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#756 "Why Do You Stand Here Idle?" The Universal Call to Holiness · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you stand her idle?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: You too go into my vineyard.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when Christians ask where the answer to the evils of this age must begin, the first reply cannot be they the first reply must be the solution resides within me.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've attended a lot of funerals this year, not as many weddings, and still fewer baptisms.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sign of the times.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Death, though, it seems, is mandatory, the other's optional, or so we think.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So my dear friends, I want to begin with the words Saint John Paul II prepared for the hour of his death.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: In his testament he wrote Todus tus ergosam, I am all yours.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was the language of belonging entirely to Jesus through Mary.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: He placed this last hour, his church, his homeland, and the whole human family into her hands.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: He quoted the Lord's warning, watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then he added the words that still pierce, I thank everyone.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I ask forgiveness of everyone.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I ask also for prayers, so that God's mercy may prove greater than my own weakness and unworthiness.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the voice of the shepherd, asking that God may provide mercy for his own weakness and unworthiness.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is the voice of a shepherd who knew the times we are in our hard, as is our need for grace, and he was never afraid to say so.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yet across the years I still hear his great summons Be not afraid, be not afraid.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Open the door wide to Christ.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: He understood persecution, he understood confusion, he understood that the church's path can become difficult for pastors and people alike, and still his message was clear.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do not lose heart.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Look ahead with trust.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do your duty.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: That attitude, hope live discourage, draws down the help of God.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is the invitation of this hour.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a program, it's not a slogan, it's a call.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's the universal call to holiness.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a devotional extra, this universal call to holiness.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ordinary demand of baptism.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every Christian, whatever his state of life, is called to the fullness of Christian life and the perfection of charity or love, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: This vocation requires a deepening life of prayer and sacramental communion, and it's measured by the two great commandments on which the whole law depends.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Love of God with the whole heart, soul, and mind, we receive that, and then love of neighbor as oneself.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: From that love comes mission.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: In the parable of the laborers, the landowner repeatedly goes out and finds people standing idle.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: To those he encounters at the third hour he says, You too go out into my vineyard.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: John Paul II made those words.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The opening summers of Christophidas Lace is encyclical for the lay people.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he said from that distant day, he wrote, the Lord's call has never ceased to resound.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's addressed to every person who enters the world, not only to pastors, clergy, and religious.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Commenting on the same parable, Saint Gregory the Great urged his hearers to examine their manner of life and ask whether they were truly laboring in the Lord's vineyard.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: That examination begins not with our assessment of others, but with ourselves.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: According to a famous story thoroughly characteristic of GK Chesterton, when asked what was wrong with the world, what was wrong with Christianity?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: He replied I am.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: The same answer turned toward repentance, metanoia to turn back to our Lord and ask for repentance marks the beginning of renewal.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: When Christians ask where the answer to the evils of the age must begin, the first reply again cannot be they must be with me.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the field of battle, the human heart.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: The present confusion concerning marriage, the family, sexual identity, and the meaning of the body did not appear from nowhere.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's the acceleration of a long moral unraveling, rooted in false understanding of the human person.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: At its center is a vision of freedom as the power to invent human meaning rather than to receive it and then go out and fulfill it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Christians have watched law, culture, and popular opinion shift with remarkable speed.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Increasingly, even childhood has become a field on which rival understandings of the human person contend.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Beneath these disputes lies a more fundamental question Do man and woman, marriage, and the body possess a meaning we receive or only a meaning we invent?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: John Paul II warned that a true culture of human life cannot be built unless the young are helped to understand and live sexuality, love, and human existence according to the real meaning and intimate interconnection.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sexuality is not an isolated appetite, it belongs to the vocation of the whole person to make a sincere gift of self.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: When that meaning is obscured, both love and life become vulnerable.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: As marriage in the family goes, so goes civilization.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is an ancient battle employing modern tools.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Many of those tools, technologies, media, scientific discoveries, they are good or can certainly be good in themselves, but they become destructive when placed in the service of the first lie, all the way from Genesis chapter three.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You will not die.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You will be like God, knowing good and evil.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly we can die, huh?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he tried to reinvent the world, to reinvent the truth of things.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'll decide what is good and what is evil.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: The temptation remains what it was in the garden, to reject the limits of creaturehood and claim the authority to decide for ourselves what human nature even means.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the people confused, wounded, or received by these hears are not the enemy.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: They are the neighbors to whom Christians have been sent.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: The apostolic attitude therefore rejects both cowardice and contempt for them.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks the truth because it loves the person.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Cardinal Carlo Kafara recounted that Sister Lucia Fatima had written to him while he was establishing the Institute for Marriage and Family entrusted to him by John Paul II.