215. A Talk with Father Kelly on Magdala
Episode Notes
We sit down with Father Eamon Kelly the Priest in charge of Magdala in Israel to get his perspective on the Holy land and the Importance of the site.
His daily devotion: Sunrise Stroll & Chat - www.facebook.com/freamonkellylc
The website for the Center - onestepcloser.org
To Purchase our cigar line go to: 1689cigars.com/collections/4-freedom-cigars
Our Experience Box: 1689cigars.com/collections/4-freedom-cigars/products/the-4-freedom-experience-box
To purchase James New Book "From Brokenness to Freedom" a.co/d/c7UX3xT
For more info visit our website: 4freedompodcast.com
For Merch visit this site: www.teepublic.com/user/freedom-ministries?utm_source=designer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Gq_E0abDp_8
Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Theme
For freedom, he set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released.
Welcome to the 4-Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues.
I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code.
Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math.
So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting.
For freedom, he set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released.
For freedom, he set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified,
released. Let grace begin. For freedom, he set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. I'm puffing peace, I'm张 Ibrahim Savard. and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the podcast.
We are so excited to have Father Eamon Kelly here with us and he is in Magdala in Israel and me and Brett, we got to meet him and we were so excited about lining up this interview to be
able to share his story and what he's doing there in Israel and how it can be an encouragement to you.
Welcome to the show, Father Kelly. Will you share your background, your calling into the priesthood and what led you to serve in the Holy Land? Give us the intro to that. Thank you so much, James, for having me on the show with you guys and Brett.
I missed part of it. I was taking up my head to see out there touring. No worries. Yeah.
Well, I was raised on a farm in the west of Ireland milking cows and shearing sheep and castrating calves.
You can cut that piece out if you need to. And I was delighted to be there. We were, we didn't have electricity and we didn't have a telephone and that wasn't by choice as much as by the fortune of where we were. And in a way we didn't miss it. It was interesting
when we needed to get a vet for a car or something.
Childhood Memories and Education
They gave me a six penny piece and I ride my bicycle for three and a half, almost four miles to the Noctans to make a phone call from there. And she dialed on the phone
and then the post office answered and then said, connect me to the number in Kinbarra for the vet. An hour or two hours later, the vet showed up. And so that was, that was the life in the farm making butter at home.
And then I was blessed to be raised in there, to be born into a family that practiced the faith,
practiced in the sense of believing and also believing in God and praying in the family.
And we didn't miss church on Sunday unless there was somebody really sick. We cycled three and a half miles to church when we were little. And we to school also.
So I was held back for a year until I was able to, until my little sister, my next sister was,
she was five and a half, I was six and a half and we cycled three and a half miles to school. So that in itself through the nature and the rain and the wind, we didn't have much snow. The second year we were in school, there was a huge freeze over
and I remember we had to break ice on a little, small little seasonal lake we had in order for the cows to get water.
And it was that kind of life on the farm. So we didn't go to school that month when there was that total freeze over and that was unusual.
And all the memories of the neighbors, the nearest neighbors were almost a mile away. So I mean, daddy never said, be quiet, the neighbors will hear you. It was countryside and we didn't have a tractor or a car. We had a donkey,
an old horse that was kind of lazy and there in the countryside growing up and we were blessed with a larger size farm, lots of cows and calves and sheep and lambs and a little bit of tillage. The land was very rocky,
a little bit like what you see in the back of the picture here in Mount Arbel. It's a limestone formation.
That's what we had but we were living more on the flat land with limestone and we did have hills behind us, more or less the size of Mount Arbel. and so we, it was just a marvelous way to begin growing up and then went to school,
grade school, high school, in high school it was quite demanding and I wanted to quit after three years in high school to be a farmer and that's a whole other story. We could talk about that at length but the course of the set of circumstances that would need more time to recount
I decided to go back to high school instead of staying at home working with my dad on the farm. I would inherit the farm and I wouldn't be here talking to you now
and then, so I went and finished high school and in the course of that I really got fell in love with physics and sciences and math and that was my big, big hobby.
I still helped out a lot on the farm but there was a lot of school work to do. My sister and I were in the same class since we had started out that early together and she's now a doctor
and so she was also very academically motivated and that was an environment then of great mutual stimulation and so the environment was also healthy in our time.
You know, we had a three-day retreat in the school and there was a visiting priest came to do the retreat and some of the bad boys were out in the shed and they smoked a cigarette in the bicycle shed but most everybody of 240 boys kept silence in
the school. It was amazing. You know, it wasn't forced. It was enforced in a way but it wasn't
pressurized. It was people wanted also that we were motivated to pray and at least a lot of the people, I think and then priest showed up in the school once and I still remember that. It was September 1973
and was our beginning of our last year of high school and he was from Mexico and he spoke about a personal, passionate love for Jesus. He spoke about winning the world for Christ and he spoke about
studies to be able to speak to a world that didn't want to hear about God but it was very agnostic, materialistic, atheism was very strong in the Western world at that time
and I just thought wow, I wanted to study physics maybe this is the way to get into a top physics university and I just put down sending me more information
but it's funny when years later I was telling this story to two of my sisters, my next two sisters that I have a brother and then a little sister there were five of us and my second sister piped up and she said I remember that evening very much
and you never stopped talking about this Mexican priest you were turned on so somehow the Lord had hooked me for this vocation to leave everything and follow Christ with no other expectation than Christ himself which is the greatest expectation
and then the year went by the academic studies and there's a lot of other little pieces to tell the story there we'll skip over that for now and so then the summer came around I finished the exams we
did a second set of exams some of us for a better ranking to get into universities
and I had a place for the university to study physics and everything but my decision was made I was going to be a priest
Formation and Early Ministry
and so I joined the novitiate in Dublin two years of a little bit like Paul going into Arabia after his conversion to soak up the great gift he had received the grace he had received to do that complete reorientation of his mind from persecuting Christians to be such a great apostle for Jesus
after two years we make our vows poverty not to own anything chastity to dedicate our heart consecrated completely to the love of Christ in his church and then
obedience which is the toughest one because that's concerning our will to lay down our will to do whatever the church wants me to do whatever position whatever ministry I've been required to do and then to follow Christ who is obedient unto death for our salvation
