Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #556 St. Pope John Paul II is in Session! You're Invited to a Heroic Life in the Spirit!!

Transcript

#556 St. Pope John Paul II is in Session! You're Invited to a Heroic Life in the Spirit!! · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the 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.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Who am I?
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: What's my purpose?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Why were we created male and female?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: How do I?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: find happiness here on earth?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: How do I find love that satisfies forever?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Hey, glad you're with me, I'll be.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: We are back for episode 101, john Paul II, recorded December 1st 1982.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Linda, how are you?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: How are you, Jack?
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Good, good.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Now this episode, Linda, will come out, because we're pushing it back a little bit because of the election, but this is previous to the election as we're recording it.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: We're recording it on Halloween for anybody that's paying attention here, but it won't come out until after the election.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be crazy.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: But I want to, with Linda, draw the battle line that we're in with the election.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Even if you look at it post election, it doesn't matter, because the battle line is really over life in the spirit and life of the world, and this is the battle that we're in.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: This is the battle that we see clearly in this election.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: As I said on a number of videos and podcasts already, linda, and wrote about this that Donald Trump is not the Messiah, he's not a pastor, he's not a priest.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: He never proclaimed that he was.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: He's a businessman turned politician that God is using in various ways to restore the spirit of life.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: It's all of us, but we have the freedom.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Then Look, if it comes down to this, if I'm praying outside of an abortion clinic after Donald Trump is president, I will not be arrested for that.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I can pray and I can bring this divine life and love and this battle of the heart.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: If Kamala Harris is president, it's probably not only a possibility but a probability that you'll be arrested for that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: We're already seeing that in Britain and in other countries where they're persecuting Christians standing up for their faith.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Now we've seen it come out of the public square already, and so Satan is alive and well in the Democratic Party.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And Republicans certainly are not perfect and not anywhere close.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: In fact, we know the Uniparty, Linda.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: There's many Republicans that are Republican in name only.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But again, the election's important.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Even Planned Parenthood I'll get to in a little while Planned Parenthood themselves.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: International Planned Parenthood has been putting out a lot of emails and I'm on their list, so I get their emails and just talking about how important these elections are and how much funding Trump took away last time and he will continue that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Everything was restored.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: All that funding was restored under Biden and Kamala Harris restored.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: All that funding was restored under Biden and Kamala Harris.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So this culture of death came in loud and strong and we see this being played out.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: So this is what I'm going to talk about today.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the awe and wonder of marriage, the awe and wonder of love, the awe and wonder of a child that's brought into the world versus the culture of death that wants to destroy all of that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: And let's contrast that phrase, culture of death to culture of life, because really the opposite is life in the spirit, with the Holy Spirit being the giver of life.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And so life as husband and wife is important, and when we talk about marriage and life of the newborn, that comes of that marriage.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So, as you said way in the beginning, you know that this is that battle where the battle line has been drawn.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Good and evil is what we're used to, but another way of looking at those two is life in the spirit and life in the world, or life in the flesh.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Life in the spirit and life in the world or life in the flesh.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And those two terms come closer to what John Paul talks about as how we are distinguishing this, yeah, and I think that life in the flesh sometimes can be a little confusing to people.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So let's just say this this is life in the world where we breathe God out, we breathe the Holy Spirit out.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: This happens, of course, at the fall, but in a sense, we all come into the world and we stand before that tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we're free.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: We're free, you know, to either take the Spirit into our lives or not, and GK Chesterton would say the same thing as St Paul here.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: You know you want to see this played out, linda.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: You know it's as clear as a potato sitting on your plate in front of you it's called sin.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: You know we were discussing how to weave in Galatians 5, which John Paul brings up in this episode, romans 8, john, the first letter of John.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to just talk about.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: We're talking about life in the flesh.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: What does life in the flesh look like?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And now let's just look at the practical aspects.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Now, the works of the flesh are plain.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Think about the world today, linda.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, hearty spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I warn you, as I warned you before that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: If we live by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, capital S, let us also walk by the Spirit.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So you have two different worlds.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Linda don't you.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And Jack.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Let's follow that up with one, john, where he says do not love the world or the things of the world.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: For all that is in the world sensual lust, enticement for the eyes and a pretentious life is not from the Father but is from the world.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Yet the world and its enticements are passing away.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: But whoever does, the will of God remains forever.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Don't those go beautifully hand in hand.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, so here's what you know.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: So, if you think about this, after the fall, body and a soul a human being is a body and soul.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: We are literally exploded into this stage in an act of what should be love between a man and a woman, a marital act, a sexual act.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So often it's not today, and in fact, it's so twisted and distorted that abortion is not.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And again, when we talk about abortion, linda, it's not the individual person.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I know many, many people that have had abortions.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, some of the women, especially, that I work with in pro-life today, have had abortions and this is what has impelled them, when their hearts changed, to really stand for life.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So this is not what we're talking about here.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: We're talking about the right to be codified into law, the right of a human being.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about the rights, right?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So I have a right now to murder my child.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: This is the battle lines, right?
