Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #400 Spiritual Warfare: Standing Up for the Vulnerable..."O wicked one, you shall surely die"

Transcript

#400 Spiritual Warfare: Standing Up for the Vulnerable..."O wicked one, you shall surely die" · Claymore: Become Who You Are

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, the production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rigert, your host, and, yes, I'm glad you're with me.
0:15
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me.
0:17
Speaker 1: I do apologize.
0:18
Speaker 1: My schedule is crazy.
0:20
Speaker 1: I try to get podcasts out on Monday, wednesdays and Fridays and I'm not doing so good in general.
0:26
Speaker 1: So just bear with me.
0:27
Speaker 1: I'll get them out when I can.
0:29
Speaker 1: You know that I'm trying to get them out on those days, but I have a hectic schedule.
0:34
Speaker 1: It's good, but there's just so much evil out there.
0:38
Speaker 1: I'll give you a little story.
0:40
Speaker 1: Last week I was presenting stolen innocence and really talking about the number one battle being fought today is over the hearts, minds and bodies of our children in so many ways, and so you've heard me talk about that before.
0:54
Speaker 1: But anyways, I'm in this local library.
0:57
Speaker 1: The room held about 90 people or so, but we're standing room only.
1:03
Speaker 1: I mean the room's packed and so we're presenting stolen innocence and there's a couple of plants in there, meaning a couple of people were in there that we knew right away.
1:14
Speaker 1: You can identify people that were coming in to try to disrupt or disturb, and you can expect this in a public you know, in a public space nowadays, the battle is really again over those children.
1:27
Speaker 1: It's amazing how people will stand up against it.
1:29
Speaker 1: Well, they didn't really disrupt our talk as much, but we saw them going up and then complaining at the library staff.
1:37
Speaker 1: So, make a long story short, we get a letter canceling some of the other dates that we had already booked on there as a follow-up to this stolen innocence talk, and sent the letter.
1:48
Speaker 1: So we're in the middle of going back and forth with that.
1:52
Speaker 1: Now I'll let you know how it goes, because we're not going to just roll over and play dead, because at the end of the day, we have to be able to go out into these public spaces that they want to take away from us.
2:02
Speaker 1: We have to go out there and fight for our children.
2:07
Speaker 1: The evil has gotten so bad that when you stand up against the pornography and the sexual manipulation and exploitation of children, that somebody's going to complain and the public will try to shut you down.
2:20
Speaker 1: So the evil is out there and we hear from Ezekiel this is from Ezekiel from Sunday.
2:27
Speaker 1: So this is Sunday's reading, mass reading.
2:31
Speaker 1: And this is why we have to do this, because sometimes you think, well, I'm going to just put my head down.
2:38
Speaker 1: I mean, who needs this aggravation?
2:41
Speaker 1: It's certainly not for the money.
2:44
Speaker 1: All the facilities that we're up against.
2:46
Speaker 1: There's a multi-million dollar budget they have and sitting on some of these, like Planned Parenthood, I mean these are billion dollar companies.
2:58
Speaker 1: And here's our small John Paul II renewal center and Tom Hampson with the Truth Alliance Foundation and we have to scramble around just to fund the talks that we do and work that we do, and look at it.
3:12
Speaker 1: It's all in God's plan and he always takes care of us.
3:15
Speaker 1: So why do we do it?
3:17
Speaker 1: Well, here's the reading from the first book of Ezekiel.
3:20
Speaker 1: And he's warning all of us.
3:21
Speaker 1: This isn't just for me.
3:24
Speaker 1: That says the Lord.
3:26
Speaker 1: You, son of man, I have a point at Watchmen for the house of Israel.
3:30
Speaker 1: When you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.
3:34
Speaker 1: So he's telling us, our Lord's telling us look at you guys.
3:38
Speaker 1: You have the heart for this.
3:40
Speaker 1: I gave you the heart for this.
3:41
Speaker 1: I called you into myself, I gave you a voice.
3:44
Speaker 1: You have to stand up and you have to warn these people.
3:47
Speaker 1: Why?
3:47
Speaker 1: Because of love.
3:48
Speaker 1: So let me go on here.
3:50
Speaker 1: If I tell the wicked, a wicked one, you shall surely die.
3:55
Speaker 1: God is warning them.
3:57
Speaker 1: Tick tock, tick tock.
4:00
Speaker 1: We don't live here forever.
4:01
Speaker 1: We have this little dash right On our tombstone is going to be the day we're born and the day we die, and in between is this dash called our life.
4:10
Speaker 1: And man, we better be doing some good things with this.
4:15
Speaker 1: This is the battle of the human heart between love and lust, between good and evil.
4:19
Speaker 1: And so here I go again.
4:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to start from the very beginning.
4:23
Speaker 1: Now.
4:23
Speaker 1: Give you this reading and try not to interrupt myself, okay, or you?
4:28
Speaker 1: It's so beautiful.
4:30
Speaker 1: That says the Lord to Ezekiel.
4:32
Speaker 1: You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel.
4:36
Speaker 1: When you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me, if I tell the wicked a wicked one, you shall surely die.
4:43
Speaker 1: And you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death.
4:54
Speaker 1: But if you warn the wicked trying to turn him away from his way, and he refuses to turn away from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself, the word of the Lord.
