Video Transcript

Edmund: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Real+True Podcast. I’m your host, Edmund Mitchell.

Emily: I’m your other co-host, Emily Mentock.

Edmund: And in this podcast, we’re gonna be discussing the unit of videos in more detail, dive deeper into the content, and share a bit of the behind the scenes of the mission and vision of Real+True. And in this episode, we’re talking about Unit 12 on death and resurrection. Emily, how are you feeling?

Emily: I’m feeling fine. Getting over a little, I don’t wanna say near death encounter, just a little sickness. Uh, but, uh, definitely some themes of the unit creeping up in my life this past week. And this unit, like you mentioned, is all about death and the resurrection. So why don’t I give an overview of the three videos?

Edmund: That’d be great.

Emily: So the Proclamation video is about “How to die well.” The Explanation video answers the question, you know, “What happens after we die? What do Catholics believe about what happens after we die?” And then the Connection video tackles, “Why do Catholics believe in life everlasting?” So not just what happens right after you die, but for eternity. Um, so go watch these videos if you haven’t.

Edmund: Awesome. And just to remind people, uh, we are in the Catechism. We’re in paragraphs 988 to 1C65, and I like giving people this kind of overview. If you’re just tuning in or maybe you’ve been listening along that we’re in the first of four pillars from the catechism. The first pillar is on the Apostles Creed or the mystery we believe. Um, and so we are walking through the articles of the Creed, right? “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven, and Earth.” And now in this final unit, we’re focusing on, “I believe in the resurrection of the Dead.” And so that’s kind of where we’re at. We’re towards the end. We’re ending out, uh, this entire creed that we believe, um, in the Catechism.

Emily: And this is notable. We’re at the end of pillar one, uh, of the Catechism. So, uh, last podcast we were talking about the one year anniversary of launching Real+ True. And it’s taken us this year to cover the entire pillar one, and it’s really exciting to have this sort of first major milestone for the project complete. And I think it’s really cool to have a complete video library all about the creed and what do we believe and what does the Catechism say in the profession of faith.

Edmund: Yeah, it’s really exciting. It’s really, it’s wild to look back at all these units and, and how far we’ve come and all the things we’ve learned.

Emily: It is so, but gotta end, you know, on the note about death. So what better way to kind of like open up the topic of death and, um, thinking about how it really impacts all of us. I think that for everybody in the world, we’ve thought more about death in the past two years than we probably ever expected to at this point in time in our lives. And, um, so we connected that to another time when death was very prominent throughout the world, throughout civilization, thinking about it because of the Black Plague. So do you wanna talk a little bit about the inspiration for the topic of this video?

Edmund: Yeah, I mean, first of all, just to say, especially people that are listening that want to be sharing the faith, or talking about the faith with other people. We’ve talked a lot about, um, you know, life experiences that everyone has in kind of opening those up for discussion. And I think it was really cool how this unit kind of paralleled with, you know, we were talking about the the Black Plague and we’re also talking about a plague that, or in a context of a, a time that we’ve experienced a plague. I also think about, um, how weird it was to see a death toll on the news and on Google and seeing this to this death toll. Um, so it really, uh, put right in front of us what do we believe about death? It put death right in front of us and really had us kind of confront that. Um, so I think it’s important when we’re talking with our brothers and sisters who might not be Christian or maybe who are Christian, but are exploring, uh, Christianity, it’s interesting that the way we speak about death is really important. It reveals our beliefs about death. Um, and I don’t know if, if you have any experiences of death as a kid or how you, uh, learned about it or dealt with it. I know that for me it was really scary. I remember thinking about death a lot as a kid. We traveled around Europe kind of on pilgrimages, and we would go to these sites of famous saints’ deaths or where they’ve been buried or just shrines for them. So I remember thinking a lot about death and it really being on my, on my mind, even as a little kid. I don’t know about you. Have you had the same experience?

