 I'm Mary Harold for TAM books. Thank you for joining us here today. We hear today talk about a true crisis within our church. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey showed that 69% of Catholics do not believe in the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. That's two out of every three Catholics. This is an undeniable problem within our church because Christ truly is present in the Holy Eucharist. And the Holy Eucharist is the greatest gift we've been given in this world. Our guests today are going to discuss this modern-day problem of Eucharistic disbelief and how to fight it. I'm so grateful to our guests for joining us today and excited to give them a big welcome. We have the Excellency of Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Kyra Kessner. We have Dr. Stacy Tresoncos and we have Father George Elliott. Tresoncos and Father Elliott are the co-authors of the new best-contained books, The Holy It is I, Scripture, Music, and Science on the Real Presence. And Bishop Strickland was kind enough to pen a wonderful forward for the book as well. We're here today for TAM Talks, which is a new initiative by TAM Books airing on the second Thursday of every month. And in these inspiring talks, you will gain unprecedented access to our authors and our guests who will discuss events and topics concerning the church and the world. You will be fortified in your Catholic faith and hear their insights. So back to our guests. His Excellency was appointed as the Bishop of Tyler by Pope Benedict XVI and was consecrated on November 28, 2012, by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. Bishop Strickland faithfully guides his flock in Tyler, Texas, but he's also a bright star on Twitter where he shines Christ's light to all the world there. Welcome, Your Excellency. Thank you, Mary. Dr. Stacy Trusoncos is a nationally recognized author and speaker, along with being the Executive Director of the St. Philip Institute of Catechesis and Evangelization in Tyler, Texas. She's a noted chemist and scientist, as well as being a popular TV and radio show guest and host. Welcome, Dr. Trusoncos. Hello. Father George Elliott, in addition to being a priest in Tyler, Texas. President Catholic, Catholic media and Catholic Link, a multi-platform media evangelization outlet that reaches hundreds of thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics alike through Instagram and YouTube each month. Father Elliott, welcome to you. Thank you, Mary. It's good to be here. Great. Just a little housekeeping before we get started. Just a little housekeeping before we begin. We'll be giving away a copy of Behold It Is I to one lucky viewer of today's webinar. So just by joining us here today, you are entered to win that copy. Stay tuned to the end to see if it's you. We'll also be giving a coupon code for tanbooks.com at the end here for 15% off Behold It Is I on the Tanbooks website. So stay tuned for that as well. Okay. So before we begin with your book, I'd like to ask each of you, what have you been reading? What's a great book you've read since the start of the new year or what is your favorite tan title? Your Excellency, we'll go ahead and begin with you. Well, I just finished a book that was very meaningful to me called Light from Darkness. In it, it really spoke about nine periods in the history of the church, really starting at the very beginning of darkness and turmoil and struggle. But the light always came back. And I thought it was a great message for this time because there is darkness, but Christ is the light of the world. So that's what I just finished reading. Wonderful. Dr. Stacey. Hi. I'm just finishing up the Last Kingdom series, a little bit of historical fiction. But my favorite book by tan, which I actually had on my desk when you asked this question, is the classic Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. It's my go-to whenever I have a question about how a certain teaching developed over time and I want to get it just right. I love dogmatic theology and that's my go-to book. I was also reading, a friend of mine wrote a book called Everyone, God's Symmetry, God's Symmetry in Time. He's a physicist from MIT. So I was interested to see what he had to say about that. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, by far my favorite tan book. I try and get any of my spiritual directories to read this. This book is The Spiritual Life by Adolf Tankeray. It is a brick of a book, but transformational in the spiritual life of someone. If they're able to really grasp those concepts, I just see them grow exponentially after that. So that's a real go-to for me. Wonderful. Good titles. Add to my reading list. So I'd like to start with where this book came from. And you say in the book that it all started really with the curiosity of a child. So Dr. Trisankos, would you tell us a little who Annie Kanaguya is and the role that she played in making this book happen? Yes, Annie Paniagua is the daughter of Dr. Christina Paniagua here in Tyler. And we dedicated the book to her. It says in the beginning to Annie Paniagua. And her parents gave us permission to share the story. But it did start back in 2018 when she had been to mass with her parents and she was a little inattentive. And after mass, her parents asked her to