5:08
Speaker 1: So this is the battle God calls us into.
5:11
Speaker 1: This battle, look, look at it will not stop.
5:14
Speaker 1: The evil will not stop.
5:15
Speaker 1: We have to stand up and bring good into the world.
5:18
Speaker 1: That's the only way and God will protect us for that until he decides it's our turn to go right.
5:27
Speaker 1: Let me give you just a little example of this.
5:29
Speaker 1: I'm in the belly of the beast here in New York, outside of Chicago, and I was going to say and then New York and California are competing with us as the abortion capitals of the world.
5:41
Speaker 1: It's amazing how certain states are not allowing abortion or not allowing them after the heartbeat law, if you can hear the baby's heartbeat or whatever.
5:53
Speaker 1: But Illinois, new York, california, you just come, send them, send the women.
5:59
Speaker 1: We'll take those babies out to the day before they're born, before the day that they're due date.
6:07
Speaker 1: It's amazing evil that's going on here.
6:10
Speaker 1: So I'm in the belly of the beast, so I shouldn't be surprised if we stand up against this and we get it shouted down or we get pushed out of, like I said, the local library.
6:22
Speaker 1: Look at California.
6:23
Speaker 1: So you knew this was coming.
6:24
Speaker 1: California law would make it child abuse not to affirm your kid's gender identity, and it passed the Senate.
6:31
Speaker 1: So there's a law that passed the Senate and the Assembly will need to agree on some amendments that are attached and it's going to head to Governor Newsom's office and at the end of the day, what happens?
6:41
Speaker 1: The bill could potentially make you guilty of child abuse.
6:45
Speaker 1: If you refuse to call your son Jane and buy him dresses, authorities could take your children away.
6:51
Speaker 1: If you don't bend the knee to them, if you don't agree to the LBGTQ Plus ideology, they want to take your children away.
7:00
Speaker 1: They could put you in jail for this.
7:01
Speaker 1: So by changing the definition then in this law of what constitutes health, safety and welfare of a child, schools to churches, hospitals, other organizations interacting with children would be required to affirm their gender transitions and minors by default or risk charges of child abuse.
7:21
Speaker 1: So that's probably coming to Illinois today.
7:24
Speaker 1: You know they are our beautiful Governor Pritzker.
7:28
Speaker 1: He loves to bring this stuff in right, this totalitarian push, and if you don't agree with it, they want to jail you.
7:35
Speaker 1: They want to silence you.
7:36
Speaker 1: I mean, this is amazing, and you know we're not the only one.
7:39
Speaker 1: Ohio is in a battle for this too.
7:42
Speaker 1: You know the citizens of Ohio.
7:44
Speaker 1: So Ohio, abortions up to birth is what they're pushing there, and also allow trans surgeries on kids without parental consent.
7:53
Speaker 1: So there's an LBGT pressure group there that advocates teaching transgender ideology to children in preschool has endorsed an abortion related state constitutional amendment that would also create a constitutional right for minors to have transgender surgeries without their parents knowledge or approval Surgeries on their bodies they have their breasts removed, you know, and other things.
8:18
Speaker 1: In addition to transgender activists group is joined by one of the nation's largest Profiturist Profit Profiters from injecting minors and young adults with cross sex hormones.
8:31
Speaker 1: So we have the human rights campaign, hrc the human rights campaign that's what they call themselves and they want to make these, these right to reproductive decisions, including abortion initiative.
8:43
Speaker 1: They want to put it into a law and into the Ohio's Constitution, you know.
8:49
Speaker 1: You know, making it a right to to, to kill every baby.
8:53
Speaker 1: That's going to be in the Constitution.
8:55
Speaker 1: Making it a right to for transgender surgeries, for puberty Brocler's, cross sex hormones and that'll sterilize the recipients Right.
9:05
Speaker 1: This is where we're going with these laws and stuff and if we don't stand up, the evil will not stop.
9:12
Speaker 1: So two quick questions I'm going to come back and answer right after a little break.
9:16
Speaker 1: Why is the sexual exploitation of children so important to the godless?
9:20
Speaker 1: We have to understand that sign.
9:22
Speaker 1: We have to keep bringing us up over and over, because and we have to share that.
9:25
Speaker 1: And then, how do you get the courage?
9:27
Speaker 1: How do we get the courage to stand up?
9:29
Speaker 1: Because the evil is out there, you can feel it in the air, you know.
9:33
Speaker 1: So, hey, buckle up and we'll get ready for the rest of today's episode.
9:37
Speaker 1: Well, why is the sexual exploitation of children so important to the godless?
9:52
Speaker 1: And how do I have the guts to stand up?
9:55
Speaker 1: For you have to be in prayer.
9:56
Speaker 1: You got to spend time in prayer.
9:58
Speaker 1: You got to spend time with, with God.
10:01
Speaker 1: You know, in my life, all through my life, you know I've got my share of scrapes and different things, but I don't consider myself an overly courageous person.
10:12
Speaker 1: But God comes through and he gives you the courage when you're needed.
10:18
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing how he does that.
10:20
Speaker 1: He sustains you, gives you the courage and and and the protection, and that the day takes it away, then that's the day that he's ready to call you back, or whatever.
