Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #445 "What Do You Seek?" A Letter To Young People (and the young at heart)

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#445 "What Do You Seek?" A Letter To Young People (and the young at heart) · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast of production of the John Paul to renewal center.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rigatra, host.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you're with me today.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm working on a project for young people and my heart really goes out to them because they begin in almost no instruction as to the battle that they're in.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: You know, there's two sides fighting ravenously for their hearts a lover and a one that would just like to twist and destroy them.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: And this is a battle, so you know, with with eternal consequences.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I'm calling this work what do you seek?
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: What do you seek?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: That's an important question to ask in this, in this time where technology and these devices have almost clouded our reason, our sight, our senses, in a way.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So what do you seek?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: It's a letter to young people and the young at heart, and it's dedicated to John Paul II.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: So I'll start out with something that he said to young people at one time.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So he was speaking to young people and then he paused and looked around for a second and here's what he said Pay attention, pay attention.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Your life is not an endless series of open doors.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Listen to your heart.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: You could almost hear John Paul.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Listen to your hearts, listen.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Do not stay on the surface, but go to your heart.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Go to the heart of things and, when the time is right, he said, have the courage to decide.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Well, decide what?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what we're talking about today.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So get ready and buckle up for the rest of today's episode.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Decide what.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: The only real decision and most fundamental decision that a human person has is what do I seek?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: What's in my heart, what is the truth, so that I know how to live, I know who I am, and then what's the purpose and meaning of my life?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I have to start there, and this is not about opinions and just feelings and emotions.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, all those things come in, you know right, we have this flux of feelings and emotions, but at the end of the day, you have to get something solid.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: You have to be able to know what is the truth as I look out in the world, what is the best way to live, and I have been given reason for this.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And then, what do I have to do?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: What kind of decision is John Paul?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I have to use my free will to choose the good, to choose good over evil, beauty over the profane.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I have to choose love over lust.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: About a year ago, there is a young woman, a beautiful young woman on Twitter, an ex now.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Her handle is Real Defender 45.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So Twitter at Real Defender 45.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And she said something like this.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I've got most of it down, I think pretty well, just short clip.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: She said.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: She said something has happened to the United States of America at least it's not the one that I've known all my life and I've never wished to live anywhere else.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: This is my home and I was privileged to be born here.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: But today I woke up and I had my morning coffee and I realized that everything is about to change.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: She said this a year ago.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: She felt this.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I think most people I'm speaking to today that are using their reason, are in touch with their own hearts, know this battle between good and evil.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So I go back to what she said.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: No matter how I vote, she said, no matter what I say, something evil has invaded our nation and our lives are never going to be the same.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I've been confused by the hostility she said of family members and friends, that that people that I've known all my life.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: They become so hateful that they that they agree with opinions and they speak about things they would never have expressed on their own, I think I may have well entered the Twilight Zone.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: We have become a nation that's lost its collective mind, and you can't justify this insanity If a guy pretends to be a woman and you're required to pretend with him that that's true.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And keep in mind that this was a year ago.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: She said Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It was cool for Joe Biden to blackmail the president of Ukraine, but it's an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquires about it.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: 20 years old is too young to drink a beer, but 18 years old is old enough to vote.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: People who never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: People who have never been to college are required to pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio and whatever else are welcome, but you better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the United States must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gangbangers who jump the southern fence are welcome.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: $5 billion for border security to the Biden administration is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for free healthcare is not.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: If you cheat to get into college, you go to jail, but if you cheat to get into the country, you go to college for free.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: People who say there's no such thing as gender are demanding a female president.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: We see other countries going socialist and collapsing, but it's like wow, that looks like a great plan to us.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born and other people are not held responsible for things they're doing right now.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Criminals are caught and released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of their rights, and pointing all this out as hypocrisy and somehow makes us racist.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Nothing makes sense anymore.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: We don't have any values, no morals, no civility.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: People are dying of a Chinese virus, but it's racist to refer to it as Chinese, even though it began in China.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: We're clearly living in an upside down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: We're killing murderers is wrong, but killing unborn babies is okay.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Speak up, america.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: The great, unsinkable ship, the Titanic of America, has hit an iceberg, it's taking on water and it's sinking fast.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Speak up now.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So where do people, where do young people and the young at heart, where do they find hope, right?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Well, you have to ask, you have to seek, you have to knock and you have to start with your own heart and the world today.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: When you start to talk about what do you seek?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: What's in your heart, it becomes an exercise that's not easy for young people to get to because of all the noise.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: They have to be challenged to break away.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: So, as I'm speaking to young people, I challenge them to do that, to break away, to find the truth, and to find the truth and to find free will.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Well, how do they do that?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: You have to go back into your own heart.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: The problem with people today, and really so many people today, they're lukewarm at best.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: You know it's amazing, but Jesus said in the book of Revelation, in chapter 3, he said I wish you were hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm, I will spew you out.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Well, what does he know that we don't understand anymore?