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: In that letter we find written, the final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: She added, Whoever works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought against and opposed in every way because this is the decisive issue.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: But don't be afraid.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our lady has already crushed his head.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So its message is not one of fear, but of confidence in the ultimate victory of Christ.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Cardinal Kafara added that speaking with John Paul II, you could feel that the family was the core, since it had to do with supporting the pillar of creation, the truth of the relationship between man and woman, between the generations.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: If that foundational pillar is damaged, the entire building collapses.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing this now, he said, and we're right at this point, and we know it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he continued, and I am moved when I read the best biographies of Padre Peel about how this man was so attentive to the sanctity of marriage and the holiness of the spouses, even with justifiable rigor at times.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is not panic.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is the God who is love.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him from the first letter of John.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Pope Benedict XV placed those words at the threshold of Deus Caritas Est God is love, his first cyclical.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity begins not with an ethical program or an abstract idea he taught, but with an encounter with Jesus Christ, an encounter that opens up a new horizon and gives your life a decisive direction.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: In John 3 we hear those words, God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is a response to the God who reveals himself.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: In an age that can attach the name of God to vengeance, violence, or political power, the church must begin where revelation begins.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: God is love.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Formation is therefore not an option.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: An uninformed laity will offer the world personal opinions dressed in Catholic language.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Church was not entrusted with a collection of opinions.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: She was given Christ and then sent on a mission.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Father sent the Son, the Son sent the apostles.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Paul made the urgency of that commission his own.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: That urgency does not belong to bishops and priests alone.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian vocation is by nature, by its very nature, a vocation to share the gospel.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: As the Second Vatican Council teaches, the church was founded to spread the kingdom of Christ, enabling all people to share in redemption and order the world toward him.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every activity of the mystical body of Christ is directed to that purpose and goes by the name of apostolate.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: In this living body, no member of the church I'm talking about, in this living body of the church, no member plays a merely passive part.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift, Saint Paul says.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to say, and his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers, and we're all called to be teachers, especially within our families and social networks.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: To equip the saints, Saint Paul said, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: The vineyard is the world.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Weeds and wheat grow together, evil and good, injustice and justice, anguish and hope.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They stand side by side and sometimes intertwine.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: That mixed field is precisely where the faithful are sent to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: The vineyard includes the home and school, but also the workplace, the professions, political and cultural life, care for the poor, defense of vulnerable life, works of mercy, and the ordinary relationships through which a Christian either reveals or obscures the face of Christ.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because the vineyard is the world, the lay apostolate requires more than indignation or goodwill, even.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: It requires formation through faith and the sacraments of initiation.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Every disciple is configured to Christ, incorporated into the church and given an active sheer intermission.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Formation begins with the Claymore 10-5.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the Claymore Battle Plan is all about, is this formation, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The work of formation can appear overwhelming to some.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So Claymore offers a simple place to begin.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Claymore 10 5 formation starter.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ten minutes with God in the morning, followed by five minutes of spiritual reading and reflection later in the day.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Fifteen minutes may not complete a man's formation, but fifteen minutes each day can and will change the direction of his life.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can all download that complete Claymore Battle Plan at Claymore Militus Christi dot com.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: That outline explains the larger path of prayer, sacramental life study, fraternity, family leadership, and cultural engagement.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's very short, and it gives you above the trees the whole plan.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we start with the ten minute Claymore morning ritual, which you'll find in there.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Knees before the phone, always.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before reaching for the device that brings the demands and the distractions of the world into your room, into your heart, into your mind, kneel beside your bed with our blessed mother.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let the first act of the day be an act of humility before Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, who humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then what do we do?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: We pray with our blessed mother, right?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Join your prayer to the obedience of the Mother of God.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let it be done to me according to your word.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: We open up our hearts with our blessed mother.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: As our blessed mother was impregnated with Jesus with those words, we too become impregnated in a spiritual, sacramental way.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then receive the direction she gave the servants at the wedding feast of Cana as a command for your own day.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen and do whatever he tells you.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then second part of that is turn temptation into an invitation to pray.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Temptation is not itself a sin, right?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself was tempted and yet remained without sin.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: When temptation comes, turn your gaze toward the cross.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Expose the temptation to Christ instead of hiding or negotiating with it.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Offer it to Him and pray, Jesus, I trust in you, huh?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: From the divine mercy.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Claymore Battle Plan Handbook develops this practice in Act 11, praying with temptations.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very important to read.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, we pray and meditate.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Spend at least a few minutes with Scripture.