10:32
Speaker 1: The Psalms, the reading today in the Psalms if you, if today you hear his voice hard, not your hearts.
10:38
Speaker 1: What a beautiful Psalm.
10:40
Speaker 1: This is all from Sunday's readings.
10:42
Speaker 1: These are so rich.
10:43
Speaker 1: That's why I always say, if you, if you want to build up the courage, if you really want to see and the evil in the world and and also know what to do and how, god wants to call you into intimacy with him.
10:56
Speaker 1: You know God wants to save everybody and that's part of the reason why we do this.
11:01
Speaker 1: You know God calls us not to just go out and to condemn the world.
11:04
Speaker 1: Jesus didn't come in the condemn the world, but to save the world right, so we have to listen to his voice and heart and not our hearts.
11:11
Speaker 1: You know so many people are putting their head in the in the sand because they see the evil around them, but tick tock, tick tock.
11:17
Speaker 1: You know life goes really fast.
11:18
Speaker 1: I remember my son, jake, and I had a talk many years ago and and and just really talking, and I told him a story and it stayed with him.
11:28
Speaker 1: You know this story of I'm an old man maybe you know 80s, 90s, whatever, and and and looking back at my life on sitting on a rocking chair on a porch, maybe sipping a little lemonade with some so little scotch or something in it, right, and CNN Str whisked out the comic books and said man, get a good recording, get a big record and ask people in that light of day, what is that kind of logic?
11:43
Speaker 1: But just tell people선瀾isfppy what is God like to me, looking back at my life and just say, wow, it went so fast.
11:50
Speaker 1: You know, what did I stand for?
11:51
Speaker 1: Now it's too late really, but what did I stand for?
11:54
Speaker 1: You know, hopefully we all stand for something.
11:59
Speaker 1: We stand for what's true, what's good, what's beautiful, and we certainly stand for the most vulnerable and innocent among us.
12:06
Speaker 1: If we don't stand for children, who does right?
12:08
Speaker 1: If today you hear his voice hard and not your hearts?
12:11
Speaker 1: And then the verse goes come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord, let us acclaim the rock of our salvation, let us come into His presence with thanksgiving, let us joyfully sing psalms to Him.
12:22
Speaker 1: You know this isn't.
12:23
Speaker 1: We just have to go to God.
12:26
Speaker 1: We have to be filled with divine life and love and then become persons of divine life and love into the world.
12:31
Speaker 1: You know this is God's battle at the end.
12:34
Speaker 1: You know, jack and Jim and Joe and Pete and Mary and Sally, you know we don't have to win the whole battle.
12:41
Speaker 1: We just gotta allow God to win the battle of our own heart, and then we go out into the world and we just spread that gospel of love, that the reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans is a reading for the Sunday's Mass again.
12:58
Speaker 1: And St Paul says brothers and sisters, now, this is why, at the end of the day, we have to stand up.
13:02
Speaker 1: Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
13:10
Speaker 1: The commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and whatever other commandments there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
13:24
Speaker 1: Love does no evil to the neighbor.
13:26
Speaker 1: Hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.
13:30
Speaker 1: This is a love story, you know, when you stand up against what I just mentioned, transgender ideologies, to destroying the lives of so many young people.
13:40
Speaker 1: You know, abortion itself.
13:41
Speaker 1: A child makes it out of the womb.
13:44
Speaker 1: Many of them don't.
13:45
Speaker 1: But if they make it out of the womb, we want to render them sterile.
13:49
Speaker 1: Why is that, you know?
13:50
Speaker 1: And so it's out of love that we stand there.
13:53
Speaker 1: First of all, love for the child, love for the mothers that are aborting these children and praying for them, praying for the men in their lives, that they open up their eyes and they see.
14:08
Speaker 1: You know, but by the grace of God, go, I always think, by the grace of God, go I.
14:12
Speaker 1: You know, we don't get here into these positions where we start to see these things so clearly overnight.
14:18
Speaker 1: Right, it's a battle of the heart.
14:20
Speaker 1: So why is the sexual exploitation of children so important to the guys?
14:23
Speaker 1: You know, jesus answered have you not read that?
14:26
Speaker 1: He who made them from the beginning, made them male and female.
14:30
Speaker 1: What, therefore?
14:31
Speaker 1: God has joined together.
14:32
Speaker 1: Let no man put us under.
14:34
Speaker 1: So we have to get to the beginning again, because this is the model.
14:38
Speaker 1: If we don't understand this, if we don't see that model, it's just tissue.
14:43
Speaker 1: Sex is meaningless, marriage doesn't have a meaning anymore.
14:49
Speaker 1: And he says, nah, from the beginning, jesus says it was not.
14:52
Speaker 1: So.
14:53
Speaker 1: All this violence comes in because we allowed this image and likeness of God, who is the Amago Day, to get twisted and distorted.
15:01
Speaker 1: So here it is.
15:02
Speaker 1: From the beginning, there's a cosmic explosion of trinitarian love.
15:06
Speaker 1: This is exactly what we're talking about here.
15:09
Speaker 1: The Garden of Eden had been prepared for a wedding feast.
15:13
Speaker 1: God said right.
15:14
Speaker 1: And you know he fills this all up in the very beginning, before sin.