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So God, who gives life and love?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And then you have the anti-creation, satan, coming in to destroy that life, and this is why it's so, so nefarious today and now let's just say this that we might as well get them all in now, linda.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: So this is romans 9, for creation, all of creation was subject to futility, not not of its own, but will of one who subjected it, though in hope, because creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: We know that the whole creation has been groaning with labor pains until now, and not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, capital S grown inwardly as we wait for adoption, the sons, the redemption of our bodies.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So this is the whole reason.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Jesus came into the world.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He came in to restore us, as he said in the beginning.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: In the beginning, linda, it was so beautiful you know we had that five days in God's creating and it's so beautiful.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And he's getting everything ready.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And how is he going to make this visible again on the sixth day, if you think about this, he creates Adam, which means mankind, and he's created with the same clay as all the rest of it, but then he blows Ruah into him.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: This makes us different.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: This is the spirit.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: This comes from Genesis 2, verse 7.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Already.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He blows the Spirit of himself into us, created an image of God.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: He gave us this.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: He pours this into us, and what does that mean?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: He gives us reason and intellect so we can know the truth.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: He gives us free will, because without free will you can't really be a person of love.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: But the problem with free will is I can also choose to reject God.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And this we become a person of the world, a person of the flesh.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So that's where we're at today, linda the beauty of Jesus Christ.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: He takes on a body, that body and a soul whose devolved position is sin and death, and he unites it to himself with divinity.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And then he goes on a cross and pours this out to us.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So it's a body and a soul plus grace now flowing from that redemption right, that act of passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And then we have the potential for human freedom, we have the potential for human flourishing.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And now what do we have to do?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: We have to say two things.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: We have to say yes, be restored the nuptial bath and then receive him.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And then we have to become that.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: See in the created world, linda, again, that sixth day God said how am I going to bring my love and life into the world?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it through Linda and Jack, out through their bodies, body, soul, filled with my grace.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Well, when we lost that, we brought evil into the world.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Christ comes in to fill us once again so that we can now go back into the world and bring that divine life and love into the world.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So we have this chance, linda, to be redeemed and to step back into the story, right?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, and it's that already but not yet.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So we have been redeemed, but we have to access that redemption and we're awaiting the final redemption of the body, but we have the access to it right now through this conquering of the concupiscence, which we've described already as all of these things life in the flesh versus life in the spirit.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And the Pope tells us right in paragraph four of 101 that that idea of the redemption of the body, what Christ did for us, as you describe, signifies the hope that in marriage is that everyday hope and on that basis we can master the concupiscence of the flesh and that the fruits of the spirit, as described in Galatiansrament, of marriage and that bond in marriage, life in the spirit.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: It seems like kind of all up there, what are you talking about?
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: But truly it is that battle line of conquering that concupiscence of the flesh through that acceptance of the redemption of the body.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And how many people don't get this at all today?
