Censoring the Word of God

[00:00:16] Since 1970, certain controversial passages of the Bible have been removed or made optional in catholic liturgical settings. Why was this done and what has been the impact we're going to talk about today on crisis point. Hello, I'm Eric Simmons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, I just want to encourage people. Smash that, like, button. Destroy it like some church officials seem to want to destroy certain passages from the Bible. Go ahead and subscribe to us as well. Let other people know about what we're doing here. Also, you can follow us on social media at crisismag or go to crisismagazine.com putting your email address, and we'll send you our articles every day. We'll send two articles a day to your inbox. Okay, so let's get started. So I noticed yesterday, when I logged into x, I noticed that a number of Catholics were talking about the, one of the scripture passages being read the day before at Sunday Mass. Now, I went to the traditional mass, so I didn't have the same reading. So I didn't know exactly they were talking about first. But it was a 21st Sunday in ordinary time, and apparently St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter five, was on the docket to be read. Now, as sometimes happens with the scripture readings, there's a short form and a long form. [00:01:34] Sometimes it's done just simply to make it go, not have so long of a scripture reading. [00:01:41] To be honest, I think even that reason is not a good one, because there just seems to be so much of a desire to get it over with. I mean, that's one of the factors, frankly. And a lot of the reforms made to the mass in the 1960s and seventies was simply to shorten it. You see this in all the liturgical settings, all the sacraments, the liturgy, the hours or divine office. What you see is things just got shorter. And it was, and this was done consciously. And there's other factors involved as well. [00:02:16] But one of the reasons why they give the short form and long form is to allow pastors to say, hey, let's do the short form today, because, I don't know, we have to wrap it up. People have to get to their soccer games or something of that nature. [00:02:30] But there's other, there's another reason, which I think is far worse, that they have a short form and a long form available. Notice this is only on really, the novus ordo mass. We're not talking about the ordinariate. We're not talking about the eastern divine liturgies. We're not talking about the traditional mass in general. Those just have a reading. You just have to do it. [00:02:52] But what they did was they made a short form and a long form, and the short form cuts out controversial parts. And that's exactly what happened on Sunday. So here, I'm going to pull up the short form first here. [00:03:05] And so it's Ephesians five, and in the short form, it's Ephesians five, verse two, and then jump to 25 through 32. And verse two is not actually in the long form. So it's kind of weird how he did it, says, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Then it immediately says, husband, love your husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. And then goes on. It's kind of a weird reading if you think about it, because the first verse doesn't really flow into the next one because his walk in love, Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. This is clearly talking about, like, all of our duties, everybody, what we need to do, and then just jump straight into husbands, love your wives. I realize when you take a certain section of scripture, it might not always get the full context, but this just seems to be weird that they even added to verse two. But again, it's kind of weird. It just jumps in the husbands. Well, look at the long form. [00:04:13] The long form is ephesians 521 through 32. So it does not have verse two. [00:04:20] And it has verses 25 through 32, like the other, like the short form, but it cut. But it adds verse 21, 22, 23, and 24. Well, what do those verses say? [00:04:31] Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Okay, that obviously shouldn't be controversial, but for some reason, they cut it out. [00:04:39] Here we get to the controversial part. Wives, love your. I'm sorry. Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife. As Christ is ahead of the church, his body and is himself its savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Then it continues with the husband. Love your wife. Husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So we see, obviously, we know what was cut off, the part about wives being subject to their husbands, and we know why that was cut out. We know why that's optional, because it's controversial in today's modern world, the ideas of wives being subject to their husbands. Another translation would be submissive to their husbands. That is something that, frankly, let's be honest, is radioactive. Radioactive in your typical catholic parish? Let's not pretend that everybody attending mass at a catholic parish is just going to be like, oh, yeah, okay, that's fine. I'm down with that. No, the fact is, if you read those words out loud at a catholic parish, you're going to get glares. In fact, this morning at Crisis magazine, we had an article by a young man who actually is a reader at his parish. He read the long form and he did get glares, including