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: You know, he knows that if you don't use your reason really get down to the level, you live on the surface.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: As John Paul said in that opening quote don't live on the surface, but get down to the heart of things, you will not choose the good and you will allow evil not only into the world around you, but you'll allow it into your own heart.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Edmund Burke famously said the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: See, evil is a powerful force.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: This is what young people need to understand today.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: You all need to understand that we came into a world that was fallen into.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: A world that's the power is with the principalities and the powers of the world.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: The ruling power is Satan.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: It's evil.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: We came into a fallen world.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Now God came into that world and he wants to give us that reset.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Right, we hear, build back better and the great reset.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Well, the great reset is already calm.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It's called Jesus Christ.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: So when we're talking to young people about what to do and where to go and find their hope, they have to start with their own heart.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Because if you choose to be silent, if you choose to live on the surface of the world, if you choose to keep your face in those little screens all the time, because you become lukewarm to everything, you live in this age of moral relativism and you get pushed around, and no wonder we're anxious, nervous, depressed, right.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And the problem with that is what.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: You will not be good men and women, because over time, when the good is not chosen intentionally, we live in this fallen world and the world will take you down.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: See, you didn't come into a neutral area, you came into a world at war.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And if you don't realize that and if you don't choose sides, you're just going to be walking around and you're going to get picked off.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: You will do evil, intentionally or unintentionally, and doing evil you become evil.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I AM EVIL.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: What a terrible way to live your life.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: This is what that young lady was alluding to when she said in the beginning my friends and family have become insane, saying things that are insane.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I see that all around me today.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: The good news is, as those who live in the light of the gospel.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: The good news, of course, is the gospel, because when you start to open your heart up and seek the truth, it will speak to you.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: But Jesus said this he doesn't start with the gospel and give you any kind of moral advice, because he knows that if you ask, if you seek, if you knock that, you will find the truth.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Because this isn't about more information.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: You can Google more information.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: This is about your heart.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: This is why it's so important for everybody to get into your own heart.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: This is what prayer does.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: This is what silence does.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself the question what do you seek?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: So I'll get into that as we go here.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: It's telling that God, the Logos, the wisdom, I am the way, the truth and the life, says in Matthew, let me find this, matthew 7.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So look, if you look it up, matthew 7, 7, he's speaking to us and he says Ask, seek and knock.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Ask, it will be given to you.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Seek and you will find.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Knock and it will be opened to you.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and him who knocks, it will be opened.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Jesus is very confident in this.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So that's why we're young people and the young at heart.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: We have to stay in touch with their heart or maybe, for the first time, get really.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Get deep, like John Paul said, into the heart.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Don't stay on the surface of things.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: A little bit further, on same chapter there, verses 13, he calls us to narrow.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Gay, he knows that if you're seeking the truth, you're going to find the narrow gate.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And he said this enter by the narrow gate.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: For the gate is wide and the way is easy.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: That leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those to find it are few.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: He knows that if you seek the truth, you will find or search for that narrow gate, and it's very interesting.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So what's the book end to that?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: That asking, seeking, knocking.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And so this is the God who's told you, you know, ask, seek and find.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Well, he's the God who's also asking, seeking, looking for you See, this is the power of this, that we don't have to look very far.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: If we only understood this.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And that's really what prayer is.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Prayer is that opening of your own heart, that's seeking to the God who gave you that, who gave you that desire to search for the truth, to what is true, what is good, what is beautiful.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Because this is the heart of God himself, who also searches for you and wants to give this to you.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So he says in the book of Revelation this is verse 15,.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to read, probably through to 20.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I know your works.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: You are neither cold or hot.