and so that's the logic of that and living in a community and so that those two years were about getting into that new mentality
and then following that I was studied a year in Salamanca in Spain humanities especially Latin and Greek which I already had Latin in high school and then classical Greek and then
also rhetoric and writing for this preparing the mind and the abilities the talents for ministry
and then also learning Italian to be ready to go to study in Rome and there I was I did a degree in philosophy and then I was sent to Michigan and I was in youth ministry in Michigan and teaching religion in a high school freshman
sophomores and the feeder schools also doing programs for the younger kids junior high kids and then I was four years in that it was supposed to be three originally but the circumstance made it four and then I was asked to do another job to look for some funds for the seminaries and for
the work we were doing with the Maya Indians in southern Mexico
and so I was an extra year there so I had five years down in the States then I was sent back to
that was all over the country then I went to Rome to do my theology and I was ordained a priest in 1987 so that's 38 years ago last Christmas wow so now I'm 52 years in the congregation in the community and living my life for Christ never got a paycheck
from me we live a shared life and where everybody has everything in common
and it's a great way even this like this shirt nobody is going to use it but I don't own it
so it's for my use for my ministry and the only thing I own is actually a cross a crucifix to remember what Jesus did the love he had for me that's the only possession I have on this earth I have a lot of books and nobody's going to use my underwear
but it's just it's like keep training the mind to be in love with Christ so this is
first of all my path and then I was assigned after my ordination actually to the US but there were some issues with the visa getting it all processed and I'm kind of a restless guy so I ended up starting our work in Central Europe and I was in Austria Germany Austria and Hungary
doing a lot of work all over that area region Central Europe when communism fell down broke down and so I was going from Amsterdam to Budapest in Hungary and I even organized a group of kids from Moscow to Rome for a pilgrimage
and so it was an incredible time also in Europe there was a whole new springtime of liberty and also a huge challenge to spread the gospel because Europe has been very developed and also sometimes very far away from
Jesus in certain aspects of the life and the culture and then the next thing that happened was I was called back back to the US
and then I was in New York that was my base headquarters and I used to hear confessions in the Twin Towers so I knew a lot of people in 9-11 I was three days on the streets with people in New York in Manhattan it was an incredible it was an amazing experience
you know you have such diversity in a place like Manhattan so many extreme so many different types of populations and that those days you could say that everybody was a brother of everybody else and a sister of everybody
else it was just like a leveling moment you know you have Shakespeare was it Shakespeare who wrote the sonnet about death the leveler
maybe it wasn't Shakespeare who was it we did that one in high school and that event of 9-11 was a leveler everybody was in the same boat
and it was an amazing we could do a podcast just about that and then the next thing that happened I was assigned to youth work in the Ohio Valley through adult ministry for youth work and I was chaplain at Northern Kentucky University and my boss was a Baptist pastor why?
because he was the long-standing pastor there and I was new and there were about six or eight different types of pastors there and so he was the coordinator of our team also in relation to getting interest pushed with the administration of the university and so on
and then I was called to come here to the Holy Land in 2006 and I probably got the assignment 20 years ago in May
and the Hezbollah war broke out in July so they said don't come there's nothing to do there are no pilgrims stay there do something useful and then I got assigned to a parish in Phoenix just outside of Phoenix
Experiences in the Holy Land
in Queen Creek so I told people I was up the creek with many paddles
and I was there until January and I got here in January 2007 and the Phoenix experience was a marvelous experience because I had never done parish ministry and I work obviously with a lot of priests who come here for renewal for retreat and it's good to have that experience
and also the experience of living in the desert of the saguaro cactus out in Arizona hiking in the desert numerously every week it was just absolutely an amazing delightful
it just opened up a whole other world that I wasn't familiar with so then why was I called to the Holy Land because our community was entrusted with the major responsibility
for a guest house in Jerusalem which the Vatican had stepped in to fill a gap in administration and they needed somebody to do this so our community was assigned to that role as a third generation of responsibility for
that and then I was popped into that position and they asked me to do it and there I was in Jerusalem learning this 20 years ago almost 19 years ago this past January and learning this whole milieu
and getting familiar with it and being totally surprised I'd often drink maybe sometime when I'd be 25 years or a day and I'd get to come here
for a week to have a pilgrimage you know I ended up being here already a number of years the next time I got my 25th anniversary so it's amazing how providence works in our lives just what Jesus said you know
Peter said to him we've given up everything for you what do we get and he said a hundred fold in this life and eternal life and the life to come and I can honestly say that I have experienced that goodness of God that generosity of God that absolute
delightful company and that doesn't mean that there were no problems or difficulties or even today challenges the biggest challenges are sometimes inside our own selves struggling wrestling with things
and there can also be difficulties in the environment and even in the community different issues that have to be dealt with that aren't easy you'd prefer that it doesn't exist but that's part of where God is also molding us and shaping us and forming us in all of these challenges
so here I am talking to you today talking to some Baptists that's amazing isn't it Kathy Priest talking to Baptists I love it it's great well Father Kelly I'll tell you
your presentation your talk with our group was many people's favorite part of our trip I know it was like right up there at the top of my list we thank you for taking the time with us my favorite
favorite part was whenever you got on my wife for talking I was like I was like yeah get her brother get her
I didn't understand what you're saying there you got on to my wife for talking and I was like yes get her
you said I'll start talking when you get done because what you're saying is more important than me and I was like yes get her she needs it I said with a small little bit of nuance there was a
little bit more finesse now the way you're reporting it Brett I hope now ladies are listening to that the way you I always say that I love to hear the marvelous things the others are saying and I wouldn't
like to miss them so I won't be talking while they're speaking but if they ever notice that I am not speaking it's because
people like your wife have very important things to say and I wouldn't want to miss that for the world or the other people exactly
the gentle form for you rebuking reproving and correcting no no no no no I was expressing my extreme appreciation and admiration for such incredibly profound thought that was so valuable to the whole group yes yes I love it
well amen well let me ask you what what drew you into Magdala to working on the Sea of Galilee what does that mean to you how does that how has that journey evolved over the years thank you Brash by the way