15:18
Speaker 1: Just read Genesis and you see this.
15:20
Speaker 1: The first five days God's filling this all in and he's all got it ready for a wedding feast.
15:25
Speaker 1: And then, on the sixth day, god says what he draws back into himself.
15:29
Speaker 1: He says let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
15:33
Speaker 1: And here it is.
15:34
Speaker 1: You guys, this is what's going on when we attack marriage, the family and especially the child.
15:39
Speaker 1: Here is why it's going on.
15:42
Speaker 1: You ask why?
15:43
Speaker 1: Here it is.
15:44
Speaker 1: Why is the sexual exploitation of children so important to the godless?
15:48
Speaker 1: Because it's the evil that wants to destroy humanity.
15:52
Speaker 1: And how does it destroy humanity?
15:54
Speaker 1: He attacks the Amago Day, the marriage of a man and a woman and the child that comes out of that union.
16:00
Speaker 1: You know so.
16:02
Speaker 1: Then God says on that sixth day let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
16:06
Speaker 1: This is God speaking within himself.
16:08
Speaker 1: So God created man in his image and the divine image.
16:11
Speaker 1: He created them, male and female.
16:14
Speaker 1: He created them Smiling upon this newly married couple.
16:18
Speaker 1: Huh, don't forget that.
16:19
Speaker 1: You know they were swimming in the ambit, adam and Eve, of God's grace, god's love pouring himself into them, and then they were pouring that love into one another as a sign reflecting back God's love.
16:32
Speaker 1: And so this power of this beauty.
16:35
Speaker 1: And so, again, smiling upon that newly married couple, god blessed them and said to them what?
16:40
Speaker 1: Be fertile, multiply and fill the earth.
16:44
Speaker 1: Wow, bring forth children, for they are good, they are very good.
16:51
Speaker 1: This is the attack.
16:52
Speaker 1: When you stand up for the most innocent, against abortion and these gender ideologies that are destroying so many young lives, you're standing right in the breach, and so you need to be in prayer.
17:02
Speaker 1: You need to be in prayer, you need to be receiving the sacraments, you need to have that protection, because this is not our battle at the end.
17:11
Speaker 1: It is our battle, of course, with the heart we're in there, but the primary battle is between our Lord and Satan.
17:15
Speaker 1: This is St Lucie, again from the visionary of Fatima, who, when our blessed mother appeared to her, said the last great battle that we're entering into now is going to be over marriage and the family and, of course, the focus of that.
17:29
Speaker 1: Now we got down to the beard and we got it to the very bedrock, I should say, of the attack, which is the most innocent and vulnerable among us, just to destroy human life.
17:40
Speaker 1: Right, you know, sin is nothing new.
17:42
Speaker 1: What's new is that we're codifying this into law.
17:46
Speaker 1: We want to demand child sacrifice.
17:50
Speaker 1: It's amazing, right?
17:53
Speaker 1: So what happened?
17:54
Speaker 1: Enter the tempter.
17:55
Speaker 1: Then, right there in the garden, what happens?
17:57
Speaker 1: Enter the tempter, the Mysterium, and Equitatus, which is a Latin phrase which means the mystery of evil.
18:05
Speaker 1: See, satan doesn't have his own clay.
18:07
Speaker 1: He can only twist, distort and destroy.
18:10
Speaker 1: The Amago Day, the sign that God created good.
18:13
Speaker 1: Pause and reflect on that for a minute.
18:15
Speaker 1: Satan's not the creator.
18:17
Speaker 1: He only contempt and use what God created good to twist and destroy.
18:23
Speaker 1: See, evil doesn't exist in its own.
18:26
Speaker 1: Evil is what happens when there's an absence of the good, when the true, the good and the beautiful comes out huh.
18:33
Speaker 1: When the truth turns into falsehood, when the good is turned into evil, be because of the lack of that good in the world, the lack of us bringing the good into the world.
18:44
Speaker 1: Huh, but God created everything good.
18:46
Speaker 1: And then, finally, the beauty is what it's profaned.
18:50
Speaker 1: Huh, it's profaned.
18:52
Speaker 1: So the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that God, the Lord God, had made.
18:57
Speaker 1: And the serpent asked the woman did God really tell you not to eat for many of the trees in the garden?
19:03
Speaker 1: And the woman answered the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.
19:08
Speaker 1: It's only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said you shall not eat it of it or even touch it, lest you die.
19:17
Speaker 1: But the serpent said to the woman you certainly will not die.
19:21
Speaker 1: No, god knows well that the moment you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God's, who know what is good and what is evil.
19:30
Speaker 1: Isn't this something?
19:31
Speaker 1: This is what's going on today.
19:33
Speaker 1: You know, these are men and women who walked away from God and are so far away they don't have.
19:40
Speaker 1: They're like cut flowers, huh, and they're dying.
19:43
Speaker 1: They're dying, but while they're dying, huh, the demons are really speaking right through them.
19:48
Speaker 1: Huh, you know, kill the babies, render them sterile, right, twisting the story, what God created good.
19:56
Speaker 1: So my heart goes out to these young people, especially the most innocent among us, who are being pulverized early on in preschool now too, and kindergarten, first grade and second grade by a twisted, distorted and very toxic culture.