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Would it be or I wish it would be that you were cold or hot.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So because you're lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: For you say I'm rich, I have prospered, I need nothing, not knowing that you are wretched, irritable, poor, blind and naked.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Therefore, I counsel you to buy for me gold refined by fire that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and sad to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: What does Jesus know here?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: He knows that you have all these layers, this pretension, these illusions I have a little more money, I have the nice car, I have the girl, I have whatever.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: It's only when you start to empty yourself of all that.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: It's not that you shouldn't have any of these things, it's that they shouldn't be attached to you.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You have to live a detached life.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Jesus knows that because otherwise what you can't listen to your heart, you can't get to the heart of things.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: He goes on to say this those I love, I reprove and chasten.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So be zealous and repent.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Be zealous and repent, don't be lukewarm.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Why does he want you?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: To repent again Is to get rid of all the sins, all the garbage.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: He came into the world to do this.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Because he wants you to get to your own heart, Listen to your heart.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: You can't listen to your heart when you're attached to all this stuff.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You have to become free, break away, to become free.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: It's so beautiful.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And why why?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Why, because you ask to seek to knock and because, listen to this.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Now he says this this is verse 20.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Because, why?
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Because I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: See, he's inviting you into a relationship, to come as a lover into a relationship.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: If we only understood this.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You know, the saints and the mystics got this.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: There's a verse, a couple of verses, in chapter 5 of the Song of Songs, this erotic love poetry.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And again, this song of songs, this erotic love poetry, was left in the Bible and it's hard to understand sometimes, until you understand that the mystics and the saints picked right up on this Because it gave them the vocabulary to describe the intensity of the relationship Jesus wanted with them.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: What did they seek?
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Right, they wanted to love, they wanted to be lovers.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And in chapter 5 it goes like this this is God, right, but this is really, you know, in the Song of Songs.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: We understand this is a wooing of a man to a woman in marriage, the understanding of this.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: But this is an icon, a little reflection of the kind of relationship Jesus the bridegroom wants with us.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And so the saints and the mystics will hear this as the bridegroom saying I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gather my myrrh and my spices, I eat my honey and my sweet meats, I drink my wine and my milk, eat friends, drink, drink freely of love.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And then it goes on to say and the bride was saying this, and this is the bride who's searching, thinking I was sleeping, but my heart kept vigil.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I heard my lover knocking Open to me, my sister, my beloved.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: He said my dove, my perfect one for my head, is what would do my locks with the moisture of the night?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And and it goes on, to woo each other.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: It's the lover that's waiting, waiting, waiting.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Jesus will never barge in on you, he respects your freedom.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: In the last book of the Bible, again, the book of Revelation this is chapter 19, verse 7, let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory for the marriage that the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: It was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: An Angel said to me write this down Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Supper of the Lamb.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: This whole thing comes down to.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: God wants to marry us, he wants a relationship, and what does he do?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: He says start with your heart.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It's.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It's such a beautiful thing when the first chapter of John You've heard me say this before, but it's so beautiful, so here's the bridegroom comes into the story and the first chapter of John.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: John is baptizing in Bethany, near the Jordan, and he sees Jesus come down.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: He understands who Jesus is for the first time and he goes.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and he says it again and two of John the Baptist disciples we find out it was John the evangelist, and Andrew, the brother of Peter start to follow Jesus.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And Jesus turns to them and this is so important.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: He saw them following and he said to them what do you seek?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And they said to him rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: And he said to them come and see, and we know that John, who was writing this, was a, was a witness to this and it's very interesting.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: And they said so.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: They came and they saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour, that means about four o'clock in the afternoon.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So beautiful he throws that in, you almost can miss that it was about the tenth hour.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: This was an eyewitness to the story.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: So again, what is Jesus saying to this?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: What do you seek?
