Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #482 The "World" is Temporal and Passing Away: "Seek First the Kingdom of God and All These Things Will Be Yours As Well!"

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#482 The "World" is Temporal and Passing Away: "Seek First the Kingdom of God and All These Things Will Be Yours As Well!" · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rigg, your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for joining me today.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are, that you would literally set the world on fire.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And St Athanasius, an early church father and a doctor of the church, said the son of God became man so that we might become God.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You know I make a wild guess at this, but I bet you, most of us, are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yet Saint John Paul II said there's an echo of the story of this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart, in your human heart, and if you put on the proper lens if I put on the proper lens we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: See, that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology of the body.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Who am I?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: What's my purpose?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Why were we created male and female?
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: How do I find happiness here on earth?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Hey, glad you're with me, I'll be, we are back.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And we are back for audience number 85, the John Paul II, presented on July 14, 1982.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Linda Piper is with me.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Linda, how are you?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Jack.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I'm great, thank you.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Beautiful spring morning at last.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, we're getting there.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: John Paul II loved nature.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So do I, and you know there's something about nature, right?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: He would speak of it often.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: You really do need it, you really do need it.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: There's something beautiful about that you know beautiful about that, you know.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I know I may have mentioned before, but whenever we get the storms out here we're situated in such a way that we see a rainbow, you know, if the sun starts coming out again after the storm.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: We have seen so many gorgeous rainbows here.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I just take delight each time it happens.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and not to get too off tangent here, but that's a natural rainbow and you can see how the culture always wants to ape the natural.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And so what does it do?
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It takes that and then it turns it into some gender ideologies and stuff, right Again, mocking kind of the rainbow.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: So there's an extra color and different colors in the secular rainbows out there, you know, and so they're aping all of those things, you know.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: And that has saddened me.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: But I won't let that sadden me to the point where I can't enjoy God's beauty and pray that we can all get back there, you know, and stop the mocking.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: But you're so right in recognizing where we've gone with that.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the beauty of all nature, you know, small bee beauty, again, you know, should lead you to big bee beauty.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: The creator behind that, all of nature does that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: But certainly what we're going to be talking about here is the crown of creation.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: You know, is the human being created with the biology of all of nature and then God blows in his spirit the Holy Spirit into his body.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Soul plus the Holy Spirit, plus grace, makes us human, gives us that human dignity and makes us different than the rest of the world.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: It gives us that human dignity and makes us different than the rest of the world.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And yet here in audience number 85, john Paul's talking about Corinthians 1, corinthians 7, and St Paul, of course, and he's talking about marriage and those that will choose virginity and skip this earthly marriage.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And he's talking about that and he says the one who chooses marriage does well and the one who chooses virginity does better.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And then we go on to explain that then.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So the apostle is referring to the transitoriness of the world, or of everything temporal.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: The world is passing by you and I, right before we jumped on here, are talking about some people that we know that are struggling with their health and different things and somehow, linda, we all know this in the back of our minds that this whole world's passing by, that there's a meaning and purpose behind it and we should be aimed at our eternal life.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: John Paul II again takes us back with the triptych that you just mentioned.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Before we came on, jesus shows us the beginning, what it was like, the model.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But the model was always fused with God in the beginning, sin.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, we became like cut flowers and so Jesus comes in and he says no, I want to put the branch back on the vine together, but that's leading you to eternal life, that this is just a transitory time, and so marriage here.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: The reason St Paul can say that is because it says that in John Paul in 85 says it's not the world that's man's eternal destiny, but the kingdom of God.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: If we can just keep that focus on a, man cannot detach himself too much.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Man cannot attach himself.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Man cannot attach himself too much to the goods that follow the measure of the transitory world.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: In other words, modern man is trying to suck the infinite out of these transitory things.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: He's never going to find what you're looking for.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: God gave us all of this creation to use, to use for man's benefit, to use it well, to protect it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Nature and all of you know and one another, and our animals and our plants and etc.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day we're not going to be able to find the infinite, and that's a big problem in today's world.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: So that's the first focus.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Linda, where do you want to go from there?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm thinking in terms of marriage and what would that mean for those of us who are in long-term marriages at any point in our marriage?