Emily: I didn’t have a lot of experience, I would say with death as a kid. I mean, my grandfather passed away when I was a child, but that wasn’t like unexpected death. But I can say, you know, as a testament to my parents being those informal catechists to hand down their faith, like I never knew about death as a child without knowing about heaven too. I mean, even with like, when we would have like a goldfish die or something, like my childlike faith, my sisters and I believed the goldfish would like go to heaven or something. I don’t think my parents even taught that. It’s just that the assumption that comes with it. So I can say that, um, I didn’t like, you know, praise God, I didn’t encounter a lot of death or unexpected death as a child the way, like I think people, especially in pandemic times would’ve had to think about it now. Um, but I never thought about death without knowing that heaven was a possibility too.

Edmund: Yeah, it’s interesting. I found that there’s, there’s, well, obviously there’s these two options. One, either you’re exposed to death as a kid and your family either talks about it or you’ve experienced it because some relative maybe died or, uh, you’ve kind of avoided it all together. And sometimes there are some messages in the culture of like, let’s just not think about death. Let’s try to avoid death and aging and just not really bring it up. Um, and it’s interesting in light of those two options, sometimes we can just avoid it all together or get preoccupied with it to the point where we’re fearful of it, where it’s like, Oh, we’re, we’re afraid of it. And the Christian message about, around death is we believe in the resurrection of the dead. Um, and that’s a crazy thing that, again, we’re talking about these themes in a post-Christian nation or in a post-Christian, just, just society where, um, we just kind of take for granted that that’s something Christianity believes without really meditating on it and thinking about it. What does it mean that I believe in the resurrection of the death? What does it mean that I believe in the resurrection? ….specifically that word. Um, and so in this video we’re really talking about like, as people during the time of the Black Plague, we’re really wrestling with death, what makes a good death? Which also brings light, what makes a good life. These are all wonderful questions to be asking people as they’re, uh, curious about spirituality or Christianity.

Emily: Yeah, I think you’re right that it’s, it’s one thing to think about death around you from, you know, family members or like illness or terrible things happening in the world, but it’s another thing to think about your own death, which really puts it in a different perspective because it comes with that responsibility. It comes with things that there are things you can control in preparing for the fact that you will die and preparing for the fact that you will rise again. So I think that this video kind of in exploring, okay, during the Black Plague times, what did people do to prepare for a good death? And why was that significant at that time? Why should we think about our own death now? It, like you said, is a great way to kind of open that conversation so that we can be asking that question for our own lives and with the people around us today.

Edmund: Yeah. I think as we’re thinking a little bit about Jesus in light of the resurrection of the dead, the, the two things really to focus on the word death and the word resurrection. But in the word death, I think I’ve come across plenty of people who have thought, “Man Christianity just really lacks a practicality about suffering, about people die, about the, the, the imminent nature of my death. And, and that it seems, what, what’s the point? And it’s scary and all these things.” And we forget that Jesus had to deal with his imminent death. Jesus had to walk through a death sentence. Or, you know, we think of people who get diagnosed with terminal illnesses and how scary that can be. Jesus had this death sentence impending on him. He also had to deal with the death of loved ones. Um, and he dealt with those who were mourning and he himself mourned. And then we also have this idea that Jesus actually, like God himself actually knows what it’s like to die. And these are all really crazy ideas. These are the truths of our faith that God wanted to reveal that he’s with us, and especially when we’re talking to people about death who are curious or exploring to be trying to gently present that truth. Because I think it can be a life changing one.

Emily: Yeah. I think, you know, kind of in like your, a daily practice of your faith, Like there’s even people who don’t have a serious illness or faced with that imminent death like it might be in a few years, um, in the same way, but like when we pray in the Hail Mary, we say “now and at the hour of our death,” and how many times do we just sort of say that line and skip over thinking like, you know, Okay, sure. Now and forever right now and be with me always. But really when you think about it, to be praying that like it is now and at the hour of our death, whether it’s this hour or any minute, to be having that really front of mind, um, I think is a really powerful thing of our faith that sneaks into so many other little daily practices. I’ve noticed even on like, kind of like in Catholic social media world in the past few years, um, people have been talking about “Memento Mori” in a way that I never encountered really growing up. And I think that it shows that, uh, people are not afraid to kind of bring that conversation and to keep that, um, in front of mind, in front of your spiritual practice and in your life, um, as a really important part of practicing our faith.