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I personally prefer the diary of Sister Faustina.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's one really fruitful option.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: The daily mass readings are also available through Catholic prayer applications and publications.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just read a snippet and meditate on that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do not approach this time as one piece of information that we are consuming.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Read slowly.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ask what God is revealing to you.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what is He asking you to surrender?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what concrete act of obedience should follow?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, we pray the St.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Michael prayer.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is a spiritual battle.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta seek protection.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then number five, when you get up off your knees, love the next person you see.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Conclude that morning ritual by resolving to perform one concrete act of charity right away.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Holiness cannot remain inside a prayer routine.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: It must become patience, attention, sacrifice, truthfulness, forgiveness, and service.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And now number two, five minutes of formation.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Later in the day, read and meditate for at least five minutes on one act from the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: You see, ignorance or sloth are allies of the enemy.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Study can become an act of worship when it's directed toward the truth himself.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: To learn the faith is to prepare for service.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: To teach it faithfully is to advance the mission of Christ and his church.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Five minutes may seem insignificant, but consistency is more fruitful than an occasional burst of enthusiasm.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Read one passage, one part or one act.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Consider one question from the Q ⁇ A.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Choose one action, then return the next day.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: The complete battle plan is not intended merely to provide information.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's designed to move a man from knowledge to prayer, from prayer to virtue, from virtue to apostolic action.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: There is no plan B.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Young men finally united in the Eucharist.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great mystery, wrote Saint Paul, and I mean in reference to Christ in this church.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: This nuptial mystery stands near the heart of the Claymore movement.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is the bridegroom and the church is his bride.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: In the Eucharist he gives himself to her, body, blood, soul, and divinity.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: The Eucharist is therefore not an ornament added to Catholic life.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's the source and summit of it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Every human longing for love and communion finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: In the Eucharist, young men, old men, we all encounter a strength radically different than domination or posturing or self assertion.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: They encounter, we all encounter the crucified king, whose strength is revealed in obedience, sacrifice, fidelity, and self giving love.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is my body given for you.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Eucharist forms men who can protect without controlling, lead without using others, suffer without surrendering to bitterness, and love without calculating the cost.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Through baptism, every Christian shares in this priestly, prophetic, and kingly mission of Christ.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: A man formed by the Eucharist learns to offer his life for others as a husband and a father, a spiritual father, perhaps, a brother, a mentor, a worker, a citizen of this beautiful country of the United States.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Claymore organizes this mission around the three essential spheres of human life, restoring the person, the human heart, then restoring marriage and the family, and then going out social political mission, restoring the common life through which people seek justice, true justice, and the common good of all.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: These spheres are distinct, but they cannot flourish in isolation for one another.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: The man rooted in the Eucharist is called to serve and strengthen each one of them.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a call to private self improvement.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a call to communion and mission.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Young men, all men, need other faithful men.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: They need fathers, mentors, brothers, and friends who will tell them the truth of things, remain beside them then in that struggle, summon them to repentance and remind them of their dignity when they have forgotten it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: From the book of Proverbs twenty seven.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Claymore Battle Plan is therefore not simply a reading program, it's an invitation to discipleship, fraternity, accountability, and mission.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: It begins again with the individual human heart, moves on to marriage in the family, and then reaches out into peerish life, the culture, and civic life itself.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: To read the full outline and learn how to begin, just again visit Claymore Militaschristi.com.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Download for free the Claymore Battle Plan outline.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to subscribe, hit the like button, and share this with people.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: We really need this.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'll conclude this way.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: The question is no longer whether the vineyard needs workers, it does.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's whether we will remain in the marketplace explaining away our idleness or answer the voice that has been sounding since the third hour of that very first day.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you stand here idle all day?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: The answer to the evils of our age begins when I stop waiting for someone else to become holy.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: It begins when I surrender to Christ and accept my place in his vineyard.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: When the world whispers compromise, answer with conviction.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: When the culture mocks holiness, respond with joy.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: When evil threatens the innocent, stand your ground in truth and love.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Saint John Paul II's first summons as Pope.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: He comes to that window, and it remains the proper answer to every age of what does he say?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Open wide the doors for Christ.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: What a shepherd, I get goosebumps.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So take up your sword.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's the Claymore sword behind me.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Take up your rosary.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: The king is calling.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's no plan B.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, God bless you.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.