when it's necessary I can also give a public apology to your wife even here on the on the on this program nah not needed
so we honor women here in Magdala in a very special way because of Magdala Mary Magdala so it's one of our priority program points that women here are treasured their front and center and this is important because without
a woman we wouldn't be here without my mom without my grandma and two grandmas my dad's mother passed away when he was two years old so I never knew her but still I owe her so much
and my dad doesn't remember anything because she died in the great flu of 1918 1919 he was two years old and so you know it's amazing what women have done in our lives and then my three sisters they're amazing amazing amazing people and so
it's it's a great gift so we're very happy to put women front and center in Magdala
it's God put us here and this is this is a great deal tell me your question again I got off track
what drew you to Magdala and working on the Sea of Galilee and how has that evolved over the years well it was a bus that drew me but not like a tractor and a trailer I was sitting up on it so
so I was 10 years working in Jerusalem officially the vice director of Notre Dame Jerusalem guest center maybe some of your listeners have had a meal up on the rooftop restaurant to view out over the city of Jerusalem
Significance of Magdala
a magnificent place with a lot of history a lot of wonderful service there but the whole time I was also working on this project together with Father Juan Solana who was spearheading it
and then at some point I will tell you the exact story I often did a lot of trips especially to the US to rouse awareness and support for Magdala
and at one point about 10 years ago there was this consultant who came by and he said you know you guys I'm watching what you're doing but I think why are you going around the world to drive up
support when you're already getting thousands here every month and nobody's talking to them so then I stopped flying around the US and it was a time for a rethink how we're going to be here so I started living
here because of that to take care of all the surge of pilgrims that were coming here to meet them to encounter them to guide them here to be available for them when they come to answer their questions to
give them encouragement all the work with pilgrims as you go along you know
love it that was the main thing that brought me here if that is helpful so maybe the question also begs another question earlier previous questions why did we end up in Magdala as a community and that question is
connected to the we were first of all our community was kind of they twisted our arm to come to do this because it wasn't our line of service we're very much into long-term accompaniment of people developing their talent to be great
ambassadors of Christ in the world wherever they are in the workplace at home the family in the community
and we figured that just being with people for a week in the pilgrims in the holy land was just too short a time for doing continuous work but then when we were kind of pressured into here and that
great principle of obedience you know our church superior said we need you to come and help so our community said yes
then they sent me a letter and said you come and help okay I come and help and then here you know through different voices like even that consultant
important moment because he brought clarity to the discernment that we needed to make at this new moment of development so when we got to Jerusalem first it was just Notre Dame but then it was very quickly to learn
that the Galilee was super important for pilgrims and right now you're looking out at Galilee here behind me
this is Mount Arbel and this over here is the Sea of Galilee that blue there in the background that's the Sea of Galilee and actually Magdalene is right behind my head there if you cut a hole through that
stone would be Magdalene and so we realized that we needed to be here because this is where Jesus spent his public life
Nazareth is only 20 minutes by car if there's no traffic from here and that's where Jesus spent 30 years of his life and that's where the Annunciation happened the angel Gabriel comes and asks that little teenage girl hey
do you want to be the mother of the Son of God you know big deal and then this is Cana is here and Capernaum is here the core of Jesus' life so we realized very soon that we needed
to come here and then the concept of Notre Dame is very interesting because everybody goes to Notre Dame and so all the Christian spectrum goes there and it's a wonderful place historically it's about 140 years old now
and then even Muslims and Jews go there and all the Christians so then we figured maybe the concept we could do in Galilee was to develop a place that would be open to everybody
and especially to all the Christians to stay here and then when we started to develop Magla we found a synagogue from the time of Jesus
so now we had something extraordinary treasure for the Jewish people that turns out to be an extraordinary treasure for us Christians
those who follow Jesus those who have a connection to Jesus so this became then a kind of a bridge and then all the workers here it's amazing it's like a cross-section of workers
we have Arab and Jewish Israelis working here and the Arabs break down into Druze which is a different religion than Islam Muslim workers and Christian Arabs who are Israeli citizens
and thanks and we have Jewish people working here and atheists and agnostics as well and so there
there's a marvelous spirit here living together and working together and that in itself is a wonderful testimony this type of community that's living for a higher ideal
I love it so why did I why did we come here then well because of we had this idea to develop this center then the Lord blessed it with so many things that we could never have imagined so
it's clear that the Lord had this plan at the end of the day you say why did I come to Maglauil?
because the Lord wanted it but not because he sent me a whatsapp message or a fax or an email but just through the providential development and discernment of our service here how we could best serve the pilgrims who come to know Jesus better to walk in Jesus' footsteps
to be there where he taught this is why we follow these steps and so in a certain sense we didn't plan them
they're God's providence in our lives like what happens when a couple gets married and they didn't plan that the child would be this way or that way you don't tell when the child is in the womb that's going
to go to Harvard or MIT or become a carpenter there's so much you wait for providence to unfold in your lives it's like a little plant growing and then it flowers and then it bears fruit more process of ripening so in that sense it's like life itself you know that's great so Maglauil
an ancient city an ancient place we know it's in scripture
in two different locations in Matthew 15 and in Mark I believe it's Mark 5 Mark 8 it is and it's recorded in history Josephus Flavius talks about Magdala but for years you know we didn't know where it was
at until just a couple of decades ago how do you explain the historical the spiritual importance to someone who's never been here how do you begin to say listen this is where Jesus was at we know he came
here Mary Magdalene's from here he went to all the the region and taught in the synagogues all across the region of Galilee but people have never been there and the vast majority of probably our listeners may never get
a chance to go there how do we talk about the importance of Magdala in that sense
well in a way it's important and it's a way in a way it's like shooting myself in the foot it's not that important you know you say how do you explain colors to a blind man
like the difference between red and green and turquoise and yellow and gray you know what's the guy imagining he can't even tell us what he's imagining because we don't know how he's interpreting those realities so and a blind
man can still be a great saint a great scholar a great human being who does a lot of good because he's missing one little thing so in one sense
I would just put things into perspective the most important thing is that we learn to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and all our mind and then if we're blessed with