Edmund: Yeah. Yeah. We talk about in the Catechism as sin as this turning in on oneself, we think about our death. It really helps us see the, the grander or the bigger context for our life that there is something bigger than just our life. And that we kind of have to, we have to make peace with what we believe about that, what we believe about the end of our life. And that really shines light on what we believe about our life today.

Emily: Yeah. And I think that you’re exactly right. That God fit it into his plan to, to grapple with that. You know, death is a consequence of sin, but God has a plan for how to redeem that, that all of us will sort of have the opportunity to, be part of that plan and live it out.

Edmund: This is a particularly beautiful, uh, video. I love this video and I love the topics dealt with and just all the interesting ways that the creative team work together to, to bring it to life. So this one’s definitely, uh, worth watching. They all are, but now it’s time for everyone’s favorite section of the podcast, the standout Catechism paragraph for Yes, today’s episode. Do you wanna go first, Emily?

Emily: You go first. Your is first.

Edmund: All right. So mine, uh, just remind everyone, uh, as we’re reading through this unit and praying through this passage of the Catechism, we’re looking for a paragraph that stands out to us to really reflect on more than just reading it once or, uh, maybe praying with it once to really reflect on it over time. And the one that really stood out to me that I’ve been thinking about a lot is this one paragraph 1018. And it says this, “As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer “bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned.” Uh, and I think I wanted to go on to this next one too, just to, I’m cheating a little bit here, but to provide context for what I was thinking about with this one. I also included 10 19, I’m sorry, Emily, I know that’s cheating. But it says that “Jesus, the Son of God freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death, he has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men.” So you had talked about this earlier, Emily, that death is not part of God’s plan. Death is a consequence of sin. In paragraph 1018, “as a consequence of sin, man must suffer bodily death.” Um, but Jesus freely suffered in this death in complete and free submission to the will of God. I think this is just crazy to me, like whenever I’m really freaking out a little bit about the fact that one day I’m gonna die, like thinking about the fact that Jesus freely, meaning that he could have chosen not to do it. Like he like, like if you think about that way, it’s not, it’s not, I mean it is necessary, but like to think about it in the sense of a person choosing to do this, like he chose to enter into death, to experience death and to free us from death. Um, that’s just a wild, wild, uh, idea. And I think a lot about, I had this little icon that was really small and it had, uh, Jesus who had just been taken down from the cross and Mary holding him. And then above it was this big empty space. And the icon is really odd and striking because normally you don’t see a big empty space in an icon. Jesus and Mary are at the bottom, and there’s this big empty space and just the emptiness of death, just the silence and emptiness of death. But the fact that Jesus actually sat in that, um, gives me, I don’t know, it gives me comfort, but it also inspires me to like to hope and pray that I could experience, um, a death in Christ. Like I can experience death with Christ. Um, so anyways, the, these two things really stand out to me.

Emily: Yeah. And I think that it’s so important for people to let that sink in that death as a consequence of sin. I think that in our modern world, we’ve sort of like naturalized so many things about life where you can say, Oh, it’s just natural. And okay, it’s a natural part of our biology and the way that we like live life here on earth. But death is not a good thing. Death is only made good by the hope of the resurrection. And so I think letting that part sink in, that it’s a consequence of original sin to suffer bodily death. Um, and I think you explained this well also later on in the Connection video, like that it’s not like, it’s not just the natural end of a life. That’s not what death is. And so it’s such an important part to understand foundationally that death, bodily death is a consequence of original sin, puts into perspective, like you said, appreciating so much more that Jesus chose to die, chose that bodily death for us.

Edmund: Yeah. So what was yours, Emily?

Emily: Okay, so mine was 1039, um, and it says, “In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare.” So this is in the section talking about the last judgment, um, and says that “The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life.” Okay. So little, little raw, right? The truth will be laid bare in front of God and the last judgment. But I just, one thing I’ve come to appreciate about the Catechism and working on this project and studying it is the way it presents these truths in this sort of like, elevated, bigger way. So, okay. A truth of our faith is yes, there is a last judgment. We will be judged for the actions and the things that we chose in our life on Earth. And that can be a scary thing. That can be a really hard thing to talk about and to witness our faith and teach to others about our faith. Because it’s an uncomfortable truth at, um, probably for most of us, cuz we’re all sinners. But the way that the Catechism puts it, that it’s in the presence of Christ who is Truth itself, then the truth of our lives will be laid bare. It presents truth, in my opinion, in this, like this, this good way, this lightweight, this like capital T truth as it’s written here way that, you know, you can’t see it necessarily. You could see it, I guess as a scary, dark, bad thing, but actually it’s in revealing the truth of our lives in this like honest relationship with God way. And I just thought that was so powerful. And the Catechism in this paragraph does such a good job of explaining, you know, that uncomfortable reality of the last judgment, um, for our sin ourselves, um, in a way that presents it in the, the most truthful, the most Christlike the light of Christ sort of way. And I appreciated that very much.

