(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s two-part episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, Bishop Joseph Strickland discusses following Christ instead of worrying about worldly problems, his message to Synod participants, keeping focused on the Heavenly Kingdom, sticking with the Holy Rosary and more. 

Bishop Strickland begins the episode by discussing his open letter to participants in the Synod on Synodality. Strickland explained that he wrote the letter as a continuation of multiple letters he wrote during last year’s portion of the Synod, which addressed various issues being discussed at that time. In his latest letter, Strickland urges participants not to allow anything to diminish, change, or dilute the deposit of faith. 

“[B]asically just be Catholic, be with Christ and His Church… I’d just ask them to just be clearly Catholic. We’ve got Catechism, Magisterium, [the] Word of God. All of that basically gives us clear answers to what they’re discussing,” Strickland said. 

Strickland added that the participants should discuss how to spread the truth of the Catholic faith into the hearts and minds of more people. “But it seems that they’re saying, ‘Well, what do we need to change so that more people will embrace it?’ And I hate to tell them if you’re changing and diluting the message, fewer and fewer people are going to embrace it until it becomes meaningless,” he added. 

Host Terry Barber jumped in to say that there exists empirical evidence that this approach of diluting the Catholic message to attract people has had a devastating impact on the number of faithful in the past 50 years. 

Before reading his letter, Strickland offered commentary on Luke 10:38-42, in which Our Lord visits Martha and Mary. In this passage, Martha is more concerned with getting household chores done than following Christ more deeply like her sister Mary does. Strickland emphasized that this is one of the most critical Gospel passages for our time because the world is like Martha, worried and preoccupied with temporal things. “We priests and bishops… we need to keep trying to listen to what Christ says, ‘Mary has chosen the better part,’ What is that better part? To be at His side at the Lord’s feet, listening to Him speak. That’s where the Church needs to be,” Strickland said. 

Tying this Gospel back to the Synod, Strickland said it would be more effective if the clergy took a month-long retreat to get to know Christ more deeply instead of discussing how to water-down or change His message. “The Martha approach is overwhelming the bark of Peter; it’s all about the Martha approach. Busy, worried, and anxious about many things: ‘Oh, we’ve got to fix this world.’ Instead of coming to hear Jesus Christ more and more deeply.” Strickland underscored how tragic it is that so many clerics are taking the “Martha approach” instead of following and bringing Christ to the world. “We’re ordained to bring Him, not to bring our opinions, not some consensus of the group, but to bring Jesus Christ,” said Strickland, adding that he believes he was removed from his diocese of Tyler, Texas, because he was attempting to live this Gospel better. 

The bishop spent the rest of part 1 reading his open letter to the Synod participants. 

Bishop Strickland begins part 2 of the episode by offering commentary on Luke 11:1-4, in which Our Lord teaches the Apostles to pray. Strickland highlighted that asking Christ to teach them to pray was one of the most brilliant questions His Disciples asked Him, and it shows that His example of frequent prayer affected them.  

“[J]esus Christ, this man, walking with His disciples, but also God’s eternal Son. To be in His presence when He’s praying with His Father must have been a tremendous experience; [it] must have been amazing and just overwhelming to see Jesus at prayer. So, it’s natural [for them] to say, ‘Teach us how to do this.’” 

Reflecting on the actual prayer Our Lord taught them, a shorter version of the Our Father, Strickland focused on the phrase, “Your Kingdom come,” and emphasized that this is one of the most important phrases we pray because we need to be reminded that just as Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, we’re called not to let this world be our kingdom. “[J]esus tells us ‘Hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come,’ not our kingdom come.” Strickland reminded listeners what led Judas Iscariot so far off the path of Christ was that he was focused on the kingdom of this world, as was Martha in part 1’s Gospel reading.  

“[W]e’re called to the Kingdom of God. That doesn’t discount the significance of this journey; we journey through this life as Our Lord Jesus Christ did. He didn’t just go straight back to the kingdom of His Father; that was His ultimate destiny. He journeyed through this life, showing us how we should journey through this life, seeking the Kingdom of the Father.” 

Strickland noted that this Gospel reminds him of when Our Lord says, “Call no one Father,” which Protestants often interpret to mean priests can’t be called “Father” because they’re not Christ. However, Strickland stressed that what Jesus was really saying was not to make false idols of men, worshipping them like gods. He pointed to Sacred Scripture, where the Israelites frequently turned to idols and the emperors of Rome who wanted to be worshipped like gods.  

“What Jesus is really getting at is there’s only one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as we pray the Our Father, and we say, ‘Our Father who art in Heaven,’ we need to remember all that surrounds that and be careful because… when we sin, in a way, we’re saying someone else is father of us or something else a lot of times, is more important than God the Father… Thankfully, we can always repent, and God in His mercy will always forgive us, but we need to repent and say, ‘Father, forgive me.’ And He sent His son so that we could know His forgiveness. But we need to very clearly embrace that, and that’s what this Gospel tells us to do.” 

Later in part 2, Barber asked Strickland about the importance of the Holy Rosary. Strickland first noted that his family didn’t pray the rosary together when he was growing up but urged all families to do so as often as possible and start small by perhaps committing to praying one decade together. Strickland then compared praying to exercise, highlighting that it’s easy to give up on physical and spiritual exercises and then make excuses for it.

But “[I]f you’re really working hard when you stick with it, when you say, ‘Okay, I’m going to run three miles,’ and you run until you finish that three-mile run, there’s no feeling like it… And I would say the same thing for people who are trying to pray the rosary and get distracted or whatever: just keep at it, and you’ll feel good about getting it done. I mean spiritually, but also just like getting a run done to stick with something, to stick with a commitment; it’s good for us.” 

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.