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And even if you didn't understand everything from a theological standpoint you're not a theologian.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe you work in a coal mine a generation or two or three ago, but you went to mass and you received the sacraments and you prayed and you understood this innately.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: You know that you had to respect your wife.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: You came home from the coal mine all dirty and she had dinner ready, and this was self-sacrificial.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: You gave life and this love to one another.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: You entered into marital union and you expressed Trinitarian love, and children were born of this.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: We have a chance to not only bring a child into the world, we procreate with God In Genesis 4, it's very, very interesting that Eve even said so she enters into marital relations with Adam right in Genesis 4.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And then, though, when she conceives and bears a son, she said I have created a man, or begotten a man, with the help of the Lord.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Now she knows that Adam was part of this, but she knows even deeper that this source of life and love came from God himself, that God was present in that sacrament.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So if you think about this again, juxtapose that with these hookup cultures that we're in today with these kids on the college campuses that are entering into what should be marital relationships, sexual union, and they don't even know the other person, they're just bringing home people.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about that, linda Again, know again, if you again, you know I use the words juxtapose again.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: But if you take that beauty of that coal miner who got washed up, who kisses his wife and, and you know, worked hard all day and his wife is taking care of the kids and she's working hard all day and they're going to sit down and in this tough environment, found this way to love one another in the sacrifice.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Now, if he starts to drink, if she doesn't care, I mean, you know, you could see when the self-sacrificial love of that coal miner and his wife and then the children, the dysfunction that comes into their lives, it's really a sad thing.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: But when it gets even twisted and distorted, even worse, it's when these college kids are actually you know, if you think about it, what's the difference between them and a porn star?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: What's the difference between what they're doing every weekend and a porn video?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: The difference you know that they're not even getting paid.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: They're giving away their bodies, right, this beautiful sacrament of love, and they're giving it away and they're just demeaning all of who we are and we demand a right to do this, Linda, and a demand, a right to kill the child that could be conceived through that union.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I mean you can see how far away we've come.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And the paradox of that, jack, to me is that they're really at that deepest level looking for love, right?
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And our culture has so distorted where the source of love is that you know they think that that's it, or the idea of just seeking the pleasure, because what else is there in this life?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Right, just, you know, grab what you can get, without any thought of the meaning and what the outcome will be.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: You know the circumstances of that act and what the outcome would be.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, kudos to Satan.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: He has so thoroughly twisted everything you know.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: And sin, as you mentioned.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: You know this threefold concupiscence, over and over.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: We've said that what it does is darken the intellect and then weakens that will.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: And we have, I think, talked about how it is.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: People cannot understand that killing the life in the womb is murder is.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: We cannot kind of comprehend how one could not understand it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: And yet, when I put it in the context of how our intellect can be so darkened, it's, like you know, black Veil has dropped in front of it, right, yeah, and you see that, linda, I mean, that's such a good point.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: You see that all over, I mean, I walk into churches now and you're trying to proclaim the Spirit, you know, and say, no, we can't live like this, you know.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And no, we can't be Catholics or Christians for abortion, we can't be Catholics for a same-sex marriage.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And they say, well, why, you know, are you a hater?
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Because here's what happened, you know, you think about marriage.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: There's another right now, and again, I'm not talking about my gay neighbors.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: You know who I love and were called to love, and the only way that I'm going to ever get a chance to bring Christ, you know, into a conversation with them is if I love them, if I talk to them, if I'm civil.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: You know, jesus always sat with all of us, with all of the sinners, you know, including me, you and everybody else.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: But then he would say go and sin no more.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And that's the difference.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: This is the freedom that he wants to lead us into, and he didn't tell us to go out and do that on our own, that he would be with us.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So this is the difference, you know.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: We walk back into the story.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: But we're not fighting this battle.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: John Paul would call it the battlefield of the heart, right Between love and lust, which is really between self-giving and self-taking, and receiving, and this is the battle.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But the battle that we're in is a battle of the heart, and that human heart is always to be filled with divine life and love.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Jesus didn't come to manage our sins.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Jesus came with power, and this is what we know.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: This is what we know.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: See, this is the awe and wonder that modern man is missing, and I mean, of course, men and women.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Think about that awe and wonder, Linda, of that primordial sacrament.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: So again, a body and a soul filled with divine life and love.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: That's Adam.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But then Eve comes along and then our likeness.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: So we're creating the image of God, like we said earlier, reason free will.