from his own pastor. I recommend you read that. Just go crisismagazine.com and check that out. It's called mansplaining ephesians. I like the title. I didn't actually, a lot of times I give the title articles, but that was one that the author came out with, which I thought was very good by Michael Hoffmande. [00:06:15] But the point is, we know it's radioactive. And so what's happened is church authority said, you don't have to read that part. You can just skip that. [00:06:25] And this is something, by the way, these changes, this ability to change the readings and remove things is something that is due to the reforms at your Vatican II. Another very famous passage is just removed. It's never even an option. Is the passage where it talks about St. Paul in the first letter to corinthians. He's talking about if you take communion unworthily, you bring down condemnation on yourself. That's not ever read anymore. [00:06:56] On, on Sundays at least, I'm 100% now. I'm thinking about, I don't think it's read during daily mass either. But I know it's not read during Sundays anymore. And it is in the oldena, the old calendar, the old cycle of reading. So that just was removed. [00:07:10] And here's the thing. This is something that happened across the board in the reforms after Vatican II. Now note to be clear, Vatican II itself never once called for any of that. It didn't say take out controversial passages, take out passages that might be psychologically harmful or whatever. Never mentioned that whatsoever. This is something that happened in the wake of, in which basically what happened, certain people took advantage of the time of, let's change everything to say, okay, let's slip in some changes that aren't so good. I mean, that's why you don't go around changing everything in the church in some radical way, because that's exactly what can happen. Now, here's the thing. I would argue that these, what I've brought up so far, these scripture readings, aren't even the worst. I don't think of the changes. I mean, they're bad, but I personally think the worst changes made when it comes to the scripture readings is what happened to the divine office, which was now called the liturgy, the hours in which certain psalms have been eliminated completely and others have been edited out. [00:08:23] Now, just a real quick history lesson here. The divine office liturgy hours is basically, it's the prayers that monks, religious sisters, priests, they say a certain number of times a day. [00:08:38] And it goes back to all the way in the early church. It goes back, frankly, to jewish, pre christian jewish times. The reciting of the psalms has been. Something has been said for millennial now. And in the early church, what happened was the monks really, they began to really take this on. This is after the third, 4th century when the monks started to live together. They would say the psalms, all 150 of them, from memory, every day. [00:09:07] So he literally would just say the psalms continually, and they had them memorized, first of all. Just isn't that amazing that they could do that? I mean, that's what the human brain is actually capable. [00:09:17] Capable of. My brain isn't even capable of speaking right now. That's what the human brain is capable of doing, like literally memorizing all the psalms. Okay, I have to bring this up as well. Anthony Esselin, whom probably most of you have heard of, he's one of the great writers of our day, and he writes for Crisis magazine. We're very privileged. He mentioned recently that he's memorizing paradise lost. He's memorizing it, and not too long ago he said, yeah, I've got the first 2000 lines down. This is what the brain is capable of if it's not completely bombarded with information, like on cell phones and things like that. Okay, I know, that's my pet thing. I bring up every podcast practically, but I had to bring it up. The point is though, the monks, they would say the psalms, 150 psalms every day. [00:10:02] Eventually this evolved, developed whatever you want to call it into. They would say the psalms and other prayers every day, and they had it on a cycle where every week they would get through all 150. They created braveries, which are basically books that contain the prayers. They had other prayers included with it, but always from the beginning, the foundation, the core of the divine office, has always been the psalms. And in fact, all 150 psalms being said on a regular basis, usually one every week. You'd say. On a normal cycle, you'd say all 150 psalms, there was no thought of. Okay, we're going to not have certain psalms. The point is, you're praying all the psalms because after all, the psalms is the prayer book of the church. And so, you know, the monks are saying it every day. [00:10:54] Okay. So what happened, though, when they decided to let's make some reforms after Vatican II, again, we're going to change the entire liturgy. They decide to radically redo the divine office. They dropped the office of prime. [00:11:11] They turned it from a one week cycle to a four week cycle. So now you say the psalms in a four week cycle, not in a one week cycle. But it wasn't even that. They actually eliminated certain psalms. I was reading an article where it said that when they asked for, before the council started, when they asked for bishops to give their opinions on, you know, what. What should