research the Eucharist online to look up something to help her understand reverence and what it means. And she came across Eucharistic Miracles. And was so fascinated with a YouTube video she saw on the Buenos Aires Miracles that her father sent the YouTube video to Bishop and Bishop Strickland sent it to me and asked me to give talks on Eucharistic Miracles and the Diocese. And as an answer to prayer, because I wanted to see the data for myself before I started talking about it and writing about it, the lead investigator of the Buenos Aires Miracles miraculously walked up to Bishop Strickland outside of a chapel in Sydney, Australia when he was visiting there and handed him the books with the data I had been praying to see in it. And Bishop Strickland sent it to me. So be careful what you pray for because the thing I prayed for landed on my desk, literally. So we had to write the book. The rest of the story, Father George can tell because then it was his idea to put together the beautiful scripture and tradition sections. Wow, that's that's incredible. And that's great when a plan comes together. Father George, when you began thinking of the idea for this book, you're a relatively young priest, you decided that you needed to write this book on the real presence. What did you see either in your congregation or around your diocese that really made you say, I need to write this defense of the real presence from scripture and tradition? Yeah, I had several people, both Catholic and non-Catholic, come me over the course of a year and just ask a lot of questions about the Eucharist. Sometimes they were very curious and they just wanted to learn more. And they were like, Oh my goodness, you can't believe, you know, Catholics actually believe this, like tell me more. And then others were Catholics who just weren't very well formed and were really struggling with their faith in the Eucharist. And I had essentially the same conversation with multiple people where I spent hours and hours and hours just explaining, all right, here's the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Father's of the Church, Eucharistic Miracles. And walking them through that was so impactful to them. By the time the third person asked me in the same year, I just thought to myself, there has to be a book that's been written that does all of this. And I searched out there and I couldn't really find one that dealt with each of those topics in a complete way. There were some that really focused on Eucharistic Miracles, didn't really say much about the Scriptures or the Father's of the Church, or some that focused on the Father's of the Church, but not so much on Eucharistic Miracles or didn't have a lot on the Scriptures and so on. And so right around that time, I knew Dr. Etrusencos was giving these talks on the Eucharist and I thought, you know, I think we would be a good team. Let's see if she's up for writing something of that sort. And I reached out to her and she said yes, and then the rest was history. I love it, great history. Bishop Strickland, when you hear these numbers that we talked about at the beginning here, that the two thirds of Catholics and the pews don't believe what's happening up at the altar, what goes through your mind as a shepherd of these people? Well, I guess I'd have to say a whole lot. It's something that has really preoccupied me for many years, especially since I've been a bishop, because if we don't know Christ in the Eucharist, we really don't know Catholic. We don't know who we are, what the wonder of our Catholic faith is. And I'm 63 years old and I would say really, I believe people have learned what they've been taught in my lifetime, because there's been too much of a de-emphasis, very well-meaning, I believe in most cases, but just a de-emphasis on the supernatural, on the sacred, on reverence for who is there in the tabernacle or who is there at mass, who comes when a priest like myself or Father George stands at the altar, hopefully with tremendous humility, because we are not worthy to hold the Lord, body and blood, soul and divinity in our hands, but that's what we do. That's what we're called to do. That's what the challenge of our priesthood is, to be as worthy as we can. So I really believe in a very ironic way and a sad way, people have learned what they've been taught and the liturgy, and I just believe we need to recognize, read the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and you won't see a lot of what happened to the liturgy. It's not there, but it was sort of a leaping off place where we began to teach people that it was much more focused on them than on the sacred and the supernatural. Absolutely, the people, God is calling his people to himself through his Son, God's soul of the world that he sent his only begotten Son. But I think we've really, as a church, we've sort of taught the opposite for my lifetime, and we really do. I thank Father George and Dr. Stacey and so many faithful people today that are recognizing that and in all kinds of ways, using their God-given gifts to say, no, he's really there. As Father George mentioned, I think a lot of Catholics, much less non-Catholics, we're in a very non-Catholic area in many ways here in the Diocese of Tyler, but many Catholics and non-Catholics, I think, really would be