What Do You Seek? Dr. Edward Sri on Getting Deeper into the Gospel

Father Dave welcomes back theologian, Catholic speaker and author, and friend of the show Dr. Edward Sri to discuss his new book “What Do You Seek?: Encountering The Heart Of The Gospel.” 

Dr. Sri explains how the book emphasizes the good news of the Gospel and is designed to help us think about the mysteries of God’s love for us so that we can deepen our relationship with Christ.  

The book breaks down the Gospel into five parts which Dr. Sri calls (The 5 R’s): relationship, rebellion, reconciliation, recreation and response.

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“Relationship is really the fundamental building block of being a Catholic,” Father Dave says.  “Many Catholics today have this approach to their faith where they think, I know a lot of the facts and I do a lot of the pious practices. “I pray, I read the Bible, I listen to the Busted Halo Show.  These are all good things,” Dr. Sri responds. “But sometimes we can look at these things as checking off a bunch of boxes, right? And God doesn't want us to check off boxes, he wants our hearts, he wants us to trust him, he wants a relationship.” He continues, “Think about all that God has created — the universe, earth, millions of people — then he chose to create you. God didn’t have to bring you into existence.  God freely chose to bring you, not just humanity, but you personally into existence. Why? Because he wanted to delight in you and to share his love with you and to share his life with you. And that's the marvelous message of the Gospel.”

Father Dave moves onto the second part of the book, rebellion. “We have to be realistic about the fact that we, as humans, turn our backs on God's love a lot.”

Dr. Sri points out that we all realize that there is suffering, alienation, and great hardship in the world and that the secular world tends to project these problems outward, whereas Christians turn inward and acknowledge that we are part of the problem. “This is what the Church calls Original Sin, the idea that that humanity as a whole has sinned, and we each individually have joined in that and that's caused a wound in us. We have to admit, I'm not perfect. I have a lot of weaknesses and sins and that prepares me to experience the good news, the Gospel.”

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Father Dave skips ahead to one of his favorite parts of the book, recreation. “God doesn’t just reconcile us,” Father Dave says, “God promises to make all things new.”

Dr. Sri responds: “As Pope Francis beautifully says, ‘God doesn't just pardon us like a judge. He heals us like a physician.’ That means Jesus wants to fill his Spirit in our hearts to change us. There's a beautiful analogy the early Christians use. If you take an iron rod and you put it in fire, it becomes red, it becomes hot and it takes on the characteristics of the fire. The early Christians describe that as what happens with our soul. Our soul is like that cold iron rod, but when it's inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, through the sacraments and prayer, then we begin to change, we begin to take on the properties of God Himself. We begin to love like him, to serve like him, to sacrifice, and to trust. We live in his peace. We are more forgiving. We love like Jesus loves, and that's what we want.”