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Is that understanding that in fact, the marriage is part of the transitoriness, so that there's this element of, you know, too much focus on things and, you know, collecting things our house, our car, et cetera, et cetera.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: But on the personal level, we can put maybe too much importance on this other person being my fulfillment.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: You know we've talked in the past about how, if I see my spouse as that total fulfillment not thinking so much about my destiny but my time in the world here that it will put way too much pressure on them.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: So a person may not be seeking it and collecting stuff, but they may want to get it out of that other person to the point where they suffocate them.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: So there's significance here in really stressing this point that we have to keep our focus St Paul is telling us on that eternal destiny and that's what the theology of the body helps us do.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: We are going to get into some wonderful things about marriage in the next section of theology of the body, but this is an overriding understanding that we have to live it from the point of view of the transitoriness of the world.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, john Paul, if we go back to 83, audience number 83, he talked about young people and he says there are at times young people do that that this conjugal union and life should bring them only happiness and joy.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: They think and this is what happens when I speak to engaged couples they feel this incredible, you know like rocket, you know taking off, and they think that's going to last forever and it was never supposed to last forever.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: You know this initial and it's not.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: You know people say it's odd, it's unfair.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: You know that the spark goes away.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: No, it's not that at all.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: It should be maturing into a deeper, self-giving love.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: That initial rocket is like a three-stage booster, but the booster only gets you so far.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Right with a rocket, a rocket that wants to go to Mars with Elon Musk, wants to go to Mars with it.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The booster's not going to get you there.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: The booster's just the booster.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: It gets you out of that initial zone.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: That's what happens with a marriage.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: You have this chemical cocktail even that goes off in your body and it's a powerful, beautiful thing if you understand it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But to your point again, we're trying to suck the infinite not only out of our materialistic, consumeristic thing, but we're looking at a spouse, another person, as another our materialistic, consumeristic thing.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: But we're talking, we're looking at a spouse, another person, as another materialistic, consumeristic thing.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And you wonder why people get divorced.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: You know, think about the there is.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: My wife was just telling me that that they had this bachelor.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Do you know the bachelor Linda?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: That series, there's a series.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, I don't watch it, but I know yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So my wife watches this, and so they had this older bachelor on and I saw an episode with them, and so it was a guy in his early 70s in pretty decent shape, and he's wooing these women about his age or whatever.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And so they spend months, I guess, wooing each other and going on all these exotic trips and stuff, and finally it narrows it down from 30 women to 20 women, to 10, to 5 and down to 3, and then this big thing at the end where it gets it down to one person.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Right, so you got 30 women you're spending all this time with gets it down to one.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: They get married and three months later they're divorced.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And you know all this time and effort.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: And so here here's the, what we're trying to do again.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So the this particular bachelor, I believe his wife died and so, as, as saint paul would say, he said you know you're perfectly able.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: He says in here to be married again.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: You know there's nothing wrong with being married again.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: He just says it would be better not to.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And you wonder, okay, well, why would it be better not to Again?
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Because, you know, think about this at the end, you know, and I see it all the time and I'm sure you do too.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: We have friends of ours that their spouse has passed away and they almost can't wait to start dating again.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a time of grieving and stuff, and I don't mean this like wow, I was so glad to see my spouse go and go on to somebody new.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: It's not like that at all.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: They're very much in love, but the point is they feel so quickly, so lonely, so out of place by themselves, right?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: If they.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: My brother just went through, is going through this, and so you know.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: But what happens is St Paul would say, yeah, you can get married, but he said it'd be better if you stayed the way you are.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And you wonder why.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And at the end it's almost like this person that chooses celibacy for the kingdom.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Now you have your opportunity.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: You had your marriage, you have your kids, your grandkids.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You've got all these gifts.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Now take this time and this is what I would tell my friends to take this time now to get closer to the lord and see what the lord and be filled now.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Now take this time, the stage in your life which you probably don't have, you know, a ton of years left healthy years at least and be filled with divine life and love.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And then and then and have a whole of years left healthy years at least and be filled with divine life and love, and then have a whole new experience of getting closer to God and still staying with your kids, your grandkids.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at you got this beauty on both ends, but now they want to grasp with a new person that's going to take you away from the time with God, the time with your kids, the time with your grandkids, the time with your neighbor, the time that you could be a gift to other people, right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what is sad to me as a part of that, jack, is that the person who was widowed is still not quite understanding, even through the death of the spouse, of the quickness of life, the transitoriness of it, and my personal view is experiencing that death of a spouse would be, through all the grief and all the downside, would also be a help to me to understand, to put my focus once again on that eternal destiny, because my spouse has now experienced that.