and Scripture were combined from our past. Do you want to go first?

Emily Mentock: Yeah, I can go first. One thing that comes to mind of a time where I really have connected with God’s word in my prayer is I remember when I was coming back to my faith and going to Confession; one of the first few times I went to Confession after beginning to practice as a Catholic again. And the priest at the end added a line that is sometimes used—I’ve heard sometimes in the confessional, but not always—not the absolution prayer, that part is sacramental form. So that’s official. But he added on at the end, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.” And then I think I was supposed to respond “His mercy endures forever.” I didn’t know that at the time.

Edmund Mitchell: He just gets silent and then you’re like…that’s happened to me before where there’s a call-response that I didn’t know. He just got silent. And I’m like, “What am I supposed to do?” And then he finished it.

Emily Mentock: I didn’t know, which was fine. He was very understanding because he knew I was coming back to the faith. That’s why we had kinda set up this confession outside of regular Confession time. And he was like, “Oh, do you know what you’re supposed to say?” And he taught me, “Oh, what you say in response was ‘His mercy endures forever.’” And it was one of those moments that we were talking about from the last episode where it cut to my heart. Like those words. Like, “Oh wow, His mercy endures forever.” And I continued to reflect on that and went home and just really realized that that meant God’s love was enduring. His mercy for me was enduring even though I had been away and then coming back, but then continuing to make mistakes because I’m a human and I sin—no matter how hard we try. That mercy that I experienced in the peak of my conversion was always going to be there for the rest of my discipleship. 

And then later on—truly, I think a couple years later—I realized that that actually comes from a Psalm. It’s actually a couple of different Psalms. The main one where that line comes from is from Psalm 136. And now, that taught me “Oh wow, those words that were so beautiful that meant so much to me in that moment; in the practice of the Church that I continue to reflect on for all these years in my heart, that actually comes from a prayer that the Church has had for so long, all the way back to the Psalms.” And that really opened up my mind to understanding how I could build more of my relationship with God through the words of Scripture. These words that meant so much to me have also meant so much to the psalmist and then throughout the history of the Church.

Edmund Mitchell: Man, I love that story because it really highlights the fact that we believe that the word of God is living and effective. It gets between our—as Scripture says—bone and marrow; it actually does something. And it’s interesting as we’re talking about this to remember that we’re not a religion or a people of God that believes that it’s the actual paper or the written words that are sacred. It’s that God said something, and someone wrote it down, and it’s inspired by God; the authors of Scripture. But what’s really cool here is God said something, and so someone repeated what God said to man, and it did something to you. And so Scripture is about prayer. We’ve talked in the last episode prayer is the relationship with God. So Scripture is about prayer. One story that comes to mind for me is years and years ago—and I still remember this— there was a point where I was getting really down on myself.

I think maybe it was a friendship or something that was really difficult. And I was just really down on myself. And it was like this friendship and maybe schoolwork and things all happening at the same time. And I was driving and I was alone and I was just talking to God and I was like, “Man, I really suck here. And I’m trying my best. This is really hard and I wish this wasn’t this way. I wish I wasn’t this way.” And man, I’m getting emotional right now remembering it. So I was just like, “Man, I wish I wasn’t this way and didn’t struggle with these things.” And the line, “You are my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased” popped into my head for some weird reason. And I knew that it wasn’t just a random thing that popped in my head because it hit me really hard and almost kind of disturbed me.

And I had to think through it and go, “Well, God said that about Jesus, but I’m baptized into Jesus’ life and God looks at me as Jesus.” So it’s not that He wants me to stay less than; it’s not that He doesn’t want me to get better at things. But He is like, “Hey, I created you. I know you struggle with these things and you’re still loved.” And so detaching the love that God has from me from the performance and saying, “I’m going to do my best. The fact that I have these weaknesses doesn’t make me unlovable.” And it just stuck with me for the rest of my life; that line just popped into my head.