20:10
Speaker 1: They've been repeatedly lied to about the very basics, then, concerning the meaning of marriage, the family authentically, the true meaning of sex and sexuality, and more.
20:18
Speaker 1: We all have what we all lie to.
20:22
Speaker 1: It's amazing how long these lies have been going on.
20:25
Speaker 1: Particularly disturbing, then again, is that sexual indoctrination, exploitation and grooming of children taking place on a mass scale, even in the public school systems, the books on the libraries.
20:37
Speaker 1: That's why we present stolen innocence.
20:39
Speaker 1: It's a community awareness event, you know, on what's going on.
20:43
Speaker 1: What's going on?
20:44
Speaker 1: Huh, that evil that goes on.
20:46
Speaker 1: So what do we do about it?
20:47
Speaker 1: How can we do it?
20:48
Speaker 1: How can we stand up against this evil?
20:50
Speaker 1: Well, we have to step into the breach, don't we?
20:53
Speaker 1: But we have to do it with prayer.
20:54
Speaker 1: You know, I love my AA buddies, my AA buddies who know this battle so well between good and evil in our hearts.
21:03
Speaker 1: Each person does right.
21:05
Speaker 1: Each of us understands that this battle is the battle of the human heart.
21:09
Speaker 1: Our human hearts get twisted and distorted when God created good and then we bring evil, we manifest it out in the world.
21:16
Speaker 1: This is the battle line.
21:18
Speaker 1: This is why we have to go to prayer, because we have to let God redeem our hearts and untwist those things that sin and death that's entered our heart.
21:26
Speaker 1: When God does that, he injects grace into us.
21:30
Speaker 1: So it's a body, soul, that the fall position without God is what's sin and death.
21:35
Speaker 1: That's what we just heard.
21:36
Speaker 1: What happens?
21:38
Speaker 1: You open your heart to grace, god fills that again, like it was in the beginning, before sin into the world.
21:45
Speaker 1: Christ comes into the world not to manage your sins, right, but he came in with power and he's gonna fill your heart with grace.
21:53
Speaker 1: Then you have the potential for human flourishing, for life and abundance.
21:58
Speaker 1: And what do we have to do?
21:59
Speaker 1: Well, to make that effective, we have to take action.
22:03
Speaker 1: This is what happens in the created world.
22:05
Speaker 1: You have to act.
22:06
Speaker 1: So I have to receive divine life and love, and then I gotta turn and be.
22:10
Speaker 1: That.
22:10
Speaker 1: That's what St Paul was talking about with the two great commandments right, to love God and be filled, and then to love your neighbor.
22:18
Speaker 1: Well, especially, who's our neighbor?
22:21
Speaker 1: Right, everybody's our neighbor.
22:23
Speaker 1: But especially we have to stand up for the most vulnerable and innocent among us.
22:28
Speaker 1: Right Again, getting back to my AA buddies, step six says this you know, so that you know.
22:36
Speaker 1: Step five is bringing us up to this point and it's really beautiful.
22:40
Speaker 1: I did a podcast series on this maybe two years ago now.
22:44
Speaker 1: It really was a beautiful series.
22:46
Speaker 1: But step six says this we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of our character, our hearts, huh.
22:54
Speaker 1: And then the big book of AA continues this so this is step six.
22:59
Speaker 1: And in there, in there, saying okay, we got to this point.
23:02
Speaker 1: Now what happens?
23:03
Speaker 1: Well, he says this step six returning home, we find a place so this is after work or whatever.
23:10
Speaker 1: Returning home, we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done for that day.
23:16
Speaker 1: We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better.
23:20
Speaker 1: Taking the big book down from our shelf, we turn to the page which contains the 12 steps.
23:25
Speaker 1: Carefully reading through the first five proposals, we ask if we've omitted anything.
23:31
Speaker 1: How did our day go?
23:32
Speaker 1: Basically, this is a examination of conscience, right?
23:35
Speaker 1: And it goes on to say because we're building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last.
23:42
Speaker 1: They're building an arch, huh.
23:44
Speaker 1: And in these first five steps are getting there.
23:46
Speaker 1: And now they're gonna sit and contemplate that they wanna go into prayer with God, because they know he's the one doing the work.
23:52
Speaker 1: And it goes on to say is our work solid so far?
23:56
Speaker 1: Huh, are the stones properly in place?
23:59
Speaker 1: What did I miss today?
24:01
Speaker 1: What could I have done better?
24:02
Speaker 1: Have we skipped on the cement put into the foundation?
24:05
Speaker 1: So it's an examination of conscience and prayer at the end of the day, very, very important.
24:11
Speaker 1: So Jesus said this in Luke why do you call me Lord, lord, and do not do what I tell you to do?
24:17
Speaker 1: Everyone who comes to me and hears my word and does them, I will show you what he is like.
24:23
Speaker 1: He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundations upon rock and when it flood rose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built.
24:34
Speaker 1: But he who hears and does not do them is like a man who built the house on the ground without a foundation, against which the stream broke and immediately the house fell and the ruin of that house was great.
24:49
Speaker 1: See, we gotta make sure we're digging a deep foundation.
24:53
Speaker 1: Huh, laying our foundation on rock.