startled and are startled to say, you really believe this? It's almost going back to what Father George discusses so well about the Scriptures in the time of Christ. There was the same reaction, and I think I don't want to, I could take up the whole hour, but I don't want to. You need to hear from these good people, but I will acknowledge that really the same thing is happening now has happened in the time of Christ. It was a faithful remnant of disciples that stayed with Christ. Certainly vast crowds came, and they don't really talk about numbers in the gospel, but I think we have to recognize that when Christ walked this earth, many people rejected his message, and they certainly rejected any idea that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have his life in us. So in that context, hopefully it just reinforces our vigor in sharing this truth, because it's an apostolic faith that we have to share that has been rejected through the ages, even in the time of Christ. Well, I want to go back, Father Elliot, just as the Schipsterkling mentioned, to the scriptural basis for the real presence. What do you say to folks who think that the Eucharist is purely just an institution, a fixture of the New Testament, and the Gospels? It's just in the second half. There's nothing in the first half that talks about our Lord in a piece of bread. What do you say to that? Yeah, I think that's actually kind of part of the those who believe we have this tendency to almost get so excited about the institution narratives in John chapter 6 that we dive right into that, and it appears to someone who doesn't believe what we believe about the Eucharist for us to be kind of cherry-picking these individual passages and pulling out this enormous claim out of just a handful of passages. And so when we go about teaching this to someone who doesn't believe in the Eucharist, we really have to step back and kind of teach it in a slow way, very much like God did from the beginning. God prepared us through all those Old Testament prefigurements. And so you've got the tree of life in the garden, you have the sacrifice of Melchizedek, you've got the manna in the desert, the bread of presence, obviously the Passover is a really big one. So many different things in the Old Testament prepare us and kind of lay the groundwork so that when Jesus talks about the Eucharist in those institution narratives and in John chapter 6, when we look at that whole context, we can see really clearly what he's talking about and then he really meant what he was saying. On Dr. Trisankos, you have said both here and elsewhere in other interviews, faith should not depend on science. We say that's a backwards way to look at it. So how do these miracles, the Eucharistic miracles, how do they fit into that framework and does a Catholic have to go through some sort of mental gymnastics to believe that these Eucharistic miracles can happen? Absolutely no mental gymnastics. I mean when you think about it, if we believe in a loving Creator who created the universe with order and goodness and who didn't just like wind it up and walk away and let it run on its own and not care about us, if we believe in a Creator who's holding us in existence in every moment, we're compelled by just logic to accept that he could work a miracle against the order of nature he created anytime he wanted to. In the book I kind of compare it to like a father who has rules in his home. No ice cream before dinner but if there's a daughter who's had a bad day at school, got picked on, had a fight with her siblings and she's just really down, you know that dad might call mom and say, hey I'm bringing home three gallons of ice cream, we're gonna let little Annie have a special treat tonight before dinner just to show her our love. You have to believe that God would break his own laws of nature occasionally for the sake of our salvation to show us his love. So no mental gymnastics there, it would be unreasonable to believe miracles couldn't happen and it's just part of our worldview. We look at the whole universe and say thank you God for creating this universe. We pray in the Creed, I believe in God, Father Almighty, Creator of everything and so we don't need science to prove our faith. We have to believe miracles can happen and we have to believe God created everything and be grateful for it. So whenever we have a miracle, whether science can say all that much about it or not, we just need to know that God loves us. That's why he does it. One incredible feature of Behold It Is I but I think really sets it in the class apart from other books on this topic is its honesty and Dr. Trisanko, so now you analyze the scientific data from these three separate sets of Eucharistic Miracles by your standards. Some of them you're not fully convinced that the scientific integrity of how those miracles were analyzed. Is that a fair way to put it? Yeah, I summed it up this way in the book that the scientific investigations are inconclusive in some places that I think they could have done a better job. I mean you know I'm like the Monday morning quarterback looking back at what they did so I fully admit that. But there are some places where I think they could have done more to have more solidly convinced a skeptic that the miracles were real. And then there are