Emily Mentock: Yeah. I think it’s so interesting that you said that you heard God’s voice in your heart that really struck you in that moment. Because I think that people who maybe struggle with a prayer life or struggle to understand how to really engage the spiritual life throughout their daily lives is because they say they struggle to know God’s voice. Actually, I think there was a survey done recently on Gen Z that talked about where do they hear God’s voice? And there was a surprising result in there that I noticed because of its relevance to our work about how they encounter God’s voice online, but people are searching for God’s voice. Or maybe if you are a little bit more into your years and struggle with that, you might give up and say, “Well, I don’t know God’s voice.”

And I think that something that stands out to me about both what you heard and then also for me this line from the Psalms that means so much to me, is that I have confidence in God’s voice and how God is speaking to me. Or how you have confidence in how God spoke to you in that moment through that line. And so people who are struggling to hear God’s voice, a really great place to start or really a necessary place to engage, to understand, and recognize God’s voice is by reading Scripture or hearing Scripture. A lot of us hear Scripture at Mass. I guess probably all of us hear Scripture read out loud at Mass on Sunday, but how much are we always listening to that? And are you hearing God’s voice and taking that home with you to continue on in your relationship with Him in your prayer life?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah, that’s a good point as we’re thinking about this. The question maybe a catechist or a minister or evangelist or even a parent or a volunteer who’s listening to this is “Okay, why does Scripture matter when we’re teaching prayer?” And there’s the obvious answer of “Well, we should be doing some prayerful things with Scripture.” And I love that you’re saying the answer to that question is to be familiar with God’s voice. It’s important to know historical facts from Scripture in the Old Testament and New Testament. And it’s important to sit down in prayer and read Scripture or to say Scripture prayerfully. But really, we’re becoming familiar with God’s voice. And there’d be plenty of times in ministry where I’d be in front of either high schoolers or adults and say, “Raise your hand if you would love to hear God’s voice and you feel like you don’t.”

And everyone raised their hand. And then I would ask, “If I put out a bunch of sentences; single sentences, and some were Kanye lyrics or Taylor Swift lyrics, and some were from written by someone you know really, really well; your best friend, and some were God’s word, would you be able to pick them out and know who wrote them without seeing the author written next to it? And which ones would you be the most confident you could pick out?” And that’s really what we’re doing. We listen so much to music it’s like, “Oh, this sounds like a Kanye lyric.” Reading Scripture is more about “I’m becoming familiar with God’s voice.” And that’s why we can go to our next part of this episode here. That’s why the Catechism starts this opening area of prayer, talking about how it’s revealed in the Old and New Testament.

Emily Mentock: Yes. I loved this part of the Catechism because I feel it presented to me a different way that I hadn’t heard before for understanding the relationship between God’s people and God in the Old Testament. It almost felt to me like a cheat sheet for understanding the Old Testament and understanding “What is God’s relationship to His people? How did God choose to reveal Himself to His people? What was the nature of that relationship?” We talked about how the thesis of this section—and the Catechism makes really clear— that God gradually over time is revealing Himself to His people. But this way that the Catechism broke it down, to me was so helpful and brought so much clarity for how to understand it.

Edmund Mitchell: So it’s really important for us as evangelists and catechists to actually be informed in how we catechize or evangelize others; to be informed by how God revealed Himself. And so this is really important. It seems like a little thing to say “God gradually revealed Himself.” Throughout the Old Testament, God slowly and gradually reveals different aspects of the relationship. And the Church tells us that this is really important in the way we catechize or evangelize or disciple other people. It’s not just all at once, it is a slow and gradual process. The same is true in catechesis, even in one one-hour lesson. It should be a slow, gradual process throughout this lesson of revealing what it is we’re explaining. So I love this. What I would love for you to go through, Emily—we could both go through together real quickly—but we’re kind of understanding how God slowly revealed certain aspects of the relationship, and we get the fullness in Jesus.