24:55
Speaker 1: Well, jesus is the rock, he is the way, the truth and the life, right.
25:00
Speaker 1: So this is what we're doing in prayer.
25:02
Speaker 1: We have to take time for prayer, we have to have time for the sacraments.
25:06
Speaker 1: So the question to ask this then, when we're saying you know, why is the sexual exploitation so important to the godless?
25:14
Speaker 1: The next thing we really need to ask are you, am I lukewarm to the evil of our day?
25:20
Speaker 1: This is a big deal.
25:22
Speaker 1: This is a big problem.
25:23
Speaker 1: You know, I meet a lot of Christians, a lot of people that say that they're walking, they're walking the walk, but they're not, they're talking the talk.
25:33
Speaker 1: But to stand up against evil, now they're quiet, huh.
25:37
Speaker 1: And it takes courage, and I get it, but the courage doesn't come from us.
25:43
Speaker 1: We keep searching our own hearts for the courage.
25:45
Speaker 1: We gotta open our hearts and let God come in.
25:50
Speaker 1: Let God search for our hearts.
25:52
Speaker 1: Let the God who I should say it this way, the God who is searching for your heart, let him in.
25:56
Speaker 1: Let him untwist, huh, what Satan took the clay, is twisting and distorting.
26:02
Speaker 1: Let Jesus come in.
26:03
Speaker 1: He redeemed us.
26:04
Speaker 1: He wants to untwist that and pour himself into us so that we have the courage and the strength to go out.
26:10
Speaker 1: It's through his love.
26:12
Speaker 1: Gk Chesterton was asked that question what's wrong with Christianity?
26:16
Speaker 1: And he answered I am, I am.
26:20
Speaker 1: I would suggest that he was asked.
26:22
Speaker 1: If he was asked, gk was, what's the solution to the evil of our day?
26:25
Speaker 1: He would also answer I am.
26:28
Speaker 1: So what would happen if every person simply stopped looking for a scapegoat and instead answered I am as the solution for the evil of our day?
26:36
Speaker 1: What would happen?
26:38
Speaker 1: Children would no longer be sacrificed in the altar of abortion, gender ideologies would no longer rob the innocence of the young, the victims of sex trafficking would find a home.
26:49
Speaker 1: The world elites would no longer lust for power over the poor and the vulnerable.
26:54
Speaker 1: Courage would become infectious.
26:56
Speaker 1: Our neighbor would not be alone.
26:58
Speaker 1: Children would grow up with a mother and a father, and love would rule over hate.
27:03
Speaker 1: You know again, although we were made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of our history, man and women abused their liberty at the urging of the evil.
27:14
Speaker 1: One man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God.
27:19
Speaker 1: Hence, as an inevitable consequence, while human progress and science and technology can be a great advantage to man, it begins with it a strong temptation, right, science, technology, ai and all this stuff.
27:35
Speaker 1: You know it could be a great advantage, but again it has that strong temptation to use for evil to be twisted.
27:42
Speaker 1: For when the order of values is jumbled and bad is mixed with good individuals and groups pay heed solely to their own interests and not to those of others.
27:52
Speaker 1: You no longer, once you're not, filled with divine life and love, you no longer see your neighbor or worry about your neighbor.
27:59
Speaker 1: Thus it happens that the world ceases to be a place of true brotherhood.
28:03
Speaker 1: This is what's happening in our day.
28:05
Speaker 1: We just allow Satan to come into our hearts and our own day.
28:09
Speaker 1: The magnified power of humanity threatens to destroy the race itself.
28:15
Speaker 1: We're going to destroy ourselves.
28:17
Speaker 1: I was texting with one of my brothers yesterday and he really said you know, god is ready to flush the toilet, basically, and I said yeah.
28:30
Speaker 1: I said yeah in a way, you're right, but also God's not going to actually do it.
28:35
Speaker 1: You know we're going to do it, so he gives us the freedom.
28:39
Speaker 1: We are going to flush the toilet of humanity.
28:42
Speaker 1: We are going to destroy ourselves.
28:44
Speaker 1: Right?
28:44
Speaker 1: How ironic, and our soul called modern age that we've fallen once again for that very old lie.
28:50
Speaker 1: You can be like God's.
28:52
Speaker 1: It seems that the words of all those Huxley and brave new world huh, he's the writer of brave new world and he said this and it rings true again.
29:01
Speaker 1: He said that men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.
29:10
Speaker 1: Isn't that true?
29:11
Speaker 1: We never learn anything, for without the Creator, the creature would disappear.
29:15
Speaker 1: When God has forgotten God in Miespezgos, the creature itself grows unintelligible.
29:22
Speaker 1: We no longer know who we are, isn't it true?
29:24
Speaker 1: If you didn't believe in God before, you might want to be looking around at the evil right now and say, oh, now I see what happens when God's taken out of the public square, out of my own heart, my marriage, I see there's this function.
29:36
Speaker 1: Now, right, jesus said.
29:39
Speaker 1: But from the beginning it was not so.
29:42
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve walked about in the Garden of Eden, the glory and beauty of an unspoiled world, then standing before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
29:51
Speaker 1: And we all stand there.
29:52
Speaker 1: Each one of us gets a, gets a chance to do this.