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Because the person, who, who put that within you, who gave you the essence, who knows this, is running through our DNA, but it knows that we were, we came into a fallen world.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: He says if you would only get to your heart, if you would only Allow me to come into your heart, see, I'm standing out there, I'm the bridegroom, I'm the lover who's knocking on the door of your heart.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: When you hear your own heart seeking and knocking, this is, this, is your outward movement, now and then, then, then you will find the, the narrow gate.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: This is why society doesn't want you to hear this.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: This is why society doesn't want you to To take in the, the, the gospels, because you might find that narrow gate Seen with the principles and the powers and the principalities of this world.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: If you give you.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: You want to get a little idea what that's like, read Ephesians.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: In fact, I'll read you just a little bit of Ephesians 2.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: This is a Ephesians, chapter 2, from death to life with Christ, and he's going to be talking about what happens when the reason I want to bring it up when you don't accept this, if you don't seek, if you don't knock, if you don't open your heart Right to the bridegroom, what kind of world have we come into?
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And this is my premise from the very the introduction, that we came into a fallen world.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And if we don't know this, we don't tell young people this, they don't know that the battle and the forces are really arrayed against them and they have no way to win this battle.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: No wonder you lose, hoping to become anxious and nervous, the press, and even suicidal.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: For the weight of this is almost too much to bear, especially for those that are more sensitive.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: And you he made alive.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: So he's talking to people that have accepted Christ already.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: The Ephesians he said so.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You he made alive when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this World, following the following the Prince of the power of the ear, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience Among these.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were, by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: But God, who is rich in mercy and of the great love with which he loved us Even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: So, by grace, you have been saved and raised up with him.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: So this is, this is a story, this is the story that we entered into.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: So the solution to this I am.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: So we have to choose, choose Christ, the bridegroom, but start.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Start, you say.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Well, why?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: How do I know?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Start with your heart, start with your heart.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: See, jesus is the model of this love and this life-giving love.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: When you read Jesus, is it?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: This is my body, given for you, the bridegroom.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You know that if you look around the world and you say, okay, well, what's going on in the world?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I need something.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: What am I seeking?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: What am I looking for?
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: If you just open up your heart.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I mean what?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: What kind of a God humbles himself?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: What kind of person in this world humbles himself?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: You know, so low that they, they're born as a little child, they get hung naked on it, just so they can get hung naked on a crucifix and give up them themselves for you.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many people in your life do that, right?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know there's a lot of people that really love you, that would probably give up a lot for you.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: But but this is the God who's given us the model of this.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: This is I'm gonna pour out everything.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: This is who I am.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I will pour out everything, but God again this is verse 4 from Ephesians who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were a dead, through our Trust passes, made us alive together with Christ.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: For he this is verse 14 there for he is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: And so my heart goes out to young people who are being fed to ravenous wolves who don't know the story, fed like, like lamps, innocent lamps, to the slaughter.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And there's a price to pay for this, their mental illness and their anxiety is Skyrocketing.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: They're told that there is no truth, no objective morality, no good or evil other than what you feel.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: If it feels good, then it is.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: If it feels evil, then that's what's evil.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: This falls right into the world.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: They love to get young people like this and steal their innocence right.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: The young people are told that objective truth and so so love itself and divine eternal life itself is an illusion.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: They're told that a man can be a woman, a woman can be a man, and that if they don't go along with it and lie about that fall for that lie, something's wrong with them.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: They're racist, they're evil.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: They are told that a baby can be murdered with no consequences, and yet murderers and rapists can get out of prison in no time at all.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: That marriage is meaningless, that it's no longer between a man and a woman.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It could be between anything.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: We see what's happening today.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: It gets twisted and distorted into every single letter of the alphabet.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: You can imagine.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that when you find Jesus again on the scene, he does not begin with the moral truth, but he asks what?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: What do you seek?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: What do you seek?
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Is that enough for you, or do you seek something more?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: What does he know about Andrew and John who begin to follow Him?