And what God is saying and wants to invite us to—and what the Scriptures and Catechism is presenting to us—is this is God’s story. So when you sit down to pray, you’re invited to make this long story of prayer your own story. And I feel like that’s a really cool concept to present to people in prayer. Instead of just saying “You should just kneel down every night and say this prayer,” it’s like, “Hey, you’re part of this long story of prayer of God revealing His relationship, and you get to make that your own story.”

Emily Mentock: I think what the Catechism does so well and so effectively in these upcoming paragraphs that we’re going to go through, is break down the pieces of that story that then we can make our own. So for me, it’s like “I’ve heard that before that it’s our story; it’s the living word. We can relate to God in Scripture today just as inspired as people who are living those stories.” But, I didn’t have the map for how to understand those very well. And I feel like that is what this part of the Catechism provides. So it starts with this beautiful line that I just love where it explains that—the Catechism says in paragraph 2569—Prayer is lived in the first place beginning with the realities of creation.” For me, that was just a great affirmation to think, “Okay, when we experience God in creation, that’s not the same thing as experiencing Jesus face-to-face in Adoration.” But it is a beginning of that reality. It is an essential part of the foundation of that relationship. And that made it very clear that the relationship of prayer begins there.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah, I love that. And I didn’t read this earlier, but there’s this part in 2568 where it says, “In the Old Testament, the revelation of prayer comes between the fall and the restoration of man.” And so we have creation, Adam and Eve. And then shortly after Adam and Eve are created, we have the fall. And then what comes after that is Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, the Psalms, and then we have Jesus and the age of the Church. So we’ll jump through these briefly just to highlight some things that stuck out to us. 

But the next one after Creation, Adam and Eve, and the fall, is the Catechism highlights the faith of Abraham and the faithfulness of Abraham. And so again, when we’re going to pray and want to be inspired to more faithfulness, we can turn to Abraham. Or when we see Jesus’s faithfulness, it’s this lineage; this tradition. All the Jews at Jesus’ time or the Israelites in the Old Testament would’ve thought back to Abraham as this man of God and his faithfulness. And I think that’s a really cool way to look at that in terms of prayer.

Emily Mentock: Yes. And that invitation by God to Abraham and Jacob of faith; to believe and to trust in what God has promised. And so I think for those of us—if you’re in a place where you might be struggling with your own faith or having doubts or feel your faith is being tested—to know, then, this is where to me it felt like a map or a cheat code to go back and engage with Scripture in a helpful way. The story of Abraham is a place where I can understand God’s invitation to trust in His faithfulness.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. So we next have Moses and David. So Moses as this great intercessor, which is interesting because I would’ve thought “Moses, the miracle worker.” Actually this is a great teaching moment. Moses working miracles, in a way, he is praying for God to do something on behalf of the Israelites. And I never thought of it that way, but that’s really Moses’ example of prayer is that he intercedes for the Israelites. He speaks to God on behalf of the Israelites and asks for God to intervene. And I would love for you to talk about this, because you said this to me that David and what the Catechism highlights is really cool about the people of God and David’s prayerfulness and the presence of God to his people during prayer.

Emily Mentock: Yeah. So this is where I really feel the inspired writing of the Catechism shines through in this paragraph about the time of prayer with David. In paragraph 2594 it says: “The prayer of the People of God flourished in the shadow of the dwelling place of God’s presence on earth, the arc of the covenant and the Temple, under the guidance of their shepherds, especially King David.” 

And the idea of connecting the flourishing of God’s people with dwelling in His presence was like, “Oh my gosh, this makes sense to me. How do I live that reality now?” Well, the same way that my prayer flourishes in a space like Adoration, or when I go to Mass, or when I am praying communally with people in a holy place like in church or at a holy hour. And so to me, this again just helps me understand the prayer of King David and the people during the time of King David with the presence of the arc of the covenant in their midst; connecting that flourishing to that presence. And so how can I flourish in my relationship with God by seeking out that presence where it’s available to us—after Jesus—in our modern time?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. I hope people are picking up on this if they’ve been listening to the podcast a little bit. The Catechism makes you brilliant.