some places I think there were exaggerations which that's what scares me the most. I don't think we need to exaggerate what science can tell us just to convince people that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. We need to talk to people about what it means to have faith. We tend to fall into, I think Catholics tend to succumb to the scientism of our age sometimes without realizing it. Like we need science to prove things for us too much more than it can. So the whole book Father Elliot and I came all the way back around to just faith. What does it mean to have faith? Father Elliot when you're writing your section on Church Fathers and going through that sort of information and trying to distill it down was it hard to try and take those kinds of writings from antiquity and present those to a readership that maybe isn't a scripture scholars and Church Father scholars? Yes absolutely Mary. Especially a privileged bishop sent me to study to get a license in patristics. And so I mean when I'm used to reading the Fathers it's you know a way in looking at not even the the details of their grammar and things of the sorts. And so when I realized I had to write that section I thought to myself how am I going to do this and not write you know five books. And so distilling it down was a real exercise for me to just say all right no what are these people really saying you know in academia sometimes things get so drawn out that you say all of these things and you never really say anything. And so it was actually kind of a blessing for me to be able to look at it on a macro level and just say yeah what's being said here. And it was it was kind of refreshing for me to to step back and just see how clearly the Fathers of the Church believed what we believe you know one of the things that I really love is you know you see it really clearly in Irenaeus of Leon that he actually used this universal belief in the Eucharist to prove that Jesus was the same God as the God of creation you know that there's one God essentially. And so it's so funny to us you run into any Christian and they all believe that there's there's one God three persons right we're all kind of on board with that now. But at the time of the Fathers it just shows the importance of that that concept of Lex Oran and Lex Credendi that that the law of of prayer is the law of belief that they just started praying they did what Jesus told them to do do this in memory of me and they all believed more strongly that the Eucharist was the body and blood of Christ then they even really had theologically pinned down that there was one God. And so it's kind of funny to step back now and say wow how far have we come and how funny is it that we're we're debating against about something that the Fathers of the Church would have said well of course this is it you know Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. Bishop Strickland as you are seeing this book come together in the past year and your wonderful authors come back to you with this all this wonderful information and a great outline and Dr. Chisankos then comes and says I guess but our faith doesn't depend on science all of this was that a hard conversation for you to hear with someone a brilliant scholar scientist or that some of these Eucharistic miracles after all the scripture and church tradition that they may not pass today's scientific rigor that she wasn't fully convinced. Now really I guess my reaction was to appreciate the honesty and to recognize that a basic principle is that the church has never said we should or needed to sort of lean on miracles to believe what what we what we believe about Jesus Christ about the Eucharist about everything in the Catholic faith so to me it reinforced a healthy Catholic approach is to simply say we believe this we know it to be true we've certainly got a vast group of ancestors from great theologians and great saints and just I would imagine all of us and a lot of the people in participating in this we can I can point to my my grandmother from Sydney Australia was one of those faithful people so we we have great theologians and saints from eons ago like Saint Irenaeus but we also have so many saints through the ages and we have people faithful people in our own life experience that have made great sacrifice to because they believe and they know that the what we as believe as Catholics to be true I would point to it may seem like sort of a counterintuitive example but I've known many faithful Catholics who were maybe in a marriage situation where they weren't able to receive the Eucharist not able to receive the body of Christ because they believe and know that he's really there and they're waiting for an all month or whatever the situation is but I've known faithful people that have gone to mass faithfully and prayed and stayed very close to the church and to the Lord but not able to actually receive communion for many years to me that's a testimony of really believing and knowing that we have to do everything we can to order our wives to best be nurtured by the presence of Christ so I think that what Dr. Stacy and I think it's a perfect collaboration really I mean they're great people in my diocese a priest and a doctor scientist faithful woman but I'm blessed to have them and I'm blessed to have their