the grace of knowing Jesus then to follow Jesus to love him and we can do that anywhere every time every day everywhere with every person and this is really the core stuff
so then to come to the Holy Land has great value I think Americans could relate to going to the Super Bowl
or to the Hall of Fame for football would even be better and then you go through all the history or you go to the home of Abraham Lincoln
or George Washington or Martin Luther King or you know you say wow and you ponder their life and they have great significance for the history of the US but then you come to and going to the place where Jesus was walking around
where he called the first disciples where Mary Magdalene had a lot of issues you know seven demons is a big big big topic and she's delivered and she becomes the first witness of the resurrection
Mary Magdalene's Role
and this is the reason why we emphasize Magdalene so much in the women's part of Magdalene she is she's related here the first witness of Jesus risen from the dead and he sent her to go to the other
apostles and the word to send in Greek is apostolein and somebody who is sent an emissary an ambassador is called apostolos in masculine and apostola in feminine so
Jesus sends her the breaking news have you ever heard of breaking news that morning that was the ultimate breaking news for humanity there was no breaking news ever like that that he rose from the dead maybe the other one that would match it would be Pentecost
maybe also the angel Gabriel telling Mary she's going to be the son but the mother her son is going to be the eternal word of God the son of God you know that's breaking news this is the center
of history man so then you come here and okay you get excited as Americans maybe going to something historical the statue of liberty or those places that were so meaningful for so many families arriving from poverty to the shores of America
and they get checked in in Long Island at some big office place there for immigrants and so the great grandchildren go back and check it out but to come here and say wow 2000 years ago you know that
today we're now 26 so in 7 years we'll be celebrating the 2nd millennium of Jesus' work of salvation
and you know 2000 years I remember this morning I was sharing with a group here about a coin we have near the Magdalene stone maybe I did that for you guys and the coin was minted in the year
29 and you asked them who was alive in the year 29 and the coin is written
Tiberias Tiberias Tiberias Tiberias is 4 miles from here just south of us and then
the other part on the other side of the coin is written Herod the Tetrarch so Tiberias and Herod the Tetrarch and who was alive at that time and you're here for all of that John the Baptist and he clips off his head you know you're here where all this this story unfolds
you're here where Jesus calls all of his disciples where he's walking across Galilee crisscrossing Galilee the whole time and you know the teachings are very important in the gospel all the words but actually you have to also ponder what's going on while
he's teaching no sorry while he's walking and there's one story that I love to tell did you see the mosaic map we have here with 1.6 million stones it's a big circle in the just between the Duke
and Altum and the restaurant we're building and it's maybe you didn't get to see it because there's so much to see and if you have an hour you don't get to see it all
well in this map we also have it extended beyond Galilee up to Tyre and Sidon in Lebanon and we have it extended to pointing towards Jerusalem to the
Golanitis which is the Golan today to Decapolis which is down as far as Philadelphia it doesn't do it all just a piece of it and it says in the gospel that Jesus remember the time the lady with the crumbs under the table her daughter she wanted healed or liberated
and it says in three or four words Jesus went from there and his next moment is in the Decapolis and he has to cross all across Lebanon all across Galilee down into the Decapolis who knows how far down
and there's no more nothing more is said about that but what happened in that trip in terms of
contacts between the disciples fights they had tensions they had and just watching Jesus the way he was keeping his calm and then they were being transformed it's like kids you know on a trip three day trip across America
with the kids and they're fighting in the back of the car and when are we going to get there
that whole that whole that's formational for the kids they have to learn patience they have to learn to survive in moments that are uncomfortable that we like to get out of the car no we just have to keep
driving for another three hours you know it's the practical daily life and to come here and to realize this is where all this happened
the disciples get up in the morning they can't find Jesus they're out in the hills looking for him because they realize that he looks for a lonely place to pray and now they're out there and we're walking those
places here you know you're touching it you're seeing it not much changed here in the topography since Jesus' time this mountain didn't change much maybe there was a bit more eroded
with the rains and the storms but it's basically the same mountain Jesus saw what you're looking at right behind my head there the Sea of Galilee didn't move
the Mount of Olives didn't move in Jerusalem so it's it's a big deal yeah in the excavation in Magdala the the First Stitcher synagogue that's there where the Magdala stone is at and the Magdala stone I think that's
important as well how did those two things shape the site and shape the importance of this region you had told a story while we were there about
I think it was some philosopher that said you know there were no synagogues there was no such thing as a synagogue and then now we have 12 of them so share that a little bit and then
Brett's going to transition to another talk about Mary Magdalene a little bit sure sure so the the discovery of the synagogue was very important because
we actually in that place had planned a chapel where we could have be shared by all Christians you know the goodwill attitude so any Christian group could come and have a place to pray open hospitality there for chapel hospitality right
and that's where we found the synagogue so let's say we have goodwill and we're listening to Jesus' prayer at the last supper may they all be one father as you and I are one so the world will believe that's that's wonderful
and it's a fantastic motivation as Jesus' living word is pushing it to today but then we come and we find a synagogue from the time of Jesus and a lot of guides say that Jesus was in the synagogue I never say that because we lost all the videos
but then the probability is huge Jesus walks through this area he teaches in the synagogues in every Shabbat we found a second synagogue 163 170 yards away from this synagogue so we have two synagogues which are contemporary from the first century before temple destruction in
Galilee so until the 1990s as you were mentioning James there was a theory by a bunch of professors that there were no such things as synagogues until after temple destruction now if there are no synagogues until after temple
destruction that raises a huge credibility question about the gospel because the gospel claims that Jesus taught in synagogues every Shabbat every Saturday and healed the sick there and then by the time we found ours ours was number seven
and now there are twelve at least which are recognized by the Israeli antiquities authority as synagogues and their pre-temple destruction
they're first century synagogues and so this is a pretty significant discovery because when you see these kind of facts you can't argue against it so the synagogues did exist and then another thing is our synagogue is very beautiful
by the way when is the first time in your life James that you ever heard a Catholic priest saying our synagogue never think about it
and now if you meet some Jewish folks on the street there in North Carolina and you get talking you may have a coffee together or something a nice conversation and then you say oh by the way I was in Galilee recently oh by the way hey Mr.
