(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s two-part episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, Bishop Joseph Strickland discusses not being complacent following the 2024 election, every breath we take being a gift from God, offering due gratitude to God, and more.
Bishop Strickland begins the first part of the episode by offering commentary on Luke 17:7-10, in which Our Lord implores His disciples to be worthy servants. The bishop highlighted that in this Gospel we see that our life and every breath we take is a gift, and so we must complete our obligations to the Lord.
“If we could just all wake up and recognize that basic truth that every breath we take is a gift from God, then the entitlement… in a lot of ways, that’s where sin comes from. We have an entitlement of this pleasure or this thing we want, and we don’t care if God has told us, ‘You can’t do that,’” Strickland said.
His Excellency then dove more into how entitlement runs rampant in our time and we often act like children.
“What do we see with little children? ‘That’s mine, I want that.’ It’s natural human instinct that children need to be formed in the truth that God has revealed to us; that’s what parenting is about, to help children learn this basic lesson from the Gospel that everything you have is a gift from God, including your life. To ignore that is unhealthy, and it’s devastating for the real purpose in our lives,” Strickland said.
A bit later, the bishop noted that this Gospel also reminds us that this is a hierarchical world, with God being the highest truth, beauty, and love.
“He is truth and beauty, but everything short of God is at a different level. And we need to operate in that hierarchical world,” he said.
Strickland emphasized that there are many people in the world and even the Church who would read this Gospel and find it offensive, saying, “Oh, it’s atrocious, it’s master and servant,” but it’s important to remember that God planned for us to live in a hierarchy.
“The temptation that we’re seeing in the Church and in the world to get rid of hierarchy and say, ‘Oh, we’re all just one big human family.’ That’s not how God planned it, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t have any sustaining reality,” the bishop said.
Strickland stressed that while this Gospel is often translated as those of us who are lower in the hierarchy are less valuable, God teaches us that we all have value and an intrinsic right to life.
“Those who have authority are always – or should be in God’s plan – stronger and [better] able to exercise that authority. But they are called to exercise it as servants; that’s what Christ modeled for us,” the bishop said.
Later in Part 1, host Terry Barber changed gears to the 2024 election, noting that we “dodged a bullet” by electing Donald Trump because Kamala Harris wanted to allow virtually all abortion. Also, by the grace of God, a few radical abortion amendments were defeated.
Barber then read from one of Strickland’s X posts from the day after the election in which he quoted 2 Chronicles 7:14, which implores us to turn from our wicked ways and to do all things through Christ, and asked the bishop why he decided to quote that verse.
His Excellency highlighted that it’s important to embrace the truth from this part of the Gospel.
“The Word of God is living and active. It’s not an old historical record. It’s a living word because God is a living God,” Strickland said.
The bishop said this message describes what we need to do following this election, stressing that there’s still a lot of work to be done to defend the sanctity of life for the unborn.
“Like the domino effect, if you get [abortion] right or at least are moving in the right direction – like I said, some states did install these atrocious laws that made abortion legal, but thankfully some didn’t, and nationally we didn’t choose the candidate who said she was going to push for abortion everywhere all the time from conception until birth,” Strickland said.
But the bishop underscored that just because we saw some small wins for the sanctity of life and other issues in this election, doesn’t mean we should grow complacent. We still need to combat the wickedness that still plagues our country.
“We can’t just coast and say, ‘Okay, we’re done, and we can go back to making lots of money and going to the lake and just relax.’ No, we can’t! We’ve got to recognize the wickedness … things that were being pushed beyond abortion [like] the government paying for sex changes and all of this stuff, it’s all wicked. And we need to be very clear where all of this wickedness is, like Chronicles says: ‘Are we going to side with the Lord or not?’ Are we going to say, ‘Lord, we bow to your truth and to your revelation’?” the bishop said.
Bishop Strickland begins the second part of the episode by offering commentary on Luke 17:11-19, in which Our Lord heals 10 lepers but only one comes back to thank and glorify Him. The bishop emphasized that this Gospel serves as a reminder to have a spirit of gratitude towards God.
“That spirit of gratitude is not just polite; it’s not just good etiquette. It should be embedded in us, that spirit of understanding: life is [a] gift, everything is [a] gift. And we are called to be givers as well to give to others, and that reflects our understanding that everything is a gift,” Strickland said.
His Excellency then told a story about how when he was in seminary, the rector let him borrow his car to go see his family over Thanksgiving break. The bishop noted that he was grateful and even washed and vacuumed the car before returning it, but when he returned the keys to his rector he was sternly told that he never actually thanked him for his generosity.
“But I’ve always remembered that. He was wise to remind me how important it is to say ‘thank you’ when someone does us a kindness, and I’ve never forgotten that,” the bishop said.
Strickland then emphasized that the ultimate thanksgiving belongs to God.
“As Catholics, as disciples of Jesus Christ of whatever description, we all need to remember that it’s ultimately giving thanks to God. Specifically for the gift of His Son – who is our redeemer – but giving thanks to God for everything. Being aware and humbly aware that everything we have: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in, the cars and other machines we use, everything is ultimately a gift from God. And we all need to remember that and reflect that in the way we live,” the bishop said.
Later in Part 2, Barber asked Strickland to read and offer commentary on paragraph nine of Veritatis Splendor, Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical on the fundamentals of the Church’s moral teaching. Paragraph nine focuses on the fact that “there is only one who is good” (Matthew 19:17), that is, Jesus Christ.
The bishop stressed that this basic truth that “no one is good but God” is so essential in dealing with the questions of our day yet we’re not hearing this message.
“We’re not hearing Jesus. Jesus isn’t being shared; it’s all this other evil too often. And if it’s not evil, it’s just stupid; it’s meaningless. It’s ‘my opinion, your opinion, their opinion, let’s all get together and share our opinions,’” Strickland said.
The bishop added that instead of our own opinions, we need to look to Jesus, who reminds us of His message with great humility.
“He doesn’t say, ‘Oh, you just need to listen to me.’ He points to the Father because His love for the Father is more profound than we can even fathom. The Father’s love for the Son, the Holy Spirit, [and] their love for each other. The Trinity is amazing, and we can’t really fathom it, but this is the triune God speaking to us in this Gospel passage, with a beautiful understanding of it by Pope St. John Paul II in this document, Veritatis Splendor,” the bishop said.
To hear more from His Excellency, tune in to this week’s episode of The Bishop Strickland Show.
To watch all previous episodes of The Bishop Strickland Show, click here to visit LifeSite’s video page dedicated to The Bishop Strickland Show.