Emily Mentock: Yeah

Edmund Mitchell: “Okay, I have to teach on prayer, or I have to teach on how to reassure; teach on these things,” you can go to the Catechism and then be drawing these connections to like, “What do the people in the Old Testament teach us about prayer?” Well, David and the kingdom of God around David’s time teach us about sitting in the dwelling of God; in the presence of God and praying. And that’s amazing. To go to this big book and to be able to have these sources to draw from that. Maybe you hadn’t thought of that when we’re talking about praying in God’s presence, there’s so many connections that you can start drawing when you read this one paragraph. Like, “Wow, that’s really true. That is a model of adoration.” And you might not have thought to teach Adoration in light of King David. I wouldn’t have thought before reading this of doing that.

Emily Mentock: Yeah, absolutely. And then the next section goes on to talk about the prophets and how the prophets—this is paragraph 2595—“The prophets summoned the people to conversion of heart.” And again, we all know some of the prophets. We know Elijah. Even the people who only hear Scripture in Sunday Mass know of the prophets Jeremiah and all these people. But to sum up their prayer and what they did for the people of God, and what they did on behalf of God was call the people to conversion of heart. If you’re struggling with something in your life; you know you need to turn back to God, but you’re struggling to do it. You need inspiration. You need to hear God’s voice calling you back to turn to Him. Go and read in the Bible the words of the prophets because that will call you to conversion of heart.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. At each of these moments, it’s like the catechism is saying, “What does this part of the Old Testament tell us about what the encounter of prayer is?” And basically the prophets, their encounter of prayer with God was that God called them to change and then they went and told other people, “Be in this relationship where you change. And we get the fullness of that in Jesus.” But it’s really cool to think of it that way. Like, what were the prophets’ experience of prayer? Abraham’s experience of prayer was like “God’s calling me to be faithful.” The prophets—very clearly, all of them—their experience of prayer was God asked them to do something very different and wild, or to have conversion of heart away from sin. And that’s a cool way to think about prayer in light of these different people. Should we move on to our favorite? I feel like our favorite right now is the Psalms.

Emily Mentock: We love the Psalms. We did a whole video on the Psalms.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. So Pope Benedict called it “The School of Prayer.” I don’t know how you felt, but most of my life, I just thought “These are just the book of the Bible that the Church uses. And it’s this book of many, many chapters that they just insert into songs or insert into prayers.” But I didn’t think of it as much deeper than that for most of my life. I don’t know about you.

Emily Mentock: Yeah. I associate the Psalms with singing and creatively because that’s what our experience was at Mass. Or you hear it in worship songs and things like that. But I did not fully understand the depth of the Psalms until encountering this part of the Catechism and really reexamining them as these very, all- encompassing for the five types of prayer, which we’ll get to in a moment. Songs that are meant to be both personal and communal. The Psalms are what the Church prays together, and the Psalms are really a great place to turn to understand God’s voice and to adopt the words of relationship with God.

Because the Catechism makes really clear in paragraph 2596 it says: “The Psalms extend to all dimensions of history, both recalling God’s promises already fulfilled and looking for the coming of the Messiah.” So the Psalms—even in the time in which they were written—were already looking back and looking ahead. So they’re a great place that we can go to to find the words of prayer at any moment in our lives.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And so this brings us to the culmination of all of this, which is Jesus. All of these figures throughout the Old Testament really teach us something about what the relationship of prayer looks like. And with the faithfulness of Abraham, the intercession of Moses, praying in the presence of God and David, the conversion of heart and prayer with the prophets, we have the School of Prayer where all the emotions and the struggles and the dynamics and dialogue back and forth, we’re hearing in the Psalms. And it all really finds its fulfillment in Jesus who encapsulates all of this. 