honest collaboration to show really the Eucharist is about believing and it's not contrary to the scientific reasoning process but we don't depend on the scientific method in order to truly believe and so again I would just emphasize I appreciated the honesty and the boldness really of saying I don't see it as a conclusive statement that as a scientist I can say yes this is conclusively proving and to me that opens the door for further investigation and for further faith boldness and honesty wonderful traits Dr. Trisankos who say in your analysis that's not on science again do you feel in a you feel lonely in your your stated profession as a scientist that you are willing to take the true presence of our Lord on our Lord's word and that you do not need your scientific analysis to prove that for you yeah I mean I'm a convert and and I you know at some point as much as I loved chemistry and I do love chemistry I love the order and the the logic of it I was compelled to to admit there's more to the most pressing questions in life than chemistry can answer love love is not just chemistry in the brain you know I was compelled to admit that and so it was it took a I really appreciated the treasures in the Catholic Church for explaining to me what it means what words mean what words mean all the words but especially the word belief because I had never really thought about what it means to believe and I read you know in Hebrews that faith is the substance of things unseen to a chemist there is a substance there and you can see it and name it and and analyze what elements from the periodic table compose it and what percentages but you know I'm kneeling before the Eucharist and I'm like to the priest afterwards I'm like you want me just to look at that bread and wine and in a timeless instant that we can't even measure as a nano or a finto second or anything like that in some timeless instant knowing the atoms and electrons aren't doing anything different it's just continuing by all accounts of the best analytical tools and chemistry to continuing to be what it is bread and wine I'm just supposed to believe at that moment of consecration that Jesus Christ who lived and died and knows me from 2000 years ago is here with us in the room you want me just to look at that knowing nothing happens and say yep Jesus is here and you know the priest is like that is what we believe and and so you know for me it was like do you believe it or not because if you do believe it everything in your life has to be structured behind that and how to change a lot of things if you don't believe it then then go home and you know stop coming to mass so um so I decided I did believe it and and I and I do every time I'm there it blows my mind that Christ joins us in mass you just have to drive 10 minutes up the road every day to be with him father Elliot does that weigh on you as you celebrate mass each day or each sunday thinking about the people sitting in your pews what they believe or what they don't believe and what you can do about it as their pastor yeah it absolutely does I think you know as as bishop was speaking really resounded a lot with me you know what he was saying that um to a degree it's what it what it's what weighs on me most but it's also what gets me up in the morning the most in the sense that we have the greatest treasure we have we've got himself we've Jesus Christ body but soul and divinity um and especially here in east Texas you know we have a low percentage of Catholics and then when you put that you know percentage of Catholics that believe in the Eucharist are in the real presence on top of that it's a very low percentage of people and so we're offering the greatest thing in the world and so gives me great joy to be able to to preach and to teach and to celebrate the liturgy in a way that that communicates that this truly is God um but also you know the the responsibility of a pastor is that you're responsible for every single person within your parish bounds whether they're Catholic or not and so there's a lot of me that thinks all right I have to answer for all of these people and so um I better I better be able to answer for all the moments of my life right you know when when you get to the end and God says you know gave you this many talents how many do you have back I definitely think about that and strive to live that as much as I can to bear that for sure um talking about reverence uh your excellency we talk about reverence and the liturgy and recently there's been um what you'd have to call an attack on the traditional Latin mass which you celebrate um do you think that reverence in the Latin mass can help bring back and foster belief in the real presence in somebody uh yes Mary I believe reverence really that I think is at the heart of the issue if we really believe then you have to be reverent you have to be in awe of the presence of the Lord of the universe who walked this earth with us so I think it really is all about reverence and certainly sadly there is a lot of controversy about the liturgy about the Latin mass about various aspects of the liturgy and certainly it's been ongoing through my lifetime and uh I really have to say I'm grateful to the younger priest like uh Father George Elliott we have some wonderful young priests that frankly have been