Edmund: Yeah. I, I really like this. It’s making me think of, you know, in, in Greek mythology that Gods didn’t really care so much about humans, or sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they, they’re part of their games or whatever. And, and I’ve come across people who think Christianity, you know, God just is at a distance and doesn’t really care. And there’s some type of mathematical equation about our actions that calculates whether we go to heaven or hell. But really the image I’m getting from this is like, like I love that you’re saying there’s a positive dimension to this, and it’s this idea that your whole life, all of the acts, even the acts that you feel like no one appreciates or, or sees like the little sufferings, the little things that you’re doing to try to do what’s right, to try to follow after Christ. Like all of those things are seen by Jesus. Like Jesus will, Jesus does see all those things and they will all be laid bare. And that there’s, um, there’s like great hope. It makes me think of the Beatitudes, right? Like, like those who are mourning will rejoice like that at the end of time, God will see what you’ve been through, we’ll see what you’ve done, and your whole life will be laid bare to him in this relational way. He will see it. And that’s really what we want. Not that, not that it just gets passed over like, you did some good deals, so you’re in heaven. Yeah.

Emily: And it’s not just like a tally mark of like good versus bad or have you done anything bad? But it’s like the whole truth of your relationship, like you said, the things that were in secret, the things that only God would know about your heart and about your life. And I find that just really beautiful and appreciate the way that it’s put here in the Catechism. So if you wanna participate and comment on this video, the, this section was paragraphs 988 to 1065, and we would love to know, uh, what stood out to you from this section of the Catechism.

Edmund: Yeah. Do we have any shoutouts this week?

Emily: I want to give a shout out. Yes. A very special one…

Edmund: I was afraid we didn’t…

Emily:  Uh, no, we do have one. Um, okay. So this is a shout out to a ministry called Anchored_Seas. It is a young adult group and they do small groups and we had a really great conversation with them because we’ve seen them sharing about, um, Real+True content in small groups on their Instagram page. And so we were like, okay, they’re, they are excited to use this. They’re using it with people, like they’re catechizing them through the videos. We wanna know, you know, how’s that going? Um, what do they like about the videos? What can we do better? And so it was really great to just have this conversation with them. The young adult group meets every Friday and one Friday a month is dedicated to Real+True videos as the small group topic. And they watch, um, all the videos and then have a small group discussion. Um, and they said that one thing that was really helpful, especially with the young adults is that the Proclamation video really opens up the discussion instead of going right into the teaching. And so I just wanted to highlight their ministry and the great work that they’re doing. Um, thank them for, uh, the great feedback that they shared with us this week. And, uh, for anyone else who maybe wants to look for an example of how Real+True videos might be used with your catechesis ministry, uh, check out Anchored_Seas.

Edmund: That’s so awesome. It’s so cool to hear that. And it’s so cool to hear the structure of the videos really helping people.

Emily: Definitely.

Edmund: Okay. Should we move on to the Explanation video?

Emily: Yes. I love, actually here, the first bullet point in our notes about the Explanation video is that resurrection is a controversial and crazy idea.

Edmund: Yeah. I love this. This is what I love about the Catechism is when we’re spending time reflecting on it, we realize there’s, that there’s lots of words or ideas or beliefs that we just kind of take for granted and haven’t spent much time with. And, and when you really sit down and think about it, the resurrection of the body is a crazy idea. Like imagine a time where that wasn’t something that was commonly known that Christians believed in this. And then if you walked up to someone and said, Yeah, I really believe that, uh, my grandmother there who’s buried at one, at one point, she’s gonna rise from the dead. Like, you’d be like, What? That’s insane. This is a very insane thing, but it’s so core to Christianity.