29:55
Speaker 1: They were tempted, and we are tempted by the serpent.
29:58
Speaker 1: Do we fall from grace like they did?
30:00
Speaker 1: I bet you we have, but Christ is there to pick us up again, right?
30:05
Speaker 1: That's why he put the cross, the crosses of bridge, back into our hearts, and then a bridge over this abyss, this darkness, into eternal life.
30:13
Speaker 1: The effect of this original sin had Adam and Eve hiding from God, remember, in the Garden.
30:18
Speaker 1: And instead of taking responsibility, listen to this, instead of taking responsibility.
30:23
Speaker 1: This is what Ezekiel got to in that first reading for their evil.
30:27
Speaker 1: What happened?
30:28
Speaker 1: Well, we began.
30:30
Speaker 1: We, you know, we started the all too too common blame game.
30:34
Speaker 1: Right, that blame game.
30:35
Speaker 1: Where did that blame game started?
30:37
Speaker 1: Oh, because you're you're black or you're white, or you know white supremacists, or it's this color skin, and you know, no, it's because you're a man or a woman, or that.
30:46
Speaker 1: You know, we're all blaming each other right, instead of loving one another.
30:50
Speaker 1: Well, where did this start?
30:52
Speaker 1: Well, right from the beginning, remember, adam replies, you know, when they're hiding and God says Adam, where are you?
30:58
Speaker 1: Right away, god turns in humility Think about the humility of God, right, he turns looking for Adam and Eve.
31:04
Speaker 1: Adam, where are you?
31:05
Speaker 1: And then what does Adam reply?
31:07
Speaker 1: Instead of coming out of hiding and saying I'm sorry, we goofed this thing up, what does he do?
31:11
Speaker 1: We start the blame game.
31:13
Speaker 1: This goes on today.
31:14
Speaker 1: You know when I hear this all day long, you know, and you say, well, where did this come from?
31:19
Speaker 1: Well, what did Adam say?
31:20
Speaker 1: He's the man, replied, the woman who you put here with me.
31:25
Speaker 1: She gave me the fruit from the tree, so I ate it.
31:29
Speaker 1: That's from Genesis, chapter three, in one short line Adam, both God and Eve.
31:35
Speaker 1: What if, instead, he would have said I am to blame, forgive me, what's wrong with Christianity, what's wrong with mankind?
31:43
Speaker 1: What happens if he would have stood up right in the beginning and said I am, everything would have changed.
31:47
Speaker 1: Then the Lord God looked to the woman and he asked her why did you do such a thing?
31:52
Speaker 1: And the woman answered what the serpent?
31:55
Speaker 1: He tricked me into it, so I ate.
31:57
Speaker 1: What if, instead, she would have said I am to blame, forgive me.
32:01
Speaker 1: God would have forgiven them.
32:03
Speaker 1: Cain would not have murdered his brother Abel.
32:07
Speaker 1: We find ourselves faced with the original reality of sin and human history and, at the same time, in the whole economy of salvation.
32:14
Speaker 1: This is the battle.
32:15
Speaker 1: It can be said that in this sin, the mysterious and equitattus, the mystery of evil, has its beginning right there at the tree.
32:23
Speaker 1: But it can also be said that this is the sin concerning which the redemptive power of the mysterious Piatatus, the power of the cross of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, becomes particularly clear and efficacious.
32:38
Speaker 1: This is expressed by St Paul when he contrasts the disobedience of the first Adam with the obedience of Christ, the second Adam.
32:46
Speaker 1: Obedience until death.
32:49
Speaker 1: That's from Romans 5.19.
32:52
Speaker 1: There's the cross.
32:52
Speaker 1: Huh, there's the cross.
32:54
Speaker 1: It's standing there and we look up at the cross and we have to decide.
32:58
Speaker 1: What are we going to decide?
33:00
Speaker 1: Are we going to reject God again or are we going to say yes, right.
33:03
Speaker 1: Each of us, in a sense, stands before that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
33:08
Speaker 1: Just go down on your knees and look up at the cross.
33:11
Speaker 1: That's the tree of life right there.
33:14
Speaker 1: You know, we're participants in a drama between two opposing mysteries the mysterious and equitattus, the mystery of evil that brings destruction, sin and death, and the mysterious Piatatus, the passion, death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus Christ.
33:29
Speaker 1: And the love which does not allow itself to be conquered by evil.
33:35
Speaker 1: That love of Jesus hanging on the cross, which he pours out to us so that we can love our neighbor, overcomes evil with good.
33:43
Speaker 1: That's how I started this right.
33:46
Speaker 1: If we don't bring this good into the world, then just evil is allowed to run rampant.
33:51
Speaker 1: God, the Father of mercy.
33:54
Speaker 1: John Paul talked about wishes to be reconciled to His lost children.
33:57
Speaker 1: The history of salvation, the salvation of the whole of humanity, as well as every human being, of whatever period, is the wonderful history of reconciliation, the reconciliation whereby God, the Father and the blood and the cross of His Son made man, reconciles the world to Himself and thus brings into being a new family of those who have been reconciled.
34:22
Speaker 1: So I'm going to finish with this, because the power of prayer gets us here.
34:27
Speaker 1: Right, we pray, we read the scriptures.
