Jack Beers:
“You talk about humanity has an incredible power. I think one of the things I started to realize after reading the book is I treated myself as if I, for the most part, was neutral on the world, that I was, for the most part, not really having a positive impact or a negative impact, but wasn't really having any at all.
Positive impact or a negative impact, but wasn't really having any at all. I read this and it's like, well, I could have an unholy moment, I could have a holy moment. And it's clear that if you have an unholy moment that it's not that great. But if I choose not to do the thing God's calling me to and not using my power for good, that is almost worse. And you talk about what if someone had an incredible power and didn't use it for good. And that question has just been really sinking in. And I think when you talk about the problems that are billowing out in society, it's not necessarily the people just going out and doing evil, it's the people who are deciding not to do good. How does that sit with you?”
Matthew Kelly:
“I think there's a few things there. One, you start using words like empowering and I have power or I am a powerful entity being. I think it's important to point out that there are a lot of people very uncomfortable with that language. I think that I have been broadly criticized for empowering people and helping them to recognize that they do have this power. And I think that comes from a very distorted view of Christianity. God wants to empower us. If Jesus didn't want to empower us, he would've stayed. His ascension is an empowerment of humanity. It is saying, okay, I'm going to send the spirit, he's going to fill you with this incredible power. You don't need to be confused about where it came from, it came from me. Okay. You didn't do it on your own, but go out into the world with that power, go out into world empowered, recognizing that I have placed this power in you and use that power as a tremendous force of good.
I think it's very important to call that out and to recognize that is a very valid and critical aspect of Christianity. Otherwise, we can say, well, God doesn't want us to be empowered. It's God that does it. Okay. I'm not confused about that, but he does it through you. He wants to do it through you. He loves collaboration. Could have clicked his fingers and Jesus show up as a 33 year old male, ready to die on the cross. He didn't. He put his son in a womb of a woman in the most significant collaboration between God and humanity in history of the world. And if you read the scriptures, I think through that lens of collaboration between God and humanity, it's a beautiful theme. And one that should come into our lives and into our moments. And what we're essentially saying, what is holy moment? It is a collaboration between God and man.
Am I encouraging people to go out and create holy moments? Yes. Can they do it without God? No, but God's piece of it is guaranteed. Grace is never lacking. It's always our response or our resistance, that is the X factor in the equation that makes it happen or doesn't make it happen. So I think it's very, very critically important that we understand that Christianity by its very nature is empowering, that the holy spirit does fill us with an incredible power and that we can go out into that world and use that power or not. And that really is the heart of your question.
And I talk about it in the book. I said, if someone had an incredible gift and they used it to do evil in the world, well, we all recognize that's problematic and that's a betrayal of self and a betrayal of God and not good. But if someone has an incredible gift and they just don't use it for good, that also is a tragedy. And most of us participate in that tragedy. And we justify that tragedy by saying, yeah, but I'm not doing evil. These other people are doing real evil, I'm not doing evil. Yeah. Okay. But you've got this incredible gift. It's like having a storehouse full of food and your door neighbor is starving to death and you say, yeah, but I didn't do anything evil. Well, it all depends on maybe how you define that.”
Matthew Kelly
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