Emily: Yeah, yeah. And so core to Christianity into like the, we talk about Jesus being the golden thread throughout all these things in the Catechism. And so how do you connect a belief like heaven and how un purgatory to Jesus? And I think that once you get that deeper understanding of those things connected to also why Jesus came and died for us and what that accomplished for salvation, you just understand it so much better as a real reality of how those things are connected.

Edmund: It’s really important here too that we’re saying we believe in the resurrection of the body. And that’s significant because angels, right? God created angels and they don’t have a body. And God, until Jesus didn’t have a body, God come, comes incarnate into a body. And that’s really, really important. And we believe in the resurrection of our body. We have an embodied heaven that we don’t have an idea of heaven that’s just, just us kind of as missed floating around or just consciousness, but there’s actual physical like, like physical reality, physical creation is good and is going to be redeemed and brought up into a new heaven and a new earth.

Emily: In the flip side of that, which is something I honestly like learned and had clarified for me from our work around this unit, that all people get resurrected bodies. It’s not just the people going to heaven, which was what I had thought incorrectly. The goal is to like get a heavenly body one day, but no, everybody’s getting a new body.

Edmund: Oh! It was not many years ago that I realized I just hadn’t thought of that. And Jesus literally says the just, and the unjust and the just will be given a resurrect body to experience heaven and the unjust will be given a resurrected body to experience hell and punishment. That’s scary, right?

Emily: It makes it scarier. Yeah.

Edmund: Yeah. Way scary cuz it’s not like you’re just, Oh, okay, maybe I’ll be in hell and I’ll be really bad, but I’ll just be a thought. It’s like, no, you’ll have a body that will experience hell. Yeah. And, um, I also think so much we don’t really reflect on this, on the fact of like what is me? What, who am I? And “I” am not just a me trapped in a body, it’s I, me and my body, or my body is me and I and my body. It’s both together. And death is just a separation, a temporary separation of that.

Emily: Right. I think that both the Explanation and then kind of again affirmed in the Connection video, um, emphasizing that like ourselves do not end with death. Yeah. So like people who think that we just kind of go back into the earth, like while our bodies do decay. It’s not the end of ourselves. You continue in being all people, whether they’re going to heaven, hell, or purgatory continue to exist as their souls.

Edmund: Yeah. And that means not just like, Oh, well I don’t know what that will be like, I will exist, but I, I can admit maybe I’ll exist, but I don’t know what that experience will be like. Well, all of your memories in your life is important for your sanctification, for becoming holy. You will have your memories, right? Like you will remember your life. It’s not like you’ll go open to heaven and just be in some weird new transformed state of being. You will remember your life, you’ll remember the people you love. You’ll remember the deeds you’ve done and the deeds you that have gone undone. Like it’s, that’s really wild to think about when we really pause to think about how real our existence will continue to be even after death.

Emily: And I think that other thing that the video makes really clear, and this was a little bit kind of the foundation of this was started in Unit 11 talking about the forgiveness of sins and then continued into this. But that, you know, you know, the goal is for all of us to be in heaven. We’re all made for that. And the only way pretty much to not end up there is to turn away, to turn away from God. And so think about how we have these eternal souls that like we have this opportunity to have spent eternity with God or without. And that’s our choice.

Edmund: Yeah, yeah. You know, know we talk about the difference between eternity and something that’s everlasting. So our existence is not eternal. God is the only one who’s eternal. Right? He’s existed outside of time, but our souls are everlasting. Like they have a beginning, but they don’t have an end. And so once we’re created, it’s everlasting our soul will exist, and then we have to really decide where we’re gonna end up, what that existence will ultimately end in.

Emily: Yes. Thank you. That was an important clarification. And then the video also talks about what do we know about our resurrected bodies from what we know about Jesus’ resurrected body, which is that it wasn’t the same as his earthly body. We don’t just get your earth body back.