better formed than I was I mean it was a different time and so we just I just have to acknowledge that I've learned a lot um and I think that what occurs to me as as I continue to deepen my Eucharistic faith and I guess I would say that to everyone participating in this don't ever say well I believe so I'm fine it's like loving a person it is a person it's the person of Jesus Christ who is there for each of us in an individual way to nurture us and to actually feed us and I would put it into that context of a personal relationship um for the person the for the four of us there are people that we love dearly and we have reverence for them I mean Father George just buried his father and we pray for George Elliott his dad and there's a reverence there I was blessed as a priest to be there for both of my parents funerals um and I think that that it's just I'm just sort of thinking talking and thinking but reverence really is at the very core of it and think about I mean I know here in East Texas we're about less than 10 percent Catholics so a lot of people come to our Catholic funerals and they don't they're they're very sort of in awe and very often the comment I'm sure it happens at Sacred Art in Acadoches I know it happened at the Cathedral in Tyler when I was rector there it happens that people will say I love the way you Catholics celebrate funerals to me it comes down to reverence reverence for Christ is reverence for the Christ in every person and so I guess that's what why I believe reverence is so important because that's how we love that's how we honor each other just on a human level think about you know I don't know Mary if you have children I know Dr. Stacy does you have a reverence I mean sometimes you may feel like you know knocking them upside the head because they're doing crazy things but there's a reverence that it's connected to love I guess is what I'm trying to say and when we come to know as Dr. Stacy was saying that that simple bread and wine is the personal presence of Christ body and blood soul and divinity that he's there then love and reverence naturally flow from that and I would encourage people to reflect on that in terms of their own real human relationships who do you love and how does that reverence for them work and then we can bring that into the presence of the mass even coming to the home of the Lord to God's house the church we should have a reverence for just entering the building because we're coming to the palace of the king and I think we just all need to continue to reflect on that but reverence I really believe is the bedrock key for this Eucharistic revival that the church is is beginning to embrace absolutely so we start to wrap up here I'd like to ask each one of you I'd like you to go through either one thing or one category of things perhaps that in your estimation has most eroded belief in the real presence over the last 20 30 years whatever that is and then on the flip side would you tell us one reason for hope or something you've seen either in your church the diocese or the the church of the world that shows that love for our Lord in the blessed sacrament is still very much alive and that it can flourish if we foster it Father Elliot let's start with you yeah so to kind of go beyond some of the stuff that we've talked about this for I really think that our liturgical music has shifted and that has caused a kind of erosion in in Eucharistic belief it's been a while since I've heard it in the diocese of Tyler but you know things like all are welcome and Lord of the dance things of that sort like you can't go to a mass and think that something is reverent when you hear those types of hymns being sung and then you know when you go back and you listen to the rich musical tradition of the church I mean when you hear that that stuff you know that you've encountered something sacred and so I really think that one of the best places to start and is with the the hymnity or with the music of the church and even you look back through the the fathers of the church many of the reforms in the church in the past uh were really carried out practically through hymns the ancient hymns that we have they were almost all kind of apologetic in nature they were they were trying to get everybody to believe a certain thing so they had them all sing a certain thing and I think unfortunately there's a bit of a similar trend in the church today our music has become void of of theology of faith and that's what's happening in the pews as well sadly um do you want me to go to to hope are we going to go all the way around that's before let's let's go around Dr. Tresoncos what would you say it has a role in um what I alluded to before this dependency in our I mean we live in an an explosion of science we we live in a time when scientific discovery is bringing us more knowledge and more capabilities like we're having this meeting today than ever before in the history of mankind and there's a dependence on science for truth even even if you're Catholic even if you pray the creed and you believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist we tend to rely on science too much and and I can tell you as a chemist the things we don't know far far uh dwarfs the things that we do know there's a precious little we can actually know it's very