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But now the likeness of God comes and we become persons of love.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And that in the beginning, that sign, that primordial sign, was marital union, you know, and it was expressed.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: The pinnacle of that is expressed in the one flesh, union and sexual relationship.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: That's how beautiful sexuality is, where the two become one, become three, and then the likeness means we're a reflection.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: That's how beautiful sexuality is where the two become one, become three, and then the likeness means we're a reflection of the Trinity, but we actually this is a true story that we're filled with the Spirit and we bring love into the world.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: We're that coal miner and his wife in the midst of all this craziness, can love one another and be self-sacrificial, and that's a beautiful picture compared to the dysfunction that's going on in so many hearts.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the self-sacrificial part, I think, is where in our culture we're so unwilling to sacrifice.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And I think, jack, that's where the whole concept of this rights language came from, because rights really is saying what about me, it's all about me, I have my rights.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: And the idea of the sacrifice and self-gift to other is lost totally in that thinking.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And I think maybe that's a part of why when we hear in the abortion argument you know that it's I want the government out, you know, don't tell me what to do with my body, kind of thing where it's me right and totally dismissing that there's another person involved whom I have to sacrifice for in order to bring life.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: And what a beautiful thing it is that the creator has allowed us to be co-creators with him of the pinnacle of creation, which is the human being.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: We know that God provides the soul, because we couldn't possibly do that, but he's allowed us to provide the flesh, the body through which we bring that love into the world.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Christopher West in his commentary states it beautifully where he says every time a child is conceived, the very mystery of that child's conception proclaims the work of the Spirit.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: It proclaims the mystery of Trinitarian love and the mystery of our being chosen in Christ to be children of God in communion with him for all eternity.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: So the mystery of creation and the mystery of redemption all wrapped up there in that new life.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I have acquired a man with the help of the Lord huh.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: You know Psalm 139,.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You formed my inmost being.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: You knit me in my mother's womb.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I praise you so wonderfully you made me.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Wonderful are your works.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: And in Jeremiah, first chapter, and then Jeremiah first chapter, right off the bat, verse 5,.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, jeremiah.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Before you were born I dedicated you.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: So this is our origins our father and our mother expressing God love in the ambit of united flowing from the Trinity and God blowing again that soul, as you described, which brings reason and free will into this body.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Unlike any other bodies, the animals don't have this, linda.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: We forget this.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: We degraded ourselves so much that we forget and we become like animals.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Then, like you said, when our reason gets darkened, when our free will becomes weakened and we don't even we're not free anymore.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: When we're living in the flesh, we're not free.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: We're not free to overcome our addictions.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: We see that all over.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: We're not even free to make clear choices.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: When you're destroying the life of another person, you're not free anymore because human beings are made to be supernatural creatures.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: If we were really free, we would see that life as life.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: But now we want the right.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: We demand the right to kill that child.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Well, where's the child's rights?
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: As you stated already, where's justice, not just for me, where's justice for that other person, that other life?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: You know reproductive health from international Planned Parenthood, reproductive health is demanded, but how about reproductive health meaning the culture of life, not the culture of death?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: You see how they twist the words, huh.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So again, we're in that, when you think about it, reproduction means right Reproducing, so another human being.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: And so it's so absurd, when you think through the logic of the terminology, that anyone could see it.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: The logic of the terminology that anyone could see it, you know, when you said that we are born to be supernatural another way of saying we have a destiny that is beyond this world.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: And when we hear in Psalm 139, how Christ knew us, we were in the mind of God before we were even formed and then before we were born.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: And so, in essence, god has graced us, husband and wife, with the beauty and the ability to co-create with him that person that he has in his mind from all eternity, with the goal of bodily existing and then sharing all eternity.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: So creating little life to populate heaven, I guess, is another way to put it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: And when we totally trash that, we're telling God we're killing who you want to be with for all eternity.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: It's enormous when you think of it that way, it's enormous and we're going to all end.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: one day this life and this temporal space will be over and we're going to face the consequences of this.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: We're going to face the consequences of all the evil that we did, and I am very fearful of that myself.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, I brought much evil into the world.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: When you really take Christ into your heart, you start to really see this.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: When you start to go to confession, when you start to go deeper into prayer, christ starts to unravel and the Spirit starts to work within you and you start to see this evil for what it is.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: This is years of battling sometimes, and I think of GK Chesterton again.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: He said Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: It's been found difficult and left untried.