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And I would see that as a great gift as well, and just what you said.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: So St Paul is stressing on being able to do things that please the Lord.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: But I must put a caveat in there.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I believe that those of us who are married and raising families, children, grandchildren and the whole, you know jobs, all of it, we can work to have all of that direct us towards pleasing the Lord as well.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: You know that old Catholic way of offering it up with the sufferings and so forth, and St Hosea Maria Escriva in Opus Dei, you know, really took that idea and how we can become holy in the world in our day-to-day life.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: But it's that constant understanding that we're in the world but not of the world, and turn all those responsibilities and everything we're juggling in our lives toward pleasing the Lord as well.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And if that time comes that I'm widowed, then I can turn to it totally.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: As you just said, it's all really very beautiful if we sit there for a moment.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: You know, take a deep breath to consider.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And so that just brings up another thought, and this is what John Paul talked to young people about, about so much.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the other end of this before you're getting married.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: So you have young people.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: He said pay attention, your life is not an endless series of open doors.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Listen to your heart.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Do not stay on the surface, but go to the heart of things and, when the time is right, have the courage to decide.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So we are talking about both ends of the spectrum here, those people that rush into another marriage, and again, I don't know their exact situation.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So your point is well taken right.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So marriage itself has one foot on the earth, right, very hard foot on the earth.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And what happens if we didn't take time before we got married to develop this relationship with God?
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Now we can do it in our marriages, yes, but it's much more beautiful if you are already joined and linked to God himself, so that I'm filled again and I'm giving this to my spouse and my spouse is receiving this and giving this back to me.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: This is the eternal dance.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: This is what Jesus this back to me.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: This is the eternal dance.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: This is what Jesus said in the beginning.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: This is the way it was.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: This is why, in Matthew 19, jesus says in the beginning it was not so, when they were talking about divorce, and it says because of the hardness of your heart.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Jesus always talks about the heart, the heart, the heart, the heart.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Right, because of the hardness of your heart, moses in the Old Testament allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So what was the beginning?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: The beginning before sin was Adam and Eve were totally linked up with God.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: God is totally filling them in union and communion and they're pouring this into one another, but never, never delinked from God himself.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So this is the primordial sacrament, you know, reflecting Trinitarian love itself.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: It is when we came into the world of brokenness and sin, right, that now we have to consciously go back to God, you know, to jesus christ, and and and allow him to redeem us in our bodies themselves, right?
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: And so just my final point on that, linda.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Getting back to these young people.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: If young people would start to develop this close relationship, know that they have to be redeemed in their body.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Overcome this threefold concupiscence which we're going to be redeemed in their body.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Overcome this threefold concupiscence which we're going to be battling our whole lives, but have the power to at least overcome that.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So when they step into this marriage and they're at the altar, they're both free.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: They're both free to be gifts to one another.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And when you understand that, what a difference in marriage, right?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So, either way, you always have to.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: You can't give what you don't have and you have to be filled up at the eternal well, regardless of where you're at and what stage of life you're at.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And then if you begin a marriage that way, where you have that understanding and that connection, where you're living your life connected to God and working to please God and your spouse, you enter the marriage that way, the two of you together.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: It's like synergistic almost, because when the beauty of the one and one become three, when God does gift you with children, you see how that multiplies and as each one in their own personal relationship with God, is growing, the marriage is growing.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: And that, you know, brings me right to the sacramentality of marriage with the graces that are received.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: It's only through that grace that that bond not only happens in the first place but then continues to grow and become tighter as all together we're on this journey, you know, towards the eternal destiny that we all have.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: So my heart breaks for young people who have no understanding of this and as John Paul was talking to the young people and hopefully we've got some younger people listening as well that if they understand, if they become the person of love and have that relationship and the graces as they're developing their own interior life, that they will find the person God has chosen for them in due time, if they're being called to the vocation of marriage.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: So what you described with the bachelor.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting here almost like gritting my teeth because if you think about the way it presents how to find the person you want to marry, it's like the total opposite, really, of how it should work, you know.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And yet what is it trying to do?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Just suck everybody into the thrill and excitement of all these exotic dates and so forth, and that's the opposite of what we should be doing.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And if those two people getting married I know on this bachelor that have been married in the past and are getting older now, if they haven't overcome this, you know, and accepted redemption of their body, they're just bringing.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Look, we're all broken, some more than others, but if you have not, if you don't have a deep faith, if you haven't gone to the eternal well of taking the time to do that, you are just asking for trouble.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Now, not only am I meeting a young girl that we're starting off this new life together, but now I'm meeting someone and she's meeting me that's carrying all this baggage around.