humbling um and so I think that's eroded faith in the real presence faith in anything spiritual period I I just think um that that people have really in this age of science not understood what it means to have faith or to believe in God absolutely Bishop Strickland I guess what I would say has been a negative influence is I go back to uh I believe with Saint Jerome who said ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ and I think uh it's not so much an ignorance of scripture but a real lack of really believing and embracing what sacred scripture says that this is the word of God yes sometimes it's in stories or in images that are are make it challenging to get to that truth that the word of God is giving us but I think that it almost leads me to the positive also that there is a lot of effort to know the scriptures as Catholics better but I think that through my lifetime um and basically it's my lifetime where all of this erosion has happened I don't think it's helped my fault but it has happened during the 63 years that I've been alive and I think that the the movement to know the scriptures I mean the the catechism tells us beautifully in a simple paragraph that Christ is from in all of scripture from the book of Genesis to the last verses of the book of Revelation and I think Father Elliott's work in this book that he and Dr Stacy have written is very important to help us recognize that as he said the whole of revelation is preparing us to know Christ and to know him in his Eucharistic presence so I think that ignorance of scripture and really embracing old and New Testament as deeply as we can that's been lacking hopefully we continue to work on that Father Elliott back to you we'll jump in order what do you think is a reason for hope in this time yeah so I work in a parish but also in a campus ministry and I really think that the trends that we're seeing in the campus ministry bring great hope um those young people love our Lord they believe in the Eucharist they are all in and that's the kind of Catholic that we really need to to renew the church you know God at every time of crisis throughout the history of the church has brought up a core group who are truly invested in in living the Christian life and following Jesus Christ and really being his disciples to the very core and I can see the Holy Spirit working already just bringing up these these young people who love the Eucharist love reverence you know they'll even a reason I we used to swap back and forth versus poplum and out orientum and how we were celebrating this and you know I thought it was kind of like well you know the students don't necessarily you know not all of them like versus poplums or like out orientum and so we'll do versus poplum sometimes and they just came up to me like I'm blocked they just all of them saying Father we don't want you to celebrate versus poplum anymore and I was like oh okay you know like that's fine and so you know those types of things and you know they'll come to me and they'll say hey Father you know what if what if we did this can we do this can we do that and all right yeah this is beautiful that these young people believe and desire reverence and the liturgy and the liturgy to be focused on God and their whole lives to be focused on God so that's beautiful that's really beautiful very encouraging Dr. Tresoncos I think it is precisely the thing the science the more that people start to learn about science the more they're compelled I think like I was I believe to admit that there's there's something beyond science there's recently I kind of found this funny and frustrating at the same time the former chair for almost a decade of the astronomy department at Harvard University who's also on the president council of advisors on science and technology he's written a new piece in in Scientific American about his idea that the universe is created in a laboratory by some better scientists than any of us by an advanced civilization through quantum tunneling you know and I'm like get over it already like would you just admit it's God like it's great that you concluded as an astronomer at Harvard that there must be some really intelligent designer of the universe but you know Regenesis 1-1 we've been saying that for a long time but things like that while they're frustrating they also give me hope it's like thank you for admitting the obvious you're a little late to climb this mountain you know and the other astronomer Robert Jastrow say that that the scientists are going to scale the mountain of their knowledge only to find a band of theologians sitting there what saying what took you so long so so I think the more we know about science the more people are going to find God that's fantastic all wonderful answers we have a few questions from our viewing audience today first one is what is the best way to bring things to bring back talks at parishes that we begin to receive the Eucharist meal and on the tongue your excellency goes to you I think well I guess my approach to that is again to emphasize the reverence and to support those who through their journey to a deeper reverence come to that conclusion the the church presently allows receiving in the hand standing in the hand kneeling I mean there there are various ways that the church says yes this is this is