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And so that's the story.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to, I don't want to go through that battle of the heart.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I, I, I, I.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I want to hang on to my lusts and my addictions and all of these different things.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You know, and, and, but life is going by, like, like you said in the first letter of John, but the world is passing away and the lust of it, it's passing away.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Every moment of our lives is passing away to the next moment.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I either become a person of love or I don't.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And the last thing I'll say on this is, right before we came on here, one of the things that Sister Lucia, the main visionary of Fatima, said don't depend on popes and bishops and priests, or even your parish priests, to get you to pray more, to go to the sacraments more.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: You have to take it on.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: This is a vision from our Blessed Mother.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: No, you have to personally decide to become a person of love, which is becoming a person of holiness, which is to be filled in the Spirit.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You are responsible for you.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: You have to say yes and you have to take this seriously, and then you have to go out and act in it.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: And if that means just casual sex on the weekends and then exterminating the life that comes from that, you are at the opposite of that, the opposite of love.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Self-giving is taking, grasping and using other people, and even the child that would come from this act.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And speaking to all those who are married, the Pope points out that, as a team together, this sacrament and this grace comes from the Father and it's actually the way to heaven.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: So think about how the culture has worked really, really hard to destroy marriages.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: You know when the Pope says that that's the way to heaven.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: One thing we've talked about in the past is how each spouse is supposed to help the other get to heaven.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: But together, the whole idea of being together, both working towards that goal, can point out to me just how much power there is in that together, when we're both living the life of the spirit.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And in paragraph seven here the Pope says marriage comes from the Father.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: It is not from the world, but from the Father, and so that provides that basis of hope for man and woman, parents and children, for all the generations to come.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Flipping back to 1 John, where he says For all that is in the world sensual lust, enticement for the eyes and pretentious life is not from the Father, but is from the world.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Repeating over and over again, this beauty and grace comes from the Father.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: This beauty and grace comes from the Father and if we accept it, we have that power, as he sent Christ, you know, in the flesh to show us what that sacrifice actually looks like.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I know you've talked many times about looking at the crucifix and the power is given to that married couple.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: The power is given to that married couple to attain the ability to go through the tough sacrifices that marriage calls them to.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, jack, when you're really trying to approach it that way, you almost don't have time for all the other what about me kinds of things.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: You know it's like there isn, isn't even time, because the beauty of that family life just really, you know, requires all of your energy and all your strength, and yet it's available to you and that's how we experience the fruits of the Spirit the love, the joy, the patience, the peace, the kindness.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So to me I just kind of see it all coming together in a beautiful woven picture of what God intended for us.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the sacrament of marriage, as you're pointing out, is actually our vehicle.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: You know, there's two main vehicles.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Right, you know the marriage as we know from this life, and that's your vehicle.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: You go through the narrow gate.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: When you get married in the church, you go through the narrow gate, but the narrow gate again is drawing on the source of the Spirit to your point, and then you have to live this out, and marriage is that part, like you said, that you're getting rid of all the selfishness, you become a self-giving person.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: You can't do this on your own.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: You need grace in order to do it properly, and so this is the difference.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: But this is our vehicle.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Just like a religious person would have one eye to this life but the other eye strictly on, he's going to give up this marriage and this life and really aim at our destiny, at the marriage of the Lamb.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And so they also walk through the narrow gate.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: We walk through together.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I look at the religious and say, oh yeah, that's right, this marriage is in this temporal life.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to give everything I can to this, because once I take my last breath, I walk.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: There is no marriage anymore as we think about in this life.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: We're married to Trinitarian love.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: We're married to all of us that come into this world, we become one body in Christ.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: We'll see how that unveils itself.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: The religious show us that that's possible.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: But we are also assigned for them of the intimacy that God wants with them.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: God wants to marry us.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: That's the ultimate thing.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But that eternity starts now, this second, this minute.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: As we're talking here, Linda, I have to be in prayer and just be absorbing and asking God to fill me so that I can speak about these things, even Sure.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: And when we think of both pathways, obviously both vehicles to heaven, look at what our culture has done to marriage.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: In destroying marriage, it's essentially destroying that pathway to heaven and in its attitude about religious life, same thing.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It has degraded the whole importance of religious life, destroying that pathway to heaven.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And who do we think is behind all of that?