we talk about? What are some issues we should address? There was thousands and thousands of entries, and I think three bishops mentioned. [00:11:43] Maybe we should cut out a couple of these psalms that are not, that are imprecatory psalms, imprecatory prayers. That basically means when you're calling down curses on your enemies, that was it. It wasn't like there was this groundswell, but there was a couple people who did think it. Well, then when they actually got. And so, of course, Vatican II did not address that, did not say, we should do that. But then what happened was, is when they actually started to make the changes to the liturgy of the hours, there were a few people that basically said, yeah, let's do this. Let's take out some of these psalms. But the overwhelming majority of the committee and the people in charge said, no, we shouldn't do that. However, when it was presented to Pope Paul VI. [00:12:23] Benini. Yes, that same guy, he basically, and another guy. Can't remember the other guy's name, basically said, included it as a recommendation to the pope, and Pope Paul VI went along with it. And so even though there was no groundswell of support for this, no desire among the bishops of the church to make this happen, essentially one man convinced the pope to make it happen. [00:12:48] And so what happened then is psalms 58, 83 and 109. This is using the hebrew numbering. You know, on the. You can number it different ways, but 58, 83 and 109 were eliminated completely, plus parts of 19 other psalms were eliminated. So let's. Let's look real quick. I'm just going to pull up psalm 58 as an example of what was eliminated. So this this psalm is no longer said by the church in its prayers, unless you're talking about, of course, people who pray, the old bravery, or who, I assume maybe the. The eastern office includes it. I actually don't know the answer to that question. But we see, it says, do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the sons of men uprightly? Nay, in your hearts you devise wrongs, your hands deal out violence. On earth. The wicked go astray from the womb. They err from their birth, seeking lies, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the death adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter. Now, so far, this psalm doesn't sound that much different. It's talking about our enemies, talking about the wicked, those who don't follow God. There's many places in the psalms and other places where it talks about the wicked. [00:14:06] But now, verse six, it says, o God, break the teeth in their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the young lions, o Lord. Let them vanish like water that runs away like grass. Let them be trodden down and witherhead. Let them be like the snail which dissolves in the slime, like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away. [00:14:34] The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. Men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth. [00:14:45] I mean, consider us, if I'll put it this way. If the church hierarchy was in charge of YouTube, this video would be censored. This would be shadow banned or given a strike against it. Maybe it will anyway, just because the harsh language in it. But essentially what happened was this was eliminated. This idea of break the teeth in their mouths, tear out the fangs of the young lions, let them vanish like water that runs away. That language was removed. And so a priest who, or a monk who's praying the liturgy hours, he never hears a prayer like that. He never hears a prayer from the sacred scriptures that is talking about destroying one's enemies. [00:15:24] Now, why did they say. Why did they say, did they remove this? I mean, why were these removed? Well, at the general instruction, it actually gives the reason. It says, three psalms have been omitted from the psalter cycle because of their curses. In the same way, some verses have been omitted from certain psalms as nuid at the head of each. The reason for the omission is a certain psychological difficulty, even though the psalms of imprecation are in fact used as a prayer in the New Testament, for example, revelation 610, and in no sense to encourage the use of curses. So basically, they're saying it's psychologically difficult. I'll be honest, I'm not an anti psychology person. I'm not like all psychology is bad. However, I will say there is no question that the abuse of the psychological sciences has caused great harm in our world today. Great harm. [00:16:23] And this is a perfect example. What they're basically saying is, some sensitive soul might be offended by reading this, and therefore, we're just going to make it so they don't have to read it. [00:16:35] People today are just too soft, too much snowflakes. According to these church leaders who did this, they can't actually read this because it might cause them too much difficulty. [00:16:47] And so what's happening here is we see a removal of the difficult passages of scripture. And I really do think, like I said, this. This one about the psalms is probably the most egregious. There's another more recent example where the. The scriptures weren't removed, but they were kind of explained away. Church splained away. And that's good Friday. Good Friday, of course, always has the full passion reading. [00:17:16] The full reading of the passion, exactly. You know, the. [00:17:20] From. Usually from the garden of Gethsemane. Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. All the way till his death and being laid in a tomb. [00:17:27] Everything that happened. There's no editing out. You read the whole passion reading. [00:17:32] Well, this past year, there was actually a note given by the USCCB. They wanted to put in every bulletin, in every parish in, or church or missile aid or whatever in America. And it read the passion narratives are proclaimed in full set. All see vividly the love of Christ for each person. In light of this, the crimes during the passion of Christ cannot be attributed in either preaching or catechesis, indiscriminately to all Jews of the that time, nor to Jews today. The jewish people should not be referred to as though rejected or cursed, as if this view flow followed from scripture. [00:18:10] And so it basically is trying to say, don't be anti semitic. Don't blame the Jews for the death of Christ. Which this clearly isn't as bad as just removing passages. But there is something to be said for, like this, top down. We're going to make sure that we mitigate anything in this that might be too strongly against the people who, at the time did kill Christ. I mean, obviously, what they say is not false. It's clear that in the sense that Jews today are not responsible for the death of Christ. Yet at the same time, there does need to be this idea. It basically makes it like when you read that, it does say, don't take everything you read in scripture too seriously, is kind of the message it gives. [00:18:55] That's not quite as bad, but it is. It is something important. [00:18:59] Now, why does this matter? Why is this. Why am I making such a big deal about this? The fact is that it's the constant maxim of the church. Lex Orendic, Lex Credende. How we worship ends up being what we believe. It impacts what we believe, how we worship. And what we've done is we've actually said, okay, in our liturgy, how we worship, we're going to avoid anything that might make you feel uncomfortable, that might make you think differently than you already do. That might challenge what you believe and what you think. We're going to remove all of that, but we're only going to remove the parts that challenge what you think. That goes against the zeitgeist. If it's a challenging message about, for example, helping the poor, we'll keep that in there. But we're not going to allow you to hear challenging passages that goes against our current cultural zeitgeist. [00:20:00] That is a, frankly, a terrible precedent to set. A just awful precedent to set. Because what it does is it conforms the word of God to today's word instead of the other way around. It really does, you know, impact what we believe. I truly believe that priests not reading those passages from the psalms on a regular basis. Remember before the changes to Vatican II? Before that, for the 1960s, priests would read a psalm like that in monks every single week. I mean, yes, there'd be changes potentially for, like, feast days might bump it or whatever, but generally, they're going to read a psalm like I read you before. Again, I'll pull it up here real quick, where it talks about, break the teeth of the wicked's mouths, tear out the fangs of young lions, let them vanish like water that runs away like grass. Let them be trodden down and wither. They would read passages like that on a regular basis, probably 30 to 40 times a year. [00:21:03] Now, they never read that. I really think that has an impact in how we see things. I think, for example, in this case, what it does is it is it minimizes the battle we're in. It minimizes the fight we're in, that we're in a war against Satan and his minions. We're in a war against them and against those who work for him, the wicked in this world who work for them. We're in a battle with them. [00:21:33] It's not just a matter of, okay, let's just be nice to everybody. Let's just. Let's just get along. Dialogue, I mean, it very much is in keeping with. I've talked about this before, the whole emphasis on dialogue, how everything changed in emphasis in the 1960s from, instead of proclaiming the gospel to just having dialogue with those we disagree with. [00:21:56] Well, that's not what this, the psalmist is saying. He's not saying, let's have dialogue with the wicked. He's saying, I want their teeth to be smashed. I want them to be destroyed. Why? Because they work against God. [00:22:09] And exalting God and serving him is all that matters, giving glory to him. So those who try to stop us from glorifying God, those who fight against God, they need to be fought against. They need to be destroyed. [00:22:23] And so by never saying that we change how we think about God, how we think about our own work here, it really does have an impact because, remember, God inspired those words of sacred scripture. Breaking the teeth of our enemies is the inspired word of God. God wanted it in the Bible for a reason. It wasn't just added as an accident. And I think if we don't, if we, if we just remove it, we're basically going against what God wants us to hear. Now, here's the thing. I'm not claiming I know the perfect interpretation of these difficult passages, like the imprecatory psalms. I'm not claiming that, in fact, they challenge me as well. [00:23:07] I'm with you. I mean, I grew up in, you know, I was born in the early seventies, so I know this, this melody that we live in, this idea that just dialogue and being nice and things like that, I've lived through it for how many years? For decades now. So it's challenging to me, too. I don't know exactly how to interpret this in the light of Christ, saying, you turn the other cheek and to pray for your enemies and to love your enemies. But there is a way those two things work together, because otherwise they wouldn't both be in sacred scripture. And so if we just refuse to allow ourselves to accept this tension, then what happens is we have a faith that's being shaped, like I said, in our image. [00:23:52] So the fact is. And then when we remove passages, I mean, I gave the example of the psalms. Priests never reading these in pregnatory psalms. But then we also have the case where nobody hears in certain parishes, nobody would ever hear St. Paul's passage that wives to be submissive to their husbands. [00:24:14] Now, that's a passage, obviously, that just makes modern man and modern woman cringe, because we've been so impacted by the feminist lies that we think this is something somehow demeaning to women. But of course, it's not, because it allows them to fulfill their vocation in Christ that they model the church which is submissive to Christ. Likewise, husbands model Christ in sacrificing themselves for the church. Now, the fact is, saying that men have to sacrifice themselves for wives is not controversial. It doesn't cause anybody to say, oh, boy, I can't believe you said that. That's. That. We can't talk about that. So who cares if I say that? [00:24:57] The fact is, wives should be submissive to their husbands. Now, how that plays out in reality, in each individual marriage is going to vary on some level. It's not going to be identical because of the personalities involved in the marriage, because of the state of life they might be in different, you know, various outside factors, lots of reasons, cultural factors do impact it. [00:25:24] But that's. That should not at all take away from the fact that a wife should be submissive to her husband in real, concrete ways. That's what St. Paul is saying. He's not just saying this is some, you know, he put it in there for a reason. And more importantly, God inspired him to put it in there for a reason. When we take it out, we make it optional. [00:25:47] Then what happens is that we harm marriages. I mean, there's another way to put it. We denigrate the great calling of marriage, because the calling of marriage has a certain hierarchy in it, has a certain structure in it, in which the husband is the head of the family. I mean, that says that also. Let me get back to the passage again. It says, let me find it here. [00:26:17] Husbands, love your wives. And it says, okay, even so, husbands who love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and two shall become one flesh. Oh, sorry. The part about the husband is the head of the wife is in verse 23, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church. [00:26:43] This is the way a marriage is supposed to be a husband should be head of the church, head of the family, head of the wife. [00:26:52] And whether or not that's controversial enough or not should be irrelevant to whether or not the church proclaims it. Now, it should be explained. It should be. And I'm not claiming I know perfectly how this should be played out, particularly not in every single marriage. I just know the Bible says that, so we have to do it. [00:27:14] Trying to explain it away, that it's culturally irrelevant, like it's a. [00:27:20] Back in that time it was because women were property, but today it's different. No, these are universal truths that apply throughout time and space. They apply in every culture at every time. [00:27:33] The idea of praying against our enemies, and also the idea of a wife being submissive to her husband, husband, head of the wife. [00:27:41] These are principles that always apply because they're in the sacred scriptures. So we have to grapple with them. We have to understand them. We have to at least make an effort to understand them is probably a better way of putting it. And we're not. We're just punting. We're just saying, well, nope, that makes us uncomfortable. So we're going to no longer read it. Here's the reality. [00:28:02] If reading the Bible does not at times make you uncomfortable, you're not reading it carefully enough. [00:28:11] If reading the Bible does not at times make you uncomfortable, you're not reading it carefully enough. I know my own reading of sacred scripture. Sometimes I'm like, I have no idea what this means. [00:28:20] And that's a good thing. Because if I understood it completely, or you understood or anybody understood completely, that's a pretty sure science, not the divine word of God, that's not divinely inspired, because his ways are not our ways, we can't fully understand. [00:28:35] So instead of just punting on the parts we don't understand or make us uncomfortable, we need to embrace them and say, okay, Lord, speak to me. [00:28:43] Because think about just the fact that even if preachers, pastors never preached on this, think about the fact that how many women and Menta but women I'm talking about here never have heard that passage. But if they had heard it, grace could have worked in them, the Holy Spirit could have worked in to say, you know, maybe I do need to look at my marriage differently. Maybe I do need to change how I'm treating my husband. [00:29:12] After all, the word of God is a two edged sword. It really does impact us if we don't believe that. I mean, we're rejecting the teaching of the church, the reading of improvisation, of gospel, I'm sorry, of the scriptures can really have an impact. So how many women did not hear that passage even though they went to mass every Sunday and their marriages were worse because of it? [00:29:36] That's what happens. I mean, really, things really do change. It really has an impact on people and marriages. Maybe there's divorces out there that would not have happened if we simply had read this passage. [00:29:48] It might sound crazy, but I honestly believe that's a very real possibility, that there are families that were ripped apart that wouldn't have been if we just read this passage and passage like them in, you know, during mass. [00:30:02] So I think ultimately, my point is this, that we cannot conform the word of God to today's word. We must conform today's word to the word of God. We must conform ourselves to the word of God, even when it makes us uncomfortable, even when it's somehow difficult to understand or goes against our own presuppositions. Because let's be honest, if you're living in the 21st century in the western world, you probably have been influenced by feminism in ways you don't even realize. We all have. I have. You have? We all have in bad ways, too. And so by hearing and also this idea of just dialoguing with others, of just being. Of treating enemies like they can run roughshod over us, we all have that in our minds as well. And so if we read these sacred scriptures that talk against that, maybe it will impact how we believe and what we believe and how we act, more importantly. Okay, let me look real quick at the live chat. Thanks for people who are in the live chat here at the end. We've been doing this lately. I'm going to some of the different comments and questions were I tagged, and so I'm going to look at them. Here we go. John F. Kennedy. Yes, I believe that's his real name, by the way, the USCCB also adds the text to the readings, brothers and sisters, which is not part of the readings, but it's frequently added. Last Sunday was no exception, is not in any of the translations. That's a good point. I mean, I will say this. In the traditional latin mass, for example, you have a very similar thing where at the beginning of the epistle, it will just tag brethren. Or at the beginning, the gospel say in that at that time. And so it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not. Brothers and sisters is so clunky. It's so cheesy that I'm with John here, that it just does kind of make you a little bit like cringe. Like, that's not really what part of the gospel, a part of the epistle there. [00:31:58] Okay, next is nick the Norbertine. Are you really a Norbertine? If that. So that's awesome. What are you doing watching a podcast? If you really are the ordinary is part of the roman night and has all 150 psalms in their office. That's good to know. I kind of assume they did. The ordinarily, of course, is the anglican use used to be called. It's basically the. [00:32:18] It has its own liturgical right. I know people are going to ban the word right and all that stuff, but I'm just going to call it a right because that's what everybody understands and has its own liturgical right. And so I'm very happy to hear the ordinary did not cut out the controversial psalms from their liturgy hours. I actually have. Here's the funny thing is, I have that their divine office, divine worship, the holy office, I can see it right now. That's why I'm looking like this. And I should check that before the podcast. Thank you though, Nick, for letting me know that. [00:32:51] Okay. Zeus Petals says, preaching and the word of God is meant to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. I think that's a very common saying among protestant preachers, and it's absolutely right. Maybe you Catholic said first. I don't know. That's exactly right. The preaching of the word of God should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. If you're comfortable with how things are in your life, reading the word of God should have an impact on your life. It should affect you and should make you feel uncomfortable. We should never feel completely comfortable. And if you're afflicted, though, you're having a lot of things are happening to you that's overwhelming you and you feel down and downtrodden. The scriptures are a great thing to make you feel comfortable. [00:33:40] Let's be honest, in the western world in the 21st century, we're more comfortable than we are afflicted. We're more comfortable. We are afflicted. And so we need something to kind of stand up to our just way of looking at things, our comfortable way of understanding the world. We need something to like a sword, cut into that and change how we. How we we look at that. I think that that's very important that we do that. And that's why we shouldn't cut things out of the sacred scriptures during the liturgy, either the mass or liturgy of the hours or any other time. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up there. I recommend read sacred scripture. Don't edit it out. Read every day. Okay. Until next time, everybody. God love.