Jewish person have you seen our synagogue you know this this changes the conversation and the Jewish guy looks at you and say what do you mean you're a Baptist you're a Christian what's going on here and it starts the whole conversation about shared spaces
there's no question about that our synagogue is one of the greatest treasures that has been uncovered recently of Jewish culture Jewish history but on the other hand it's also a treasure for us because Jesus spoke and healed the
sick in the synagogues of Galilee that's extraordinary and to be able to
have to witness that to be there just look in the seats there to think you're sitting down in the synagogue and your family is there with you and maybe Jesus just came into the synagogue and there he is teaching and then little by little he's engaging all the people there eye contact
and then the next moment you realize he's looking at your eyes and you're looking into Jesus' eyes for the first time in your life and maybe you notice a question arising in your heart
and you know the question is coming from Jesus and then the question simply is what would you like me to do for you now
so the very fact of having a first century synagogue on site which is very unusual did you guys stay here with us or did you just come to visit
we just came and visited yeah we have many baptist groups staying here for two or three days and then let's say they have a little insomnia because of jet lag or whatever they take their bible they go down they go down beside the synagogue and they open their bible and pray a psalm right there
where you know where people were there 2000 years ago
so there's a there's a gift in that there's a gift that a lot of people are plagued in our culture by a type of skepticism culture of doubt
questioning and it's okay to question and it's okay to have doubts and you can be skeptical but when you come here to the holy line you say wow this sea of galilee you put your finger in it gets wet it's real it's not plastic it's not painted
it's for really this the volume of the sea of galilee the space it occupies that's for real
capernaum has archaeology for real this synagogue is for real there are houses there are fish processing infrastructure according to the theory of the archaeologists we've discovered ritual bats that we've discovered this is a village this is like almost
a city and this is a where real people came in and out doorways that are still there today at thresholds
and colors painted on the wall somebody painted that mosaics on the floor in the synagogue somebody did that so it becomes like you're in the living room of the people of 2000 years ago their community living room that's
their synagogue that's where they're studying torah that's where jesus went on saturdays on sabbath to teach the word of god to proclaim the kingdom is near
the kingdom is among us it's here it's already started the king is here so if the king is here the king is here
Pilgrimage Experiences
amen one of the things that i really love about the pilgrimage center is it's focused on women and the role of women in god's plan in scripture and the gospel um i'll tell you one more story about my wife uh a good one
you you brought her up to uh point the finger and take the picture by the woman who touched the hem of jesus's garment and took that picture of her and prayed that prayer and that meant a lot to
her this past sunday morning we had a reflection service of um for our people that went on the trip and in her portion she played she played that prayer uh that she prayed over her and that meant a
lot to her and in fact she wanted me to tell you this that recently in the past few days she had a medical procedure that she was very nervous about and she prayed the prayer that you prayed and
it comforted her and it meant a lot to her and so we want to thank you for that which brings me to the next question what role does the story and you touched on this a little bit already
but what role does the story of mary magdalene play in the life and identity of this place
well i would say let's look at mary magdalene scripture first of all and so you have lots of stuff in people's heads nowadays because of dan brown and all his writings and other people's theories about mary magdalene but let's look at the scriptures
and i find that there are like five statements that we find in the gospels about mary magdalene first statement she had a lot of issues just say it like that a lot of difficult issues you can i'm just leaving the seven demons in whatever forum they were active
if you're angry with somebody and you want to get revenge are you going to sleep well at night if it's a very serious deal that you're angry about and want to do revenge for
and so that's that's not a good spirit inside of you this is just doing a minimal approach to this text okay and then all the other major issues that we can have of envy of jealousy of insecurity of anxiety of
impatience so so many things that can plague us and make our family life a wreck can wreck it can wreck our work environment can wreck our society especially people are in leadership and they have these issues so mary
mary macken had major issues number one number two she finds in jesus the solution for her issues they're resolved she is freed liberated
number three she is forever grateful and this shows up that she is faithful even to calvary when most of the guys are gone
before this she has been generously supporting jesus ministry she's the top of the list of the supporters and all these women are supporting jesus luke chapter 8 verse 3 they're supporting jesus from their treasure from their substance from their means from their wealth
and after what we found in maglia you can't say there wasn't wealth in maglia
and there's a lot more connections if you look at the gospel in luke chapter 8 verse 3 it says that jesus is going around galilee with the twelve and with the women who are freed liberated or healed and
among them it says mary magdalene suzanne and johanna and many others many others that's a lot of women and these women are supporting jesus from their wealth and one of the people is johanna and she's the wife of
chusa and chusa is the head manager of herod antipas that means herod is very busy with all the ladies he has to take care of and all the parties he has to run so he has this guy chusa
in charge of all he's like his prime minister and this guy his wife is a disciple of jesus so jesus is reaching the top level of society but mary magdalene is always listed before her
so mary magdalene is a very significant leader in the society and she's giving everything she can to support jesus community to be she's already being an apostle of the community and then we go from there to the crucifixion
and she's faithfully there at the cross and so it's no wonder then that jesus calls her this is it's still a wonder but it's amazing that jesus calls her to be the first witness providence has her a role as the first witness for the resurrection
and jesus sends her makes her an apostle to the apostles to send his apostoling i mentioned this already to send her to be an apostle of the apostles this extraordinary this is amazing and so and we can say
these things about mary magna she had major issues she found in jesus her solution we could say in more pious language her savior but we just say her solution issues like i'm speaking secular language just to make it
accessible for everybody yeah she finds in jesus the solution she's forever grateful and she shows that in the support for and building up the community because you know this is going to bless so many people and then she
is faithful when the times get tough and the going gets rough and she's faithful through calvary and she's still faithful after calvary because she's going to the tomb for the anointing so like it's the worst of the worst
it's the dead end of the street and she's still there and then jesus surprises her and then sends her with the joy of resurrection the first hallelujah of easter to the apostles and they can't believe her and it's
just absolutely mind-boggling it just people have commented about the glass ceiling that women have to break through that was it that was the ultimate glass ceiling and that has still that still ricochets to this day it still vibrates resonates to this day
this is mary magdalene and so it's no wonder then that this is a great place since in our times in the last century and fourth century and a half the issue of women has come very much to the
fore and that's very important and sometimes it's been driven and written by ideologies that not necessarily are looking for the best of the woman but they're using that to advance other causes and the gospel message is truly liberating
in the mean counter with christ christ is the lord but he doesn't dominate people he sets them free he sends them out to change the world to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world
so this is what mary magdalene experiences and what a model what a message what an example and what a delight and very difficult in that time because the the male dominance of the cultures of the time