And so it’s kind of like—or it is actually like. It’s not kind of like—God is slowly setting us up to understand Jesus. Because in Jesus is the first time that we hear how God would speak to Himself. Because up to that point, we’ve never exactly heard how God would pray to Himself. If someone in the Old Testament said, “Yes, God, I love you and I want to be in a relationship with you. How do you want me to speak to you?” There are some things that they could turn to, but Jesus gives us this perfect image of what it sounds like to talk to God and be in relationship with Him.

Emily Mentock: Yes. Jesus has the perfect relationship; the being in union with God; He is God in the persons of the Trinity. And so He models that relationship—prayer—for us. But then He does something even more. Not only does He teach us to pray with very specific words, but He also says that we can pray and address God through Jesus’s name. So adding on to our prayer, not only how Jesus would’ve called on to His Father, but then to say that in the name of Jesus—His son in whom He is well pleased—we can also call upon God through Jesus.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And it’s as if Jesus was realizing it’s going to be a lot of pressure. Like, “I’m showing you exactly how to speak to my Father, and so do your best to imitate me.” I know I would feel a lot of pressure, like “How am I going to do this?” But that’s why the Son and the Father send the Holy Spirit and they say, “Hey, look. There’s no way you’re going to perfectly imitate me. I’m going to send my Holy Spirit and I’m going to help you pray to the Father.” This is why we pray in the Holy Spirit to the Father.

Emily Mentock: To the Father.

Edmund Mitchell: To the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. And so we don’t have to feel like, “Okay, I have to be perfect.” We should try to imitate Jesus as perfectly as we can, but it shouldn’t be this stressful thing. The Holy Spirit is going to make up for our weaknesses and our lack. And we can ask God for help. “Help Me speak to You; help me have the courage or the words to speak to You.” And that’s that dynamic in the age of the Church the Catechism explains. We’re in the age of the Holy Spirit. 

After Jesus’s Resurrection, he sends the Holy Spirit. And the Catechism says “The Holy Spirit who teaches the Church and recalls to her all that Jesus said, also instructs her in the life of prayer, inspiring new expressions of the same basic forms of prayer.” And then it lists the five ways. And that’s in paragraph 2644. So the Catechism is reminding us the Holy Spirit’s here now. We’re in the age of the Church. And the Holy Spirit’s going to help us and teach us in prayer to have this relationship of Abraham and David and Jesus.

Emily Mentock: One thing that’s coming to mind when you were recalling “To the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.” That’s how we begin every prayer as Catholics.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And I was just thinking how sometimes you might get caught up being like, “I’m not going to have the right words to say.” Or if you’re in charge of leading prayer, whether it’s before something you’re teaching or just with your family, or with a friend; we prayed before this podcast. Maybe you’re like, “I don’t know what I’m going to say.” But actually, the most important part of that prayer is that you’re addressing your prayer to God through the Son in the Holy Spirit. When you offer your words and your heart up to God with those three things, and you begin your prayer that way, that’s already a good prayer. Just because you’re addressing it the right way.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. I feel like reminding people of this all the time, or talking about this all the time. Because when I learned this, it blew my mind. But if you go to Mass and listen closely, none of the prayers are directed to Jesus. Which at first you might be like, “Wait, what’s going on?” And it’s so good to pray to Jesus, but you can’t pray to Jesus without praying to the Holy Spirit and the Father. But in the Mass, all the prayers are directed to the Father. It doesn’t mean we’re neglecting the Holy Spirit or Jesus, but in the Mass we have that perfect alignment. We are praying to the Father through Jesus. It’s Jesus’s words that we’re praying in the Holy Spirit. And that’s something that once you realize, it’s just a really cool dynamic to help you think of the Trinity. It’s all done Trinitarian in this perfect prayer of the liturgy,

Emily Mentock: And thank God for the Holy Spirit who guides the Church. Everywhere you are inviting the Holy Spirit into and guiding all of the Church in all these different expressions of prayer, but in the same basic form. So the blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise, those are the same five basic forms of prayer that have existed through all prayer. But the Holy Spirit animates all these—infinite, almost—expressions of prayer that we as the Church can create and express.