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: You know the evil one just lying and lying.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you see that most of us are on the broad.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: We haven't gone through that narrow path, the narrow gate.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: This is right through the redemption offered to us by Christ.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: You know, that's going to go right through the cross.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: But even most of the religious people today I mean, I don't know the exact number, but there's many, many, many that are not proclaiming the truth today, not just Catholic, but pastors, evangelical Protestants, that are not trying to live this out anymore, or certainly not proclaiming this in their churches.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And so we're all on this broad path to nowhere.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Utopia, the etymology of the word utopia people forget about it.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: It literally means no place, nowhere.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, go look it up in Webster's Dictionary.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And so if you want to go no place nowhere, just keep going down that path and in TikTok your life will end.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: And we start to see this.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, you know we have these middle-aged crisis and these different times in our lives that instead of using that to open ourselves to the spirit and say, okay, I sold my oats and man, I've created a mess behind me.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Now let's try to clean myself up and see if I can't clean some of that up or at least go forward and not cause any more destruction.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: But we don't.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: We do the opposite.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: We start looking for another person to marry and another family to start, because we screwed up that one so bad.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: But we don't do anything different, linda.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: So we just become more and more broken.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not unlike people in AA who have finally learned that the addiction has taken hold of them and they have to admit that there is a power greater than themselves.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like so if I'm living in all the lust and my desires and so forth.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: They're addictions in their own way, perhaps different, you know, from alcohol addiction because there's more physiology there, but nonetheless they have taken hold and until I admit I don't have the power and I find that source of the power, I'm going to be stuck there.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: So I think at some level, Jack, we all know that, but it really requires humility to say, okay, I can't do it on my own and I need that source of power, and our culture isn't exactly known for being very humble.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: No, and it's really, you know, if you think about the awe and wonder of our creation, the awe and wonder of the Big Bang, the awe and wonder of the galaxies before us, the awe and wonder of life itself, how we could be so full of pride that we have Pride Month now.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: And to our great leader at the HHS, richard Levine, we can have pride summer, the summer of pride.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And you just go, holy cow, how sad.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be so proud for this little speck, this little dust speck on the earth.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: The only thing that makes me great is my humility of taking in and opening myself up to my fiat so that God himself can create me in his image.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: God himself can restore what sin has lost image.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: God himself can restore what sin has lost.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And so you know, we are already created in the image of God from the very beginning.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: We already have the supernatural power.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: We're already created for eternity.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: We're already created in this awe and wonder.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: But it's only by turning into God that we take on God.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: When we walk away, we think we're God and we're so prideful and we're just this little speck that's fading away.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: It amazes me, linda, but I know, because I know I was there in my own life, so I know right.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: It's only when you see both sides that when I say awe and wonder, I really mean awe and wonder, because I think awe and wonder what God can do in my heart and you know what he does.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: That's what he does.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: You know that's who he is, that's what he does.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: He's here for miracles and he's producing them all over.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: And it's what a shame when we close ourselves off and we don't walk in the spirit we close ourselves off, we don't walk in the spirit.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Huh, yeah, I don't think there's any of us who haven't felt that awe and wonder at some aspect of creation of the visible world.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: You know, whether it be Niagara Falls or the beautiful sunset or the rainbow or anything that you could experience in nature.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: And yet I think, deep down, most of us I hope maybe all of us have experienced that awe and wonder of a newborn baby.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: You know they're firstborn and if you get to hold them, be near them, there is something about seeing that newborn baby.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: That, to me, is that pinnacle of awe and wonder, and that's because we are made in the image of God and we are the pinnacle of his creation.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's just amazing to me that we have sunk so low in the culture, like you say, with the pride and everything.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: It's like if you take everything as the way it should be, it's become the total mirror image and opposite and we've got to get back.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Well, you know we're going to have an interesting week here as we get close to the election.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: We'll see what's happening.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: This battle is playing out.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: It's playing out not only in our culture, not only in our country, but across the world.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: That's what makes this different.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: And it's playing out in the church.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: We have it all the way from the Vatican, all of the stuff.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: You know Pope Francis invites abortionists in now, and not that he shouldn't talk to them, but he makes a big photo op with all these people that are coming in.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: You know the Father James Martins are part of the Synod, of Synodality, where he actually invited him personally to come in and then rejects.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: You know the Cardinal Burks, the Bishop Strickland gets rid of priests and cancels bishops and cardinals who speak opposite of this, and so there's something nefarious going on.