in the roman society in the greek society in the jewish society it was jesus was was also breaking ceilings at that time glass ceilings and cement ceilings
yeah absolutely you know as we are watching the clock as well making sure you have plenty of time uh so we're going to number eight on the question there but me and brett we've both been twice to the
holy lands we've both been uh twice to magdala in various different regions and seeing a lot of things and you can definitely say that people's faith has been deepened grown i shared last night with our church my trip
and uh shared all the photos and had a question and answer time and just a wonderful time of sharing how the lord deepened my faith by walking where jesus walked and opened my eyes more than just a book
or a bible study can do i mean you're walking and and seeing and touching exactly what jesus did but you've seen over the course of your 20 almost 20 years there in israel and in jerusalem and magdala thousands
of pilgrimages thousands of people come through there is there a story or are there stories that sort of stand out to you uh maybe an event that happened that that you would want to share and if not that's
fine i just an idea that i had as we were walking through that sure actually just two days ago a few days ago i'm not sure exactly which day it was a group was leaving and you remember the
chapel the jairus chapel where the daughter usually puts her hand into jesus hand beside the little girl the daughter of jairus and we say that prayer thank you jesus for holding my hand keep my hand in your hand
always never let it go jesus and then we do a prayer for the parents and the grandparents the uncles and aunts jesus thank you for holding our daughter's hand our granddaughter and our niece's hand and so on
fill her with life jesus like one day you filled the daughter of jairus and his wife with life and when her greatest day comes jesus fill her with the fullness of everlasting life with all the angels and saints
in glory i can't tell you how many people have come to me so just a few days ago a couple shared with me that their daughter had a very tragic news just two days before they left from here our boyfriend ended her life with a revolver ended his life
with with a revolver and so they were leaving for the holy land and she had other friends around her as well but they came with that heavy load and then they the lord consoled them and i had no
idea they were in that situation maybe most people in the group didn't know i'm not sure if they shared it with anybody else and so
they know that today i know that and i know who this couple is and i don't have the contact information or anything but i know who they are and so they shared that story with me they wanted to
release that news they had and they said how significant it was there was another in the same chapel with the same prayer
six or eight years ago there was a lady who was weeping at the end of that moment and she said to me i have to share this with you for years i was fighting god why my daughter why
our daughter needed to die and she said i've been released from that pain from that struggle from that wrestling with god i i you know it's a grace she received
so i remember once uh i got an email from a guy i think he was from mississippi and he had a picture of when i took a prayer with his hand up on peter's hand jesus pulling him out
of the water you know walking on the water chapel the storm of the sea and he said i have to tell you how important this moment was for us he said i had special prayer there and that was
like nine or ten months ago but in the summertime our grandchild 12 year old grandchild was on a rafting camp in alaska and he lost his life in the raft in the white water and we got the news
the first thing that came to my mind was the picture was the prayer that i spoke at that place and i went to the computer and looked for that picture and i want to share with you that a
few months ago when we had went through this tragedy that this was a moment of great blessing so the things that we're doing here is really not our doing it's god's doing and sometimes you know the lord is
trying to reach us and we don't get reached but there are moments in life and it doesn't have to be the holy land it can be in your own room the lord touches our hearts it can be through
a sickness it can be through news of an accident it can be a good thing or a bad thing that happens but the lord can get our attention and give us a grace that we need and we're aware
of it and i would say that everybody's best in the holy land some people only find out years later like that gentleman found out about five months later why god gave him that moment of prayer preparing him in
the middle of a stormy sea withholding jesus holding his hand in rough waters because the wavy water is there and his son he's imagining him in the white water he would just wish he could have been there and
save his grandson in alaska it didn't happen so he's now with jesus again and jesus holding him so he doesn't sink in the waters of sorrow and grief
and so many other things there was a lady american lady and for some reason she ended up in the soviet union years and decades ago and she ended up being very very abused in unimaginable abuse
and for a long time and she finally was able to escape back to the u.s and rebuilt her life and then she came to magdala and this was my sister who was working here and she was down
in the encounter chapel and she had that moment of prayer there and she said jesus restored my dignity
so she had terrible assault to her old personal dignity that she was worth nothing because the way she was treated and here in this moment of prayer jesus restored her dignity
so there are different types and areas of help we've heard many things about different types of healings but that's not you know unique to this place the lord can the biggest probably healing that we all need is a
strengthening of our faith to realize that we're always in god's presence that he never leaves us he never abandons us that they strengthen our virtue of hope that we're anchored in christ and there's nothing that can overcome
us and that we're strengthening our love that we're able to grow in that level of patience we need for life's challenges and difficulties that we're able to grow in that forgiveness that we need to receive or to share
with others and that we're able to grow in that service putting our lives at the service and so many people serve a lot they serve at home their children their children are sick they serve at the gas station
because that's where they're working they serve in the supermarket checkout that's where they're working there and and to grow in the love for that that's not just a drudgery but it's actually being in christ and serving christ and
those who come to check out their groceries in the supermarket there's so many ways to live the faith the hope the love and that's what we really need like these other events that i told you about okay they're
very sensational they're sensational they're very dramatic but it's the ordinary life that we all need to be renewed and i would say the pilgrimage helps a lot of people in that way
because it was renewed it's a moment of grace it's a moment of prayer it's a moment of god's action in our lives where we let him happen let him do his work in our lives
amen one of the things that amazed me when i was there father kelly was the interfaith dynamic that you have to navigate magdala attracts so many people of so many different faith backgrounds and even baptists yeah
baptists and jews and things like that and so hearing you tell stories of these different groups so i want to ask you how do interfaith experiences shape your work and the understanding of witnesses
um i think somehow i was blessed by the lord since i was a child in this way and in ireland growing up in the west of ireland was like was 99% catholic and at least in on the
cover okay who knows what everybody's heart was or the difficulties they were having or whatever but in general
and the respect my dad had there was a guy who used to deliver the gas cylinders for us because that was our extra energy besides the wood and the farm for for burning and for cooking and so on we had a gas oven as well and the man was methodist
and my dad would say god bless the poor man so we were learning to respect and love
cherish what we had as a gift of our faith in the church and somebody was different
my dad he had worked in england a lot as a young man as a carpenter and so he had been exposed to a lot of people but we i received that in my home
and then there was a grand uncle of ours who was looked after by a lady who wasn't catholic and she used to come to visit sometimes
and he had been working in the civil service in england and she wasn't catholic but the respect and love that my parents received them with in the home
and didn't make an issue out of it for us like the marker was to go to mass on sundays right so obviously this lady didn't do that and so but we never had a critical judgment about her we never called her out