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: He knows that this is not about more information, this is about the DNA.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: He knows that in their heart they are seeking the truth.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Because he gave you, in the Amago Day, and you were created, an image and likeness of God.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: He created you with what?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: With reason.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: And what is your reason different than all of the rest of the animals and the creatures?
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Your reason is there to seek the truth, to understand the truth within your own heart, within your own being.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: You go out and look around, use your eyes to seek the truth, but today our world has become very Our eyes and our world, because it starts in the own individual heart, has become very unreasonable.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Because the individual hearts have become unreasonable.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: We are no longer, or, if we do see the truth, we are cowered into not proclaiming the truth.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: We have to go along with this lie again.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: A man can be a woman, a woman can be a man.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: This is scientifically impossible, but we all go along with the lie.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: It's amazing, right?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Anyways, what does Jesus know?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: He knows that in their hearts, the reason they are following Him, because they are asking, they are seeking, they are knocking.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Rabbi, where are you staying?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: They have a sense that he contains the truth.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: You know, they heard from John the Baptist, who was their mentor.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: You know, here's the Lamb of God, he's the one that takes away the sins of the world.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: What, what, what.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Let's follow Him.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe he has the truth.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So Jesus says what?
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Come and see why?
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Because he knows that if you come and see the person, if you enter into that narrow gate, you will know the truth.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: And the truth, he said, will set you free, free to do what, free to get into your own heart, free to see the truth.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And then, like John Paul said, once you see the truth, you have to make a decision then to choose what, to choose the good.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So your will becomes a motor to the good.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: That's when you have that aha moment.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: What's that aha moment?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: That aha moment is when your heart and your experience of life and those questions what do you seek?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Meets the gospel and you find out.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The gospel not only speaks to your heart, but it is a person, and that person is also seeking you, is knocking on your heart, and when you open that up, you find something powerful.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: St Catherine of Siena said become who you are and this is becoming who you are.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: You will set the world on fire.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: As I say in the introduction to my Wednesday theology of the body sessions, if I were placing a wager, I'd lay odds that most of us are bit disconnected from the divine life to which these saints are pointing us.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Yet, as John Paul II would say, he said that each of us have an echo of this divine life inscribed in our human heart, stamped right into our bodies, created, male and female, to express what the inner life of God, who is, what An eternal exchange of love.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: And if we looked at our lives through this proper lens, we would connect with this echo in our own hearts in such a way that we would experience that aha moment.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: See, this is the genius of John Paul II's teaching, especially on his theology of the body, because it connects our lived experience to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us to answer the big questions that are so confusing to modern culture.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Who am I?
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: What's my purpose?
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Why were we created male and female?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: These are timeless questions that the whole culture is confused about today.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Well, this is no accident.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: How do I find joy and peace here on earth?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Ah, this is the neural gate.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: This is Jesus who says what do you seek?
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I will leave you like this.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Young people, start with your own heart.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Start with those three simple things that I speak of and I'll repeat them quickly here, before you look at that little screen in the morning.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: You know this screen can bring some good things into your life, right, I mean, I use GPS and to look things up, but you can't be so attached to it that becomes brings tries to bring meaning and purpose to your life, gives you that little bit of dopamine that you become like an addict.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: You have to detach even from that.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: You know St John of the Cross would say to find wisdom, you have to be a person of love.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: So you have to fill your heart with love, because God is love.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Then you have to be silent.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You have to be silent.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You have to go into silence, which is prayer and this openness right, and allow God to come in and start to detach you from things, right.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And then, finally, you have to go through some mortifications.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And what does he mean?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You have to, let's call it fasting, right?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I fast on a regular basis.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And fasting from food, from drink, from screens, from TVs, you decide what you are addicted to.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes it's just a good 24 hour fast, just water and black coffee.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Stay off the screens and end and you say, well, what am I going to do all day?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Those are the times you really can get into prayer.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So three simple things before you look at that screen in the morning, fall to your knees, say God, do it to me according to your word today, according to your will.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So you're at the tree, in a sense, in the morning, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and I choose what's true, I choose what's good and I become good because I do that.