Edmund Mitchell: I think the practical takeaway of this is to learn the story of salvation—or to at least when you’re teaching prayer—go back to the Catechism and just pull out one or two quotes and just write “Creation and Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, David, Prophets, Psalms, Jesus,” and then “the age of the Church.” And next to it you could write “What’s that one word that stands out?” And it doesn’t have to be a very long presentation. But just saying, “We’re about to learn about prayer. And I want to remind you of this story that Adam and Eve and creation is a part of prayer. Abraham is this figure of faith.” We won’t go through all of it, but you could just do that really quickly. And that allows in catechesis or evangelization or even just conversations to remind us of the great story that we’re invited to be a part of.

Emily Mentock: Yeah. I think understanding the story of salvation, we’ve talked about how important that is. It’s like the golden thread to animate all of your evangelization and catechesis that you’re doing to help bring relevance, help connect things, understand why they’re important, why does the Church teach these things? If you’re struggling to feel confident in mastery of every detail of the story of salvation, starting with how the Catechism presents understanding the Old Testament, the Psalms, Jesus, and then the Holy Spirit and the age of the Church is a great place to start. 

Another practical tip that I would really invite people to do is to think about how you incorporate all five different forms of prayer into your evangelization and catechesis or your own prayer life. People have a variety of prayer experiences. Some people—because of their family of origin, how they learn to pray, or from other aspects of their life—might be more inclined to prayers of intercession or petition. Other people might be more inclined to prayers of thanksgiving or praise. And so, making sure that as you’re inviting people to understand prayer as relationship—and for yourself—that you are exploring all five of those forms of prayer and intentionally incorporating them into your own life and into the experience that you’re giving those that you might be catechizing.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah, that’s great. That’s really good advice. I think a few other practical takeaways for this is related to the Scripture and the Catechism. The Catechism of the Council of Trent was really good. But one of the differences between the Catechism of Council of Trent and this new Catechism is it is soaked in Scripture. So at the bottom of the pages, you’ll find these footnotes and these citations, and a large percentage of the Catechism is referenced with Scripture.

Emily Mentock: Yeah.

Edmund Mitchell: But also a lot of people don’t know about the index of citations in the back. And then in the index, you can see the citations organized by the source. So for instance, you have Genesis 1:1, and every Catechism verse that is citing that verse from Scripture. Genesis 1:2, Genesis 1:3; it goes through the whole Bible.

Edmund Mitchell: So if you had something where you’re teaching on the Eucharist and you’re using John 6, you can turn to the index of citations and look up John 6 and see where else in the four pillars the Church is using that chapter from the Bible to explain the faith. One other thing that is related to that is to just become more comfortable speaking Scripture out loud to people or in teaching or evangelistic contexts. And some good advice that I was given and that I’ve heard over and over again is to not be so—what’s the word I’m looking for?—concerned about making sure you get the chapter and verse right.

Emily Mentock: Do you think that Catholics need to have the Bible memorized?

Edmund Mitchell: I mean, it would be nice. But I think in my experience when I was younger, I got really into apologetics, defending the faith; knowing Scripture because my Protestant friends knew Scripture and could cite it all the time. So I felt like I had to be like that. As long as you know Scripture—I’m not saying don’t try to do that—but don’t be worried about it because what really matters is not impressing people with the knowledge that you have. What really matters is showing that testimony of Christian living; showing your witness and speaking God’s word to His people. So don’t get so concerned about memorizing all these things that it doesn’t get internalized and just become part of the way that you speak. Like Emily, I’m sure with you, what was the thing the priest said to you during Confession?

Emily Mentock: “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His mercy endures forever.”