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I'll let God figure that out.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: But the beauty of this.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: The German poet René Wilkie, again when we're talking about marriage and he identified very keenly this drama in loving relationships writing this sensing that ending up in this downward spiral that you see so many marriages right when they start to come apart, cannot be the only way out.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: In other words, don't just give up on this.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: So he says.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: This is the paradox of love between man and woman.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Two infinities meet two limitations, two infinite needs to be loved meet two fragile and limited capacities to love.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Only in the ambit of a greater love do they not consume themselves in pretension and not resign themselves, but walk together, each towards a fullness of which the other is a sign.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Whoa.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: He goes on to say if you do not love Christ, beauty made flesh more than the person you love.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: The later relationship withers, because Christ is the truth of this relationship, the fullness to which both partners point and in whom their relationship is fulfilled.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Only by letting Christ in is it possible for the most beautiful relationship that can happen in this life not to be corrupted and die in time.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: This is the audacity of God's claim, the audacity of God's claim that if you both walk toward me, you will be fulfilled even now in one another.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: And like you said earlier, this is the tension we're in.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: We're not going to reach 100% fulfillment, but that's okay, we know we're going somewhere right.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Just keep trying, just keep trying.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, keep loving.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And that's your prescription of what we need to do each morning with our morning offering and our prayers and so on.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: We keep trying.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I would that I could say it so beautifully as you just read but in marriage it's so important that you are together walking towards Christ and receiving that grace in your marriage.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Receiving that grace in your marriage.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: You know St John of the Cross, and this is in the theology of the body, man and woman.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: He created them is the San Juanistas triangle.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Remember that, linda.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: And so if you look in the introduction you'll see a triangle, and it's a triangle with one long line right.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: So if you picture a triangle and the top is this long line and that long line is you and it's moving toward God, and then in the base of that, a little bit shorter, is you moving toward another human being, and we'll call that a man to a woman, a woman to a man, right in marriage.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: But it's that long line, that important long line that I have to reach first and I have to have a relationship with Christ, as the poet just said.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And then you have a short line from that union of myself with Christ, my wife individually with Christ, and that this is drawn directly into our marriage, and that's the San Juanistas triangle.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: That again, my love points directly to Christ.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: First I receive that love.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Now I see my wife and this is a sign and a sacramental sign and a way for me to express it.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: But it's that Trinitarian love is pointing directly at our marriage.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Christ, the bridegroom on the cross is pointing directly Christ and the Church to marriage of man and woman, and this is what is instilled in us that allows us to fulfill it.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Not two separate stories, linda, but one story.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: As John Paul would say, this is the primordial sacrament, and St Paul brought out in Ephesians 5 that these two signs are one great sacrament, not two different things the sacrament of marriage and the family, and Christ and the church are one great sacrament and this builds up everything.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: And if we take that down, linda this is why what we're talking about today in the election together if you take down that sign marriage and the family, marriage itself and then destroy the child in the womb, those are the two pillars and the culture cannot stand because, just from a practical standpoint, it'll start to come in on itself, and this is what we're seeing today.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: So it's critical that we get back to since the battle is in my own heart.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I search my heart and I see really where I am with all of that and make the choice today to go with what I know God has designed for us.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: You know people talk about the one issue voter.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Well, what is more important than life and an understanding of where it comes from, who it belongs to and where it's going?
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: So I would just ask our listeners as they hear this after the election, there'll be implications for whoever gets in, but no matter who becomes our new president, it doesn't change.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: The battle's going on.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Our trajectory right.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: We'll have to work hard either way to bring the culture back.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: We may have more support with one candidate than the other, but we've got to carry on because this is for all time and for all eternity.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: This is for our eternal soul, Linda.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: This is the main thing.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: This is why, no matter what we do, remember that long line on the triangle right that you're describing that's always the battle always is the human heart that's going to be united with Christ.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: All the other battles will flow from that one, and we'll never actually see the culture of death until we unite ourselves with Christ, and then your eyes are open.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: That was from last week's gospel and again, you know we'll be getting out a week or two later with this recording, but that was last week's gospel, where it really talked.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Jesus was talking about the eyes that don't see, the ears that don't hear and the heart that's grown dull, and this is what we were describing.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: So, hey, god bless you, linda.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: We all have to come closer to Christ, and so that's, you know, it's really.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: This is where it starts, isn't it, linda?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: This is what we are asking everyone to do today.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you, linda.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being with us.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Goodbye everyone.