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Then temptations number two temptations will come your way.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Right, you'll be flooded with temptations.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: We are anyways as human beings, but temptations are not a sin, so important.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Jesus himself was tempted by Satan.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: So as those temptations come, no longer do I have to push them down and get frustrated.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Right, push them down, push them down.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, and I'm not going to indulge them either like a porn addict or alcoholic or a food addict, you know, whatever it is.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: No, this time I open up those desires right.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: So every time I'm tempted becomes an invitation to prayer, whether I get down on my knees, but or not.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: But all during the day is those images come in.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I don't try to fight them anymore, I just say God, here they are, this is who I am, these are the images.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Come in and please take these from me.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It will be a battle.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: This is the battle of the heart, between good and evil, between love and lust, and sometimes some of this stuff has been programmed into you so deeply that you almost well, it's not almost you have to rewire your brain, and to do that, your brain, your brain.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It will take time and the but this opening up to God over time will actually rewire you.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how it works.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: So use temptation as an invitation to prayer.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: You'll be praying all day long.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It's so beautiful.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So, number three then go out and be a person of love.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So important to finish this every day, no matter who you meet who I'm talking to on the phone.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's a friend, maybe you're in college.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: The next person you meet, just smile, be nice, be kind, the cashier, whoever it is, be that person of love, right?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So that's number three.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You can't do this without the sacraments.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You need sacraments, you know?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, as Catholics, we're so lucky.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Confession is so powerful, isn't it?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: When you go to confessional, I meet people every day that haven't been to confession for years, and when they finally go, it's amazing how that opens up right.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: These layers are coming off that we've been talking about earlier today in this podcast.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus wants those layers to come off so that you repent and you open yourself up so he can refine you like gold.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: It will take a while, it'll be a battle, but it'll definitely be worth it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Then you can go to Mass and receive the Eucharist.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And again, what's happening on that altar?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Look at a picture of the Divine Mercy Jesus I trust in you from Sister Faustina, and you'll see what comes out of the side of Christ is water and blood.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: So the water is that.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Baptism is the confession, is the cleansing you.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So that you can become one flesh with God.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Think about that.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: You become one flesh with God, the God who created you, you know right, without you will not save you, without you.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: But here he's coming in and saying choose me, go to confession, be washed your sins.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So that I can unite myself with you.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: So many people don't understand the power of the Eucharist to transform their hearts because they go there and they're receiving him unworthily.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I mean it's almost preposterous when you think about it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Read scripture every day.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: This is not time consuming Every day.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Get the Magnificat.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I suggest you know the Magnificat's so beautiful.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It's cost me $19.95 a year to get the digital one.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And so I just read the readings for the Mass the next day, even if I can't make Mass the next day, I'm just going to read those readings and get an Old Testament, reading a Psalm, new Testament.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: And then there's meditations from different people, and then there's a saint of the day.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: You can spend five, 10 minutes quick, or you could spend a half an hour on there in your prayer time.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: You can meditate on that.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And finally, the rosary Pray the rosary, because the rosary you can do when you go for a walk, when you're driving in your car I like to say it at night.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful thing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I have a hard time falling asleep I always have, and so the rosary, those meditations, put me to sleep.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: And then I wake up a couple hours later, my hand's on those beads yet, and then I start to the next one, and then, slow, oh man, it's so beautiful, it's almost worth waking up just so that I could say a few more person, and it's peacefully.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You know, our Blessed Mother brings us back as we're praying through the Gospels, right, and these beautiful meditations come in and allow that silence then to just permeate you.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: So beautiful, right, all right, just don't be lukewarm, because Christ will spew you out.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: It sounds unfair, but he knows that the powers that we've entered into here are too much.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: We're not made for that.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Without grace, right, a body and a soul, without grace, without this infusion of the Holy Spirit that Jesus wants to give us, that the false position is sin and death.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: That's who we are and that's where we're going.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: That's what the world promises you at Utopia.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: But look up the etymology, the root of Utopia.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: It means no place, nowhere.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: The world is promising you nothing, it's just filling you up with noise right now.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: What do you see?
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Talk to you soon, everybody.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Bye-bye, good.