Edmund Mitchell: And if someone says “God is good” or “He is good,” or you’re up there speaking about God being good, that is something that’s been internalized and changed you. And you might not say it in the perfect, exact way, but you’re trying to convey God’s word. And that’s really powerful in catechesis and evangelization.

Emily Mentock: I agree. It can be so powerful because it is divine word. The translations that we have to work with for the Bibles, they’re from the USCCB. People put a lot of effort into making sure like the exact—not the exact—but the right meaning comes through those. So maybe I wouldn’t naturally in my 2024 language say “endures forever.” That’s not something I say for any other context except when speaking about God. But, there is something so special about the word “endure.” I was recently rewatching Lord of the Rings, and it was describing the Shire in the beginning of one of the movies. And it talks about how the Shire is a place that was made to endure.

And I immediately thought of that line from Psalm 136 about enduring and can make that connection. It meant something more. So the language of Scripture, it is meaningful. It is powerful. Saying “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.” I might not break out into song saying that when my friend tells me that she’s having a baby, but I can say “Oh, praise God. Thank you God for these things.” Or “God is good. God is so good when good things happen in my life.” Or talking about the enduring mercy of God to a friend who might be struggling with her faith, that language is so important. And like you said, the more we become comfortable speaking the words of truth; God’s voice that we hear in Scripture, even more effective is going to be our evangelization and catechesis of others speaking that truth.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And all the great catechists and evangelists model this even, especially if you look at the early Church Fathers. So St. Augustine has a document where he was asked, “How do I catechize people?” It was basically for OCIA. He was asked “How do you catechize these people?” And in there he gives an example word-for-word of how he would do a lesson. And you see that he uses what you might call “Scripture speak,”  where in some context it might be important for you to open up Scripture and read it word-for-word because you need them to be meditating or, or reflecting on it. But there are other contexts where—for example, St. Augustine—It just comes out of him. 

And I tried to give a good example of this earlier in the podcast—you can back up—but we’re talking about the word of God. And for me, the word of God being living and effective and a double-edged sword that kind of pierces in and gets in behind your heart and your bone and marrow, that’s from Scripture. But you don’t have to make it a thing. You’re just like, “This is true. I know this is true because God said it.” And that can be really powerful for people.

Emily Mentock: That just reminded me too of something I learned earlier this year. I was doing a challenge through Lent to learn more about the Mass and the “why” behind so many of the actions and the words of the people or the priest at Mass. And recalling our response to the readings at Mass being “Thanks be to God.” Being thankful. We’ve just heard the words of the Lord read out loud. The reader says “The word of the Lord.” And then we say, “Thanks be to God.” And to again, be thinking that to be able to even hear the words of Scripture is such a gift; that living voice that we get to encounter. And so to respond in that moment being thankful for hearing it or praising after the Gospel and to think of all these other ways that we can bring Scripture; bring the good news of the Gospel to people and how we speak, whether or not we’re quoting the letters of St. James, like the way Ryan O’Hara did in our podcast last season.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: So impressive. But to bring that into our speak is so important.

Edmund Mitchell: Well, this is a great episode. This is like filled with practical tips. It’s filled with some bookmarks for this section of the Catechism. I really encourage people to go pick up their Bible, pick up their Catechism; get this little cheat sheet that gives you places to jump into. And there’s tons of practical stuff here. Emily, do you feel like we should wrap this up?

Emily Mentock: Yes. And if you guys do any of these practical tips and find them to be helpful to you or not, we would love to hear about it. If you’re going to open up your Bible again or turn to a certain page because of this cheat sheet from the Catechism where you’re going to try to bring more Scripture talk into your classroom for catechesis this semester, definitely let us know. We would love to hear your feedback.

Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Real True Podcast. This podcast is part of Real + True, a project on a mission to unlock the beauty and truth of the Catechism for the modern world. You can find more episodes like this at realtrue.org or subscribe on any podcast platform. We will see you next time. Thank you so much.

Edmund Mitchell: Bye!