Edmund: Yeah. We don’t know exactly. I mean, we can’t know everything about what our resurrected bodies will be like, but we know that Jesus’ body interestingly, still carried the glorified wounds of his crucifixion. Um, he was, he was at times unrecognizable, but at times recognizable, it seemed to defy laws of physics. You know, at some, at one point all the disciples are locked in a room, but then Jesus enters the room, his resurrected body enters the room. So we don’t really know fully what we mean by this. Um, but we know that we believe in it, that we believe that Jesus and the Church gives us this belief in the resurrection of the dead. And we can believe in it because many, many people witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. And it says that Jesus in his resurrected body, he didn’t just appear once, he appeared multiple times to many, many people. And it’s something that, um, is credible and logical to believe in based on the evidence,

Emily: Right. That Jesus’ resurrected body gives us hope for that the things he said are true, that we will also experience resurrection of the body.

Edmund: So do you wanna move on to the Connection video?

Emily: Yes. So the Connection video starts off I think in a really fun way. And it opens up a topic that I think, you know, it’s kind of like we chalk it up to weird Catholic stuff, right? Yeah. It’s like, okay, Catholics love talking about saints bodies and you know, we’ve got the thumb of a saint here, and the tongue here, and this cloak here and Bernadette’s whole body, you know, here. Like, and, and I think it’s easy to pass over as like, oh, it’s that weird Catholic self, but really there’s a reason for that and it’s important. Do you wanna share a little bit about it?

Edmund: Yeah. Throughout the history of humanity, there have been a wide variety of practices when it comes to death and preserving the body or ways of dealing with the body and rituals that reflect what we believe about after death. And it really is kind of odd when you see all of these organs and things from saint’s bodies and, but it, what it, what it boils down to is this resu, this belief in the resurrection of the body. This belief that you are not just a spirit trapped in a body, but that you are both your soul and your body together. And so, yeah, in this video we tried to come at it from that angle, while at first that seems weird, it kind of makes sense actually when you, you think about it like, the body of a person is especially, has dignity. It’s part of their identity. It’s the body that was used to perform acts of service and love. And I think we kind of feel this a little naturally if there’s maybe like wake or something from a funeral, uh, we don’t just go, “Oh, there’s just her body.” Um, it’s special. You know, we, we are not, we should treat both the bodies of those that have died, but also our living bodies. Like this means too that our living bodies have meaning that they aren’t things that we should take for granted and just, oh, it’s just a tool to an ends or to an end. Um, but we should use ’em as if they’re, and in and of themselves, like they have respect and dignity. And that’s something that maybe as you’re reading this passage on the resurrection of the body, we might not think like, Oh, that means I should think a little more about how I treat my body. But that’s definitely connected to our relationship with Jesus.

Emily: Yes. And I think you made a really good clarification in the video that I hope a lot of people come to understand that, um, just as we’re not, you know, only bodies that go back into the earth and become soil with nothing else happening after our death, we’re also not just a soul that we are as people, body and soul and the, the death of that body, like we said as a consequence of sin. But the body is part of who we are. Even though our soul and our body are sort of separated, or maybe you can put it in the right terms… at our deaths.

Edmund: Yeah, that’s exactly it. That our souls are separated from our bodies at death, but then they will be reunited. And also that death is, like you said, we’re touching on the same themes, but death is a consequence of sin. It was not part of the plan. And that also means that, you know, some of us, especially in today’s day and age, like we might have complicated relationships with our bodies, right? We might have parts of our bodies that we don’t like so much, or parts of our bodies that, that we do. And, um, to always think about what is the truth that Jesus came to reveal to us about our bodies, Right? Jesus revealed that there’s dignity in our bodies that through our bodily reality we can experience God’s love. And that means that, yeah, sure there might be parts of our body that aren’t perfect, but it’s through our bodies that we are called to experience, uh, communion with other people, but and also with God. And that’s an interesting thing to reflect on is my body just to elicit the admiration of others. Like, I need to get really buff and jacked or whatever, does that help people get closer to God? Maybe not, right? But when you give someone a hug or when you’re experiencing someone and respecting their bodies, you are in a way coming closer into communion with them and with God, like the dignity of the body is so important, um, that I don’t think we can overstate this. I don’t think we can spend enough time really reflecting on it because it’s so ingrained in our experience.