it was um and gave her the maximum love because she had taken such care of our grand uncle when he was very sick and then uh you know the work i did in the states was an exposure
to uh a lot more wearing catholic because catholics are a minority in the states the years i was there but the majority of my work was among catholic then i went to i was assigned i was working in
germany like i told you for 11 years and sometimes i showed up at a retreat organized by young people i had encouraged them to organize the retreat and half the kids were lutheran
so i had to change my whole how i would do the retreat because i wanted to be an encouragement for all the lutheran
kids that were at the retreat and without offending them and also without depriving the catholic so finding the common denominators where what can we build on together and if we're doing some things that are specific to catholic to do it in a way that's
also going to be helpful for them so they can understand what we're doing so that we can understand and learn to respect each other and then um being assigned here was very special in that way also the work
in new york because i did a lot of work in new york in manhattan and met a lot of jewish people they really didn't know much about the jewish faith actually and it was an interesting time having conversations
with them but here then it's the maximum of that peak of
encounter every day i could just talk about our employees all our employees here jewish muslim druze we have bedouled that's an ethnicity christians and atheists and agnostics and
uh it's just an incredible mix we had 240 israelis living with us for 16 months during the war they had to be evacuated from their homes and they needed places for you know they're coming from kibbutz so they're
not the religious jews and they wouldn't be going to synagogue very much at all and so you know does it's all the time a continuing education and you're responsible for a synagogue and for ritual vats of the jewish
people from 2000 years ago so all of that works on you so i think the first thing is that we ourselves are stretched in our hearts to make space for others that's a beautiful line that saint paul appeals
i think to the philippians or i'm not sure who he repeats to and says stretch your hearts make space for me like i make space in my heart for you and for us christians sometimes we can fall into
a trap of being very judgmental and since we are very convinced that we have the right thing and probably most human beings think the same way we're very judgmental easily judgmental we can fall into that very easily of
others and there are whole lots of scripture and doctrine to talk about but we can have a lot of prejudice without getting to know the person and sometimes there was an atheist man working here and i had quite
a few conversations with him and he was a marvelous man he was teaching his kids 12 14 year olds not to hate the muslims at the beginning of the war after october 7th 23.
i was fascinated by that man and there was a man that didn't have a religious dimension but he was teaching his kids that they shouldn't learn hatred and how to deal in that environment and there'd be plenty of
people that would express hatred and express vengeance and revenge thoughts but he was teaching his kids to have a bigger heart to have understanding i was fascinated by that man so i think that the fact of learning about
the others with our cardinal here pizza bala relates a very similar he's 10 years younger than me but he was from north he's from northern italy and he said when he came to study at hebrew university was the
first time people questioned his catholic faith because nobody questioned in northern italy everybody was catholic and then he said through those conversations he learned a lot about his own faith because of the questions they would ask so to
meet the other who's different it's actually an incredible it's a very can be very enriching experience we shouldn't be nervous about it we should have great respect for the others god respects me he respects you he respects us christians he respects every human
being and even in the bible it says he brings the rain down and the fields of the good and the bad alike so he doesn't even make distinctions because he wants everybody to have a blessing that he's still
there providing so that when they're ready to come back the doors open like the prodigal son finds the door open. Not just open, he finds a party. More joy in heaven over one sinner. And somehow we can be very judgmental and we can be very harsh
with our fellow believers and with those who don't believe exactly like we do or who believe something completely different.
And I know there are huge issues in all this field so we wouldn't do it just in five minutes here but I think that we wouldn't be making a mistake to enlarge our hearts to make space for others without judging them. And we can pray for them.
We can say, Lord, show them and show me also the great truth of your love
because I'm still discovering God's love and I think in heaven we will not just go in and have it all in one moment. We're forever, we're going to be growing in greater capacity to understand the infinity of God's love.
I mean, if he made, they can't count the number of stars. Who can count the number of atoms?
And if we're human beings aren't able to do that, that's just the smallest shadow of the incountability if you want to use that word, the unfathomability of God's reality.
And it's just the gift that God has, like he said to the woman at the well, Jesus did, he said, if you only knew the gift God has for you, if you only knew the gift of God, if we only knew,
if we only knew the saints God is making in other places with his providence,
and that shouldn't allow us to go away from what the gift we have. We have a huge gift. The gift we have in Christ is immense.
The eternal word of God made flesh, who died on Calvary for us, who rose from the dead, who poured out the Holy Spirit upon us from the Father, and living God, living inside us, inhabiting us, what more could we want? What more could we desire?
And that's our whole life is trying to discover that is finally being able to have enough common sense to wake up and accept this extraordinary pouring out of God into our lives.
So this is something, something really off the charts, you know, it's huge.
And then that experience meeting the others, we don't have to do all the work. We only have a few minutes with people most of the time. Some people have 40 minutes with us here.
Some people stay two or three days, but they're out all the day. You see them at breakfast maybe, or see them at supper.
You give them a tour, and there's a bit more contact because they can study you a bit better. They're there a couple of days, so they're watching you. They're watching the community. But it's amazing. I think we're going to be a lot of surprises in heaven. Absolutely.
You know, that was, that statement was said to me by one of our guys on the trip with us. He said, we were talking to a guy, our guide, and he said, one of the largest groups of people, because we noticed there were a lot of Chinese people that were there, Asian people,
Outreach and Community Building
and he said, the largest group of people that come and have a Holy Land visit is from China. And he said, the underground church, they want to come and experience the Holy Land.
And he said, more people come from China than anywhere else. And one of the guys looked at me and he said, I think we're going to be surprised when we get to heaven with who is there and who's not. Like, hold on, China? Like, underground, this doesn't make sense in our mind.
And I long for that day. It's good to be able to talk to you. We're going to ask you two questions. I know we've got about 12 minutes left. What are the next milestones for Magdala?
What are things in the future? I know you've got a couple of projects that are going on. What's the next phases of things? And then Brett's going to ask the final question to let you close with any final thoughts.
So, our big task every day now is trying to look after our pilgrims. COVID came. We started a very strong outreach through social media, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram.
I started a sunrise stroll and chat every morning at 6 a.m. when the sun rises.
So, we do a lot in that area. And a lot of things are beginning to mature. In a certain sense, we have a lot of the infrastructure. We have some things still to do. We need help to build a restaurant.
We'd love the Baptists to be involved. We'd love every church to be involved because imagine if we could all build this restaurant together and we'd have a monument outside the restaurant where it says Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Sleepy Catholic, Anglican, Episcopalian, Orthodox Christians.
We all build it together, the Pentecostals. We all build it together. People would come and say, wow, that's not possible.
That didn't happen. Yeah, the guys are going to say, look here, it's written here on this stone. They all built it together. And then we'll have an art piece with John 17 in 2023
when Jesus is saying, Father, may they all be one like you are in me and I am in you so that the world will believe that you sent me. And I think there's a beautiful gift happening already in that direction where Christians lose their prejudices
and develop friendships with each other. We don't need to make it too romantic and poetic right now because it's a rocky road. It's not easy. It's a challenge of grace transforming our own lives.
If we get rid of our prejudice, we still have two major things. The difference we have reading scripture, difference we have doing theology. But if we have prejudice, we shouldn't even bother talking because we'll just
be aggressively more hostile to each other. We'll alienate each other more. We'll walk steps away from each other. But if we could do one step closer overcoming our prejudices and building something together. So this is a big step we want to do right now. We obviously have more infrastructure work.
We have more excavations to do, although we're not in a big hurry to do it because we have such sensational discoveries that people are still discovering here in Magla. The biggest thing I think is what the ministry is going to do that's happening here. The friendships with pastors with different churches.
I can't tell you how many pastors we have just are best friends. Pentecostal, Assemblies of God,
Baptists, all kinds of Baptists because there's a whole bunch of different Baptists. I just learned that we had Baptist pastors come here from Texas and from North Carolina two weeks ago with Methodists, with Wesleyan, with non-denomination, with evangelicals, and they came here to see how can we build this together,
one step closer hospitality together. And the things that can come out of this with pastors, with churches, I think only the Lord knows the future in that sense. I think it's going to surprise us. We wrote a principle when we did our branding
12 years ago now, and one of the principles was for division, that Magda should be a catalyst for renewal and reconciliation worldwide.
And we never imagined that we'll be doing this type of work with the different churches. so that Lord let this flower blossom and we saw more petals opening up with new colors that we didn't anticipate.
And we don't know where the Lord will take it. I mean, we have an idea and we hopefully,
I'd say pray for us that we will, our hearts will allow the Lord to do all he wants to do in our lives and what he wants to bring out, the fruits he wants to bring from these blossoms he's letting unfold, these plants that are beginning to germinate and grow up.
Also, the relationship between Jews and Christians is already being deeply blessed here, but it still hasn't found the concrete form, and I'm sure that's coming.
It's a matter of time, it's a matter of fidelity, it's a matter of responding to grace and letting God heal all these relationships that have sometimes been very deeply damaged in the past, like 30 years war between Christians and Europe,
all the horrible things that happened in my country in Northern Ireland, but also the things that happened in the decadence of our own lives and the renewal we need, the tensions inside church communities that have left wounds that need to be healed.
There's so much to do in all of this area, and the Lord is doing. If he was able to do with Mary Magdalene and have her be the first witness, how many new first witnesses are going to come out for all sectors of society, for the Chinese,
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
for Asia, for Africa, for Europe today needs a lot of work. The Lord is doing it. Yeah. Amen.
Well, Father Keller, we want to thank you for coming on today and being a part of our podcast here. Thank you for taking up your time. Just as kind of a last question and kind of getting your final thoughts, what is your prayer for those listening today?
Whether they come to Mangala, they make the pilgrimage, or they take those ideas back to their communities, what's your prayer for those listening? Thank you. I would say, you know, you don't have to wait to come here to start. Amen.
You can plan to come here. Put it high up on the bucket list if you're a person that does travel. Why let the Holy Land be the last thing you do when you're 90? Do it now so that it impacts your life earlier.
Just before I came over here, I took extra time with the family. The three little boys, they were also Baptists.
And no, they were Lutherans. And mom and dad, and there was an older couple that weren't the grandparents with them. And I just gave them some extra time. And the boys were, the oldest was like 12 or 13. And then the youngest fellow was probably six or seven or seven-ish maybe.
And just the blessing it was to see them and the way that family was so closely knit and so warm and these kids with such potential.
The Lord only knows what's going to come from them in that little encounter today. You know, the work that was done with that family and by their parents and their grandparents for the last 10, 15, 20 years, we're all sowing in God's vineyard. We're all sowing seeds.
We're all, and we ask the Lord to open our hearts to overcome our little limitations.
And when we have limitations, we can't easily overcome to give us the patience that we can, we can plod along and resonate His love as much as possible to all those around us in gratitude and humility, asking for forgiveness, giving forgiveness, serving, being grateful, being grateful.
If you want, they can check into the Sunrise Stroll and Chat. You can put up some links for that. Yeah.
It's on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram. I would love them to get involved with onestepcloser.org to get in there.
And there's a bunch of Baptists getting involved with that. And I think we get a lot of Baptists. They can be high up in the Quotum Pole there and the participation in this restaurant. And the restaurant isn't about the restaurant. It's about giving witness to John 17, 20 to 23.
May they all be one Father as you and I are one so the world will believe that you sent me. That's an amazing word.
And that's kind of a culmination of the mystery of salvation. It's the antithesis to Babel, the Tower of Babel. Completely all separated, broken up.
The antithesis to Cain and Abel. It's the embrace of the other despite they're not exactly made to my measure.
It's the endorsement and information of all that God is doing good in the other even if he's a criminal today, even if he's a drug lord, even if he's a corrupt politician. Our work isn't to condemn them. Our work is to provide the prayer, the encouragement, the healing of our society. Yeah.
I long for the day where we can all be one together and one day that'll be true in heaven and thankful that we can have a small part of that here on earth as we share the gospel with others, as we share the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus and thankful for what you're
Podcast Wrap-Up
doing there and the impact that you're having and thank you so much for your time and spending an hour and some minutes with us and listener, I hope this was a blessing to you and hopefully we can maybe line up a second episode and talk through some of the daily life and theological
portions of where you're at there but thank you so much Father Kelly for coming on today and sharing your time with us. We'll sign off when to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Amen, amen, amen and I want to thank you for inviting me.
It's very gracious of you and may it be blessed for everybody. I found my new name found that good grace found that healing and the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending found that second chance found my best friend found my forgiveness found
my happiness I've been singing ever since about my freedom in you
Thanks for listening to the 4-Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed the content of the podcast please do us a favor by liking, subscribing or sharing the podcast on whatever podcast platform you listen to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Auto-generated transcript · 13,153 words. May contain errors. Select a timestamp to play from that moment.