34:30
Speaker 1: You know, when we read the scriptures, we meditate.
34:33
Speaker 1: Lecture of the divine of these four steps.
34:35
Speaker 1: We meditate and we find a verse or a sentence From Ezekiel.
34:40
Speaker 1: I read it.
34:40
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm responsible, right, for my brothers and sisters in St Paul's reading.
34:45
Speaker 1: Oh, I have to be filled with divine life and love to go.
34:47
Speaker 1: And then I pray to God about that.
34:49
Speaker 1: God, show me what that means, give me the courage.
34:51
Speaker 1: And then I'm quiet.
34:53
Speaker 1: The fourth step complacio, contemplation.
34:56
Speaker 1: And I sit there and I just listen, I listen, I listen.
35:00
Speaker 1: This is what my AA buddies know.
35:03
Speaker 1: They pray and then they sit there and they listen to God and you'll hear His voice.
35:09
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
35:10
Speaker 1: And then, and then we go to Mass and receive Him in the Eucharist.
35:15
Speaker 1: This is the most astounding thing.
35:17
Speaker 1: I know this in my own life.
35:19
Speaker 1: You've heard me tell these stories before, but you know that lance goes up into Jesus' heart and water and the blood pours out.
35:26
Speaker 1: The water is reconciliation, it's baptism, it's forgiveness for our sins.
35:30
Speaker 1: And then what is the blood?
35:31
Speaker 1: It's the Eucharist.
35:33
Speaker 1: So first God wants to take us, take our sins away.
35:36
Speaker 1: You know, jesus is this bridge.
35:37
Speaker 1: He wants to wash us, untwist our hearts, and then he wants to fill us, as it was in the beginning.
35:42
Speaker 1: He wants to pour Himself into us.
35:44
Speaker 1: That's what's happening when we kneel at the cross, and then we go to Mass and receive Him in the Eucharist.
35:49
Speaker 1: We're forgiven and then we become intimate with Him.
35:52
Speaker 1: That's why we have to stand up against evil.
35:55
Speaker 1: That's why we have to allow God into our own hearts.
35:58
Speaker 1: How do I become intimate with God?
36:00
Speaker 1: How do I take Him into my body?
36:01
Speaker 1: If I'm full of sin, I have to allow Him to untwist it.
36:05
Speaker 1: That's why confession is so important.
36:07
Speaker 1: So let me end with this, this profound, just kind of dwell on this.
36:12
Speaker 1: This sacrifice of Jesus on this cross is so decisive, so decisive for the salvation of the human race, that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it, as if we had been present there at that time where he died in Golgotha.
36:35
Speaker 1: Jesus, on that altar, that altar, at the Mass, that's what's happening.
36:41
Speaker 1: The altar is a sacrificial altar where we enter into and make present that one-time historical sacrifice of God Himself, of Jesus Christ, who pours Himself out to us.
36:53
Speaker 1: What more can Jesus have done for us?
36:56
Speaker 1: Truly, in the Eucharist, he shows us a love which goes to the end.
37:00
Speaker 1: Read John 13, the first verse.
37:03
Speaker 1: A love which shows no measure.
37:06
Speaker 1: John Paul II.
37:09
Speaker 1: I'm going to finish with what he wrote in his Encyclicon the Eucharist.
37:14
Speaker 1: In instituting the Eucharist, jesus did not merely say this is my body, this is my blood, but he went on to say which is given for you, which is poured out for you.
37:26
Speaker 1: Read Luke 22, verses 19 and 20, to get more of an essence of that.
37:31
Speaker 1: Jesus did not simply state that what he was giving, that to eat and drink, was His body and blood.
37:37
Speaker 1: He also expressed its sacrificial meaning and made sacramentally present His sacrifice, which would soon be offered on the cross for the salvation of all of us.
37:50
Speaker 1: The Mass is at the same time and is, separately, the sacramental memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood is presented to us for all times.
38:10
Speaker 1: It's amazing, right, what happens there.
38:11
Speaker 1: Go into prayer, go to confession, don't miss mass, fill yourself up with the Eucharist.
38:19
Speaker 1: It's amazing, amazing, amazing, what happens.
38:21
Speaker 1: Look at time goes very quickly, huh, tick tock, tick, tock.
38:25
Speaker 1: We're going to need courage and strength, because this is going to get worse before it gets better.
38:30
Speaker 1: There's just so much evil raising its head.
38:33
Speaker 1: It's embedded in all our institutions in the country.
38:35
Speaker 1: It's really sad to see, but look at, this is all in God's providence.
38:39
Speaker 1: Our job is, just like you said in Ezekiel, right To warn people, to tell them what's coming, to save as many souls as we can.
38:46
Speaker 1: And hey, you know, at the end of the day, tick, tock, tick, tock.
38:50
Speaker 1: You know this is all getting over in a blink of an eye.
38:53
Speaker 1: Let's all make sure that we enter into that joy and that power and that beauty of being filled with the divine life and love of God Himself, so that you can be of one of love to your neighbor, to your wife, to your children, and follow the way, the truth and the life of Jesus Christ.
39:13
Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
39:13
Speaker 1: Thanks for being with me.
39:14
Speaker 1: Talk to you soon, everybody, bye.