Emily: Yeah, definitely. And I think that you’re right, it’s not, you know, for people who almost have the other side of it, there’s people who maybe like over idolize their bodies in a way Yeah. That can draw them from God, but also people who feel that they’re just in this earthly life suffering in their bodies and don’t see them as good either. And I think that reflecting on that right relationship and how our bodies are part of that relationship with God, not just our souls, I think is a really important thing. I think for especially, you know, a lot of people in our age, in our generation and how people can change their bodies so much in this time. We don’t just use them for survival and manual labor in the same way as like an ancient times. And so I think that thinking about, okay, how in in my life do I uphold my body with dignity and consider its role in my relationship with God and my spiritual life, um, is a really important thing to think about.

Edmund: Yeah, there’s this concept that we don’t want to be used as objects. So when I, when I use an object, I’m using it as a means to an end. So when I use scissors, I’m using the scissors because they’re an object that I’m using to accomplish some act. And when we violate the dignity of a person, we’re using a person as a means to an end. So if I’m using someone else’s body just as a means to an end, that is a violation of their dignity as a person. But when I treat them as an end in themself, as something that’s worth existing and worth experiencing in and of itself for no other purpose, no other purpose of mine or theirs, that’s really honoring and valuing the dignity of the person, they’re an end in themselves. And that’s really what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the dignity of the body. That we would not use our body or other bodies just as a means to another end, but use them as ends in themselves that they have value intrinsically in them regardless of what, what we want to use them for.

Emily: And that they’re tied to that belief in life everlasting, which really is what the video kind of focuses on. So, uh, this is a great, I learned a lot from that one to be very honest. It’s really good.

Edmund: Yeah. This is great. This was a really, this is a really cool, really cool unit. I really like this one. Do we wanna maybe move on to maybe a look back at, cuz I mean this is the 12th units of 12.

Emily: Well, it’s technically the 13th because of the Eucharistic Revival. Yes, you’re right. It is the 12th for pillar one with that theme unit kind of fit in there, um, timely part of the National Eucharistic Revival in the U.S. Church. But it is pretty amazing to look back on. We’ve learned so much over the past year and been really grateful from all the feedback from our audience, from our amazing creative team. And, um, it’s really honoring to just kind of get through the creed and have this sort of complete collection of videos, um, all about the creed. They’re not made as a curriculum that you have to watch ’em in that order. But I think there’s really something special about having them all together that reflect our faith through this method of creating beautiful and captivating content that we do at Real+True.

Edmund: Yeah. I’m gonna put you on the spot, Emily. I’ll share something, and you can think about this question. But I just had this, I just had this thought. What do you, you wish, if someone were to just sit down, I guess not all at once, but over the course of maybe a week or two, if someone were to sit down and just go through all the units, what do you, what do you hope would be like one thing really resounding in their minds or their hearts, like as they’re watching through all videos? Like, what do you hope these videos have accomplished? And as you’re thinking about that, I’ll just talk again, and I know I’ve talked about this a ton, but the structure of the Catechism itself is a message and it can help break down the faith and make it less intimidating. So we might think, Oh, what does the Catholic Church believe? There’s so much, but the first pillar of four on the Catechism really just lays it out very simply. Now that doesn’t mean it’s not deep, it means it’s simple, right? It’s still deep. But the way it’s laid out, the structure is simple enough for us to understand the structure, right? So we have the creed and it’s broken into 12 articles. And, um, these articles walk through a Trinitarian structure, which is God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So when you really think about what is it that we believe we could say we believe in God, we could say we believe in God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and we could say we believe in God the Father creator of heaven and earth. You see what I’m saying? So right, there’s this Trinitarian structure, so we can see these, these varying layers of it all fitting together where it can be as deep or as simple as we need to understand it. And that’s what’s beautiful about the Catechism. What’s so brilliant about how it’s put together. And it’s not brilliant just because someone came up with it. It’s not that a bunch of priests got together and said, this would be great. It’s, it’s beautiful and brilliant and fits together because it’s true.