up to personal choice the and I think that this really emphasizes to me why we need to emphasize the reverence and that's what I've encouraged in the diocese here I I really appreciate the reverence that people have that that makes them conclude they want to kneel and they want to receive on the tongue but I think we have to also recognize because I see it I'm sure Father George does you can tell that people are receiving the Lord and they truly believe and they know that they are receiving the body and blood soul and divinity of Christ to me that's the main thing yes how we comport our bodies is important but the main thing is is about the reverence I remember a man who is now deceased but I saw frequently he would receive in the hand but he actually the first time he did it I was you know I wasn't sure but he would actually stand there for several moments gazing at the host in his hand so to me that reverence and certainly everyone has a different approach but I would I guess my own personal opinion is not so much to say well everyone needs to kneel everyone's needs to receive on the tongue but to say yes let us seek a deeper reverence and for myself as a bishop and for all of us as priests or deacons those who are ordained to offer the Eucharist to others to to allow those different forms of reverence I know during the pandemic some places said you can't receive on the tongue I always said the church says you may receive in the hand or on the tongue and so I said either was still available to the people I think sometimes what gets lost in in all of that discussion is focusing on who you're receiving and reverence for him and respecting each other when that draws you us to a certain conclusion of then this because I know Christ is there really there and I want to be as deeply reverent as I can then to give each other the benefit of a doubt that maybe some will choose I mean to receive on the tongue others will receive choose to receive on the hand kneeling or standing but reverence again to me is is the main thing the father Elliott would you add anything to that yeah I think just to do what Bishop Strickland was saying is really focusing on the Eucharist and then I also think an important one is is clarity of teaching that you know most people don't really understand you know when when is the Eucharist no longer the Eucharist you know to teach about that even in any particle that's visible by by the naked eye that that is that's still the Eucharist and Jesus's body blood soul and divinity is present there and kind of teaching them about that can really increase reverence in the way that people handle the Eucharist which I think in regard to receiving on the hands and receiving on the tongue that's the real kind of touch point there and so making sure that people clearly understand what we believe about the Eucharist and then making sure that we're really focusing on responding to the Eucharist based on what we believe with real reverence and then in my own communities here I've recognized that you know just people kind of automatically start receiving kneeling and on the tongue when when those two have been taught clearly without really anybody forcing anything it's beautiful reverence always the key well that is going to do it today for this tan talk again here it is behold it is I scripture tradition and science on the real presence you can find it at tanbooks.com and we have a winner we have Kathleen Hayden you have won your own copy of behold it is I congratulations if you are not Kathleen Hayden you can go to tanbooks.com right now add behold it is I to your cart and put in tan talks 15 that is the coupon code to get 15% off your purchase of this incredible book if you have any questions please email us at talks at tanbooks.com starting next month tan books no tan talks will have a new name the tan round table we'll be bringing guests alongside our authors to discuss some of the most pressing topics and themes concerning our church and the world so join us next month February 10th at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for authors D.L. Hudson and Dr. Paul Kangor alongside sister Deirdre Byrne also known as sister DD as they discuss a deal and matchlapse new book the desecraters defending no defeating defeating the cancel culture mob and reclaiming one nation under God they'll be discussing current desecration in the USA and in the church that's sure to be another incredible discussion before we go Bishop Strickland would you kindly give us your blessing to us and to our viewers today Almighty God we ask your blessing for everyone participating in this opportunity to discuss the wondrous gift of your son and the wondrous gift that he is really present with us help us all to seek to grow to know him more deeply and to reverence him more fully in our lives and to call others by our model and our participation in faith to recognize the same truth in their lives may the Lord guide and bless us and may all the saints intercede for us especially the Immaculate Virgin Mary and we ask this in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen thank you your excellency thank you to all our guests here thank you Dr. Trisankas and Father Elliott many thanks to all of our viewers for joining us take care God bless we'll see you back in February