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And we're carrying not only our own baggage now but a whole lifetime of baggage of other people that have infected our life.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And now we're bringing this into a relationship and we're looking at another person to fill that broken hole.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And you're asking to your earlier point, we're going to hang our hook on a person that there's no way they can fulfill that role.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Christ has to come in to do that.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Linda.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: There's no way a person's going to do that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: You're going to just be unhappy.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And you see it over and over and over again.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely so true, and the sad part, jack, is that in the brokenness, it isn't just those individuals and the brokenness they're dealing with, but it goes on and on and on through the generations.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: You know, to the point where I understand that so many young people don't have any real role models of long-term marriages and you know, haven't seen, you know.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly it.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: So we need to up and pay attention to these things, because the culture I don't think can sustain too much more of what we've seen in the last decade or so.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: No, and the culture is just so twisted and distorted now that if a young person doesn't have any footing, they're not going to get it in the culture.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: The government has actually weaponized the whole government, has become a deep state and there's parts of the church that become a deep state.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So this is why it's more important than ever for all of us to really look at young people.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I wrote in my newsletter that went out today Linda, this is a Tuesday, we'll put this up on tomorrow, on a Wednesday.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It's called the Injustice of Children.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: It's an injustice.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I call it what's happening to children and we have to right that injustice.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And I really am focused on young people and I know that you are too.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: It's the young people you're right that don't have a model, that are out in the world wondering what's going on.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I just did a podcast with Jason Jones, who I really respect.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: He did the movie Bella and I love this movie, this pro-life movie Bella.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It's such a good, good movie with a happy ending.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Life movie bell it's such a good, good movie with a with a happy ending.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And he said this he go talking about young people.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So he wrote this book the great campaign against the great reset and and so this is a big topic, right, and we got into a number of different things, but he started his book, uh, talking about young people.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: The first chapter he said the reason is because the moral imagination, he said, of our young people have been utterly obliterated by the culture and by pornography.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Their moral imagination has been destroyed by TikTok and YouTube and Facebook and Instagram reels and are just becoming addicted.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: So to your point, and this is what reminds me of it, humans learn through watching other people.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: We learn what to value, what's important to us, and obliterating even the idea of gender is devastating to them.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So you're exactly right, we have to model this for them.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: We have to take the story John Paul would always say never impose, just propose what's true, good and beautiful.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Because today these poor young people, they think they're free, but they're free to make a lot of lousy choices, and when you can give them what's true, good and beautiful, at least they have a choice now, a real choice, you know, whether to step into their eternal love story or whether just to live on the surface of life.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: And again, that's why John Paul impelled them, you know, to go beneath the surface.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: You know, go deeper, go into the heart, you know, and it's so important today to try to get young people to do that.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would like to think, and I do know, that there are families who are modeling what God's plan was for marriage and for family life.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: So it's not all bleak, but I know they feel very much, you know, kind of separated from the culture, because it's very, very hard to do so.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Parents, I think, are waking up, to parents of younger children, because they see how far it has gone and they are reaching out and seeking help.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Is that, you know?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, try to begin to understand what theology of the body is teaching us.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: John Paul was doing this back in the 70s, right?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: He understood even back then that we needed this understanding of who we are as humans.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: What does it mean to be human and how do I live my life?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: But while the culture has gotten so far away from it, there are elements in the church that are still hanging on to the beautiful teaching and Love.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Ed is something that is designed for parents to help their young children understand really what we're talking about the mystery of the person, who am I as a person?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: That will lead to what is my vocation going to be, and for most of us it will be marriage and so for teenagers understanding that whole role of how do I even develop as an adult, and then who I might marry.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: The church is teaching us how that should work and God's plan is beautiful.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So my plea, I guess it would be as I'm seeing it played out in some young couples.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: My own children's families, my grandchildren are entering adulthood.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Now it is possible to buck the culture and to say that I know that there's something else, something more, something better for me.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I rambled a bit.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, no, and you know people ask.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: You know, just like you say, you know where is the hope.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: You know it looks dark.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not dark at all, because when you bring the light, the light is so bright today.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: In other words, most people don't want to hear it, most people don't want to hear the gospel, they don't want to hear how they're made to be human, they just want to use each other, they want to buy stuff and they want to live on the surface of stuff.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to me, but the light shines brighter than it ever did because it's darker.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: You know, christ isn't shining any brighter than he ever did, but it's darker than it was.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: You know it is a world story, right?
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: There's just so many avenues of darkness that when you bring the light in and we are the light and the salt we are so when you bring that in, how do you do that?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Right, you have to be filled.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: You go to the well yourself and everybody listen.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You go to the well.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: You do exactly what we're compelling, what we're asking, what John Paul's asking us to do Turn to Christ and really deeply, you know, no matter where you're at in this stage of life, and to be filled and you become that light in the world.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Trust me, when you speak to people, those people that want to know, you have to have the answer, the defense for the hope that's within you.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: That's from St Peter himself, our first Pope.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: He said make sure you have a defense for the hope that's in you.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: In other words, how do I explain that?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Well, love Ed, that you were alluding to theology of the body gives us the vocabulary to explain that to people, because you feel it in your heart.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: How do you speak this to the culture today?
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Well, you do it through John Paul's work, you know.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: So, love Ed, again, it does two things and I would just ask people you know, look in the show notes here, go to the website, just scroll down on the front page.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: You'll see Love Ed.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: You'll see an intro, a four-minute intro video.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Watch that and then pick up the flyer.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Hit another link, pick up the flyer.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: So, again, scroll down.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Don't go to the top, because those are locked videos from parishes that we're working with.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: But you scroll down, you'll see everything there.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: And it does two things it gives young people the science and the theology together so they understand their bodies and understand why their bodies are created that way and how to find love.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And the second thing it does it creates a bond between the parent and the child, and so this brings the whole family together.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: So that's the beauty of it, that's the power of this.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So this brings the whole family together.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: So that's the beauty of it, that's the power of this.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: You know, when we were talking about this, linda CS Lewis has this beautiful writing that he did on beauty, and it's not very long.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: It was in the Weight of Glory, his book, the Weight of Glory, and he said this we want so much more, something the books on aesthetics take little notice of, but the poets and the mythologies know all about it.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: We do not merely want to see beauty, though God knows, even that is bounty enough.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: We want something else which can hardly be put into words to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: So this starts in, you know, when you see a beautiful picture, art, music, nature, a woman, a man, and now all of that, all of that is pointing, pointing to the beauty to be united with big B, beauty to God himself.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And so this is it to bathe in God, to become part of that.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: You know, that's what.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: That's where we're going, that's where our marriages are pointing to that.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: We're going to bathe in union and communion with God.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: We don't lose our individuality, but we just become filled with God to the point of overflowing.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: This is what the woman at the well if you read the woman at the well, you know I thirst.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Jesus said I thirst for you, and if you drank from this well that I'm offering you, you'll never thirst again, you'll be filled, you know.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And she went out and she told the whole town come and see, come and see this man who told me everything about myself.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I couldn't help but think, jack, when this wording of bathing in God we do that here already it's not just for the eternal life in heaven that we all think of, and sometimes bathing in God is maybe I should say often, not just sometimes is right there with Christ picking up our cross and suffering.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: We know many who are suffering greatly right now in so many ways.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: And that too, is bathing in God if we do it correctly, right, if we understand that he suffered and so will we.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: That's the only way we can get there on the other end.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: So there's beauty in that.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: So it's not to make this sound like we're all just, you know, kind of dealing with all the happy side of it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: No, we understand the sadness and the suffering is all a part of it.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I'm going to remember that phrase, bathing in God, because it's just beautiful, you know.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: But we see that deep in our hearts each time.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: For example, we had two babies born on the farm this week and seeing the babies, the little children, like my little granddaughter, who's eight, just wants to hold these babies.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Of course, the new moms are like with newborns, they are delicate, you have to be careful, but you see that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: And then the older ones.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: It's just a more mature wanting to bathe in that beauty of that little baby.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: So, it's so deep in our hearts that we need to draw on that in each and every element of what life throws at us, because that's really what it's about.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, think about you know, the one who pours that out to you that eternal life and love is hanging on a cross.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: He's hanging on a cross.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: If you could think about the love that God cares you's people.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: He comes into a world knowing that people are going to spit on him, curse at him, put a crown of thorns and mock him.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Talk about aping right, we talked about aping earlier but aping a king to mock him and then to hang him on a cross, which is the worst way, the most humiliating way to die.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: They stripped you naked, put you up on there, stretched you out and talk about humiliation.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And so this is just a little taste of what a man is supposed to be giving to his wife and then, vice versa, to receive that.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And so this is my body given for you to receive that.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: And so you know this is my body given for you.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not until I open that up and I really start to walk on this path of holiness that I really have something to give to my wife and my kids and to the rest of the world.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: And you see how real this is becoming when you look around and you see, when we've taken God out, how bad it could get.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I think, linda, you know, for those practice, we've got just a couple of minutes here left, practicing natural family planning.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to address so 85-7, I'll read it to you and then you can unpack this a little bit but the power of natural family planning to do everything that you and I have been talking about here.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Even within your marriage, even if you're a young couple practicing natural family planning and you have to abstain just for a short period of time, how to take advantage of that?
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: And so St Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 7, do not abstain from each other.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: This is a couple, and that means from sexual right, abstaining from each other, except by common agreement for a set time to devote yourself to prayer and then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you through lack of self-control.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: How beautiful is that, linda, when you start to think about natural family planning and a couple's chance right to go for a period of time every month and to be re-energized, to be filled again so they can pour this out to one another.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't help but think how, when we pay attention to the natural rhythm of the cycle and just the natural flow of the ebb and flow of life in general, that it would make so much sense that this is something from God to say take this time to abstain.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So if you're a young couple and you are engaged in the one flesh union every day, you think if you never take that time apart, it begins to lose its meaning.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I believe you know it's like you don't have that full understanding of giving my total gift of self.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: It's not possible because of how we are created as humans.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: And so God has instructed us in so many ways here through St Paul, that taking that time apart to refocus on God and the things of God is what brings you back together in such a more meaningful way where you're thinking more about it.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Right, you're putting your whole self, mind, body, spirit into it rather than just the physical element of it.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: And so NFP has looked at all of that and say this is part of the whole natural rhythm of it and that to take those, the fertile time to be apart from each other physically, but the intimacy in so many other ways, emotionally and mentally is still available.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: It just oozes God to me, because that is how a lover would think what is best for the other person.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, and think about the gift.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So if you came together in that fertile time you possibly could bring a gift of a child in right the fruit of this.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: But if you stay apart for that period of time, you're also a gift, because you're receiving this gift directly from God and then pouring that out to each other.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: So the whole process, to your point, becomes I'm just saying what you said, and maybe just in a little different angle, but the same thing that this whole process, whether you come together during the fertile time or the, you know, you separate, it's all a gift and to your point, with God's plan and that's what brought this and I never thought of it really this way that the whole thing becomes a gift.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And then St Paul says here that St Paul clearly says that conjugal relationships and the voluntary periodic abstinence of the spouses must be a fruit of the gift of God which is their own, and that the spouses themselves, by consciously cooperating with it, can keep up and strengthen their reciprocal personal bond, together with the dignity that, being temples of the Holy Spirit who is in them, confer on their bodies.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't really get this the first time I read it until we just talked it.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Now I'm reading it again and going yes, we're a body and a soul and without the Holy Spirit, without grace, our default position is sin and death when we're filled with this gift.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Now, not only can we bring life into the world through this third being in marriage, but by separating, we're both filled with the Holy Spirit.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine the power of this, linda, when my wife and I come together and that she's been filled with the Holy Spirit in her own way, individually wooed, not exactly like me?
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Look at, not only are we complementary, but we're bringing a whole new world of love into this relationship, a love that was never there before, something that we are co-creating love.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: While we're procreating, we're co-creating love that never existed before.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It's something totally new, right between these two people, you know.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: And that's how we bathe in God.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Jack, it's just, it's wonderful.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: You pulled it all together in the most beautiful way, thank you.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thanks for being here.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I think it's this banter going back and forth that sparks you know a way to.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: It gives me a chance to pause and think right and then listen to what you're saying and then reflecting on what St Paul and what John Paul are talking about.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: It just brings out the depth of it.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: So thank you very much, linda, and thanks to everybody that's joining us today.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: We appreciate your time.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you being with us.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to share this.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, go ahead and do that.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: It's all in the show notes right now.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, go ahead and do that.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: It's all in the show notes right now.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: If you need a copy of that last newsletter, to talk about Love Ed, to talk to this Jason Jones interview.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Also, tom Hampson that we work with has got a wonderful article on there about stealing, really again, the innocence of children, what we're doing to kids today.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I think we all need to be cognizant of all this.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks everyone.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Talk to you later.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Bye-bye.