Emily: Right. Okay. I’m gonna answer your question. I got caught up on a thought thinking how it’s, it wasn’t just put together by a bunch of people, um, although this month, October is the 30th anniversary of the publishing of the book, that was, you know, like also put together by people, but in a Holy Spirit inspired way, it wasn’t just, you know, thinkers thinking it through and structuring it. It was really a Holy Spirit inspired way, and it’s pretty exciting with that anniversary this month. And how this project was so inspired by that, the 30 years of seeing that the Catechism has so much more in it. So I think that that all leads into my answer to your question, which is that I would hope that people see it as a living voice. How does that happen through the videos? Well, I hope that if someone really were to watch all of them, they would hopefully say like, Wow, I never thought about it that way, or I’ve never heard it presented in that way before, or I’ve learned something totally new that I didn’t know before. And I think that for a lot of Catholics, you know, we were, we were catechized in a particular way when we were young, when we were younger, um, preparing for our sacraments or in Catholic school. And I don’t wanna say that that that is necessarily done poorly. I mean, maybe some people, but I don’t wanna make that assumption, but to be presented the contents of the Catechism and the truths of our faith in a new way to realize, Okay, just because I memorized that paragraph about baptism or confirmation, um, when I was in middle school or in high school, doesn’t mean that that’s the end of it, Right? Like, there is so much more about our faith that you can pray with, that you can go deeper in, that can apply to your life in new ways. It’s, it is that living voice for the modern world that we believe that the Catechism contains the truths of our faith, of the God who desires to reveal himself to us and for us to respond. And the Catechism is such a beautiful gift for that sort of like, hearing God’s voice and finding ways to respond to him. So if someone had to do that, I would hope that that would be their takeaway. Not necessarily from necessarily like any one video, but that overall they get inspired to maybe go back and, and think about their faith in a new way.

Edmund: I love that. I, I think that’s one of the, it’s one of the top missions of the Church right now in the modern day and age is, is to re-present the faith to people who think that they’ve heard it, to people who think they think that they’ve heard of Christianity, think that they’ve heard of Jesus. And, and it’s not for them to really hear it in a new and exciting way and go, “Wow,” I like you said, “I’ve never heard it that way.”

Emily: And that voice, like that voice and that heart like, is, is Jesus, right? Yeah. That they come to realize, okay, this isn’t just the voice of truth of our faith, but like that they, through understanding this living voice and how relevant it can be to their lives come to encounter Jesus and know and grow in deeper relationship with him.

Edmund: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s really two options for life. You can either live life as if it’s meaningless or live life that in a way that you believe it has meaning. And for Christians, like there is meaning, it’s this great romance, it’s this great, everything is filled with meaning. It’s this wonderful, you know, adventure and romance, at the very heart of it is, like you said, this living voice, Jesus Christ, the pulsating heart of the Catechism that we really need to rediscover in that. So it’s been a wild ride this unit or this, this pillar and I’m so excited for pillar two.

Emily: Yeah, I am excited as well. There’ll be some changes to the podcast. So, um, drum roll, exciting announcement. We are gonna be moving to a biweekly podcast. The podcast is still gonna talk about the content that we’re producing on Real+True, but we are not gonna have it so explicitly tied to the unit as we had before. So really excited to present this new format for the podcast to continue engaging our audience, giving them what they need to get excited about this project and get more excited about the Catechism and really just, grateful for all of the chances we’ve had to learn from this first year of working on it and to be able to give all of that back to our audience.

Edmund: Yeah. And you know, the, all of these units weren’t created necessarily as a strict curriculum, but now that all of these units are out, you can really take this whole first pillar and to remind everybody that there are unit guides that come with these videos that can help open up discussions. And you can have this whole library of this first pillar in order to walk people through all the various articles of the Creed. I mean, that’s really exciting, that’s really exciting for me to be able to recommend that to people. Uh, either families or, like we talked about earlier, young adult ministries, youth ministries, churches. It’s really exciting to have kinda this first pillar and I’m excited for us to move on to the next one.

Emily: Absolutely. Well, just as a reminder, we’ve mentioned it several times, um, on this podcast already, but, uh, that we are on a mission to unlock the truth and beauty of the Catechism for the modern world and encounter its pulsating heart, Jesus Christ. We do that by creating videos, stories these beautiful animated videos of this podcast to unpack all of that and really unlock the Catechism for the modern world.

Edmund: Yeah. And please stay tuned for season two of the Real+True Podcast. We thank